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World's saddest TV pitchman loses his marketing department

Regular readers -- at least those with a heart -- might remember the saddest man at this year's CES.

He was selling Sharp's televisions. No one was listening. And now I hear of more woes that might impact his performance next year.

For AdAge is reporting that Sharp has eliminated its whole marketing department. Entirely.

There were reportedly 12 people in Sharp's marketing. Now they have been entirely blunted.

Sharp's PR agency offered this commentary to AdAge:

The functions of (Sharp's) Marketing and Communications Department will now be contained within its individual business units. These … Read more

Synology's DiskStation Manager 4.1 OS goes beta

Synology announced today that version 4.1 of its DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system (firmware) for DiskStation NAS servers, such as the DS1511+ or the DS712+, is now in beta state. This means the final update will be available in a month or so.

DSM has been one of the main reasons why Synology NAS servers are the best among network-attached storage devices, thanks to its vast amount of features and robust and easy-to-use interface.

The new version offers some major additional features to the already feature-rich OS, including a Video Station and mobile apps for Windows Phone 7. The … Read more

Panasonic to deliver opening keynote at CES

The Consumer Electronics Association, the organization that runs the Consumer Electronics Show, announced today that Kazuhiro Tsuga, the newly appointed president of Panasonic, will deliver the CES 2013 opening keynote speech.

"Panasonic is one of the largest and most dynamic consumer-electronics companies in the world, and I congratulate Mr. Tsuga on his official appointment to president of Panasonic Corporation this morning," CEA Chief Executive Gary Shapiro said in a statement. "We are thrilled to have Mr. Tsuga take the stage for his opening keynote at the 2013 International CES, and we look forward to hearing his vision … Read more

Computex booth babe: Exhibitors want us to show more skin

An exhibition of electronic products surely wouldn't be the same without an exhibition of local models, students, and other women who would like to earn a little money in exchange for smiling a lot.

If you can't get a comely woman to hold your new tablet and thrust it at potential customers, then how on earth are you going to sell it?

It seems, though, that -- despite this week's kerfuffle featuring a sad sexist tweet from Asus -- booth babes will not be disappearing anywhere soon.

Indeed, reports from this week's Computex exhibition in Taiwan … Read more

Startup wants to bring an IV to you when you're drunk

You're in Vegas. Your head is throbbing like your heart during the Super Bowl. Your lips are drier than a tire in Paris-Dakar Rally. You feel like your body is on the verge of bursting in several awkward places. There's only one thing that can save you. Yes, an IV drip.

Yet the folks from ER seem reluctant to provide the service, even if you have health insurance.

Enter, then, the site Hangover Heaven. I am not sure that the words "hangover" and "heaven" have ever been successfully mixed -- except in the context of "He had such a huge hangover that he went to heaven."

However, this fine, socially conscious startup has buses that will come to your Vegas hotel and drip you back to life. At least that's what the site claims.… Read more

The most anticipated laptops of 2012: Where are they now?

We're more than a quarter of the way through 2012 (believe it or not), so it's time to ask: where are those hot laptops we saw back at CES?

The good news is, looking back at the products we saw back then, is that a surprising number of them weren't vaporware. Even better, a great number of them have already made their debut and have been reviewed on CNET. … Read more

After quality misfire, Dropcam begins selling new HD camera

Dropcam founder and CEO Greg Duffy argues passionately that cloud is creating huge opportunities for startups to build hardware, just as his company does.

He's also learning first hand just how hard that can be.

This morning the company began taking general orders for its newest cloud-based home-monitoring camera -- about two months behind schedule. The setback stemmed from a good problem (big customer demand) and a painful one (sloppy manufacturing by the factory in China).

And so Duffy and his team have spent the last few months scrambling to figure out why the image quality wasn't up … Read more

The 404 1,015: Where we take Katie Linendoll to sleepaway camp (podcast)

Former CBS Early Show tech correspondent, HSN host, and all-around protogeek Katie Linendoll checks in with us today and brings gifts! She'll tell us about her long history with consumer tech and her new show on Spike TV's All Access Weekly, a show with a live audience that covers gaming, comics, and gadgets. Even cooler--they film out of the old MTV TRL studio!

We'll also cover the breaking news of the day: AirBnB bought its competitor Crashpadder in advance of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, Angry Birds Space comes out tomorrow, and the Girl Scouts of America debut their new Netiquette Pledge.

Thanks again to Katie for joining us today, and be sure to check out All Access Weekly every Thursday at midnight!… Read more

Samsung tilts at the iPad 3 with scheduled product launch

After months of court wrangles with Apple, Samsung still can't resist poking the bear by launching its 2012 range on March 6, the day before Apple's much-rumored iPad 3 announcement.

Samsung will officially launch its range of 2012 televisions at an event in New York and is expected provide more details on one of the most impressive entrants at this year's CES, the 55-inch "Super OLED" TV. (Update: Samsung tells us the OLED TV won't be announced at that event; availability is still said to be the second half of 2012.)

The company will … Read more