On

SHANGHAI -- Imagine a driver from Guangzhou has an accident. He calls OnStar, but the Mandarin-speaking OnStar staffer doesn't understand Cantonese, the dialect spoken in Guangzhou.

"You can't plan and design a system to cover 1,000 different dialects," says Jonathan Hyde, director of telematics for GM China Group. GM assumes that most car buyers will speak Mandarin, the dialect taught in China's schools.

Hundreds of local dialects are just one challenge General Motors faces as it prepares to launch OnStar in China. But the chance to be the first to offer such services in the world's fastest-growing automotive market trumps any trepidation Hyde might feel.

"It's fun," he says of his job. "This is all a huge opportunity."

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Don't be deceived by this Firefox extension's unassuming user interface; it's a very capable video player.

NetVideoHunter operates via a tiny icon and counter that appear in your status bar. When you click on the icon, a window appears for viewing videos. We liked the step-by-step guide that walks you through the process--a definite plus for novice users. There is a link that's supposed to offer information on how to play FLV files, but clicking it didn't produce anything. On our first try, we visited the ever-popular YouTube. We clicked on a video and as … Read more

Q: I'm thinking of buying the Samsung Soul and I'm concerned with its radiation level. But when I looked at the user manual there were multiple SARs listed. Is this typical and how do I know which listing is right? - Rich

A: It's not a matter of which listing is right since it is very common for a single handset to have multiple SARs. For both GSM and CDMA phones, the radiation level will vary by transmission band, the testing position (at ear vs. at body), and the testing body that reported the results. In CNET's radiation charts we always list the highest at-ear SAR as tested by the FCC. I know that's a lot of qualifications, but the distinctions are important to understand.

I'm glad you mentioned the Soul since that phone is a great example of just how results can vary. First off, the Soul uses three GSM bands (900, 1,800, and 1,900) so it's likely that you're seeing a different reported SAR for each band. As I said before, all of the listings are correct, but for your situation one SAR will be more correct than the others. Of the three GSM bands the Soul uses, only the 1,900 band is used in the United States, so I would concentrate on that listing. Also, you'll want to make sure that the results are from the FCC, which conducts tests specifically for the U.S. market. If the results are form another body, such as the European Union's testing agency or Industry Canada, then you could see a different result.… Read more

Years ago, for my wife's birthday, I bought her a terrarium for her orchids. You know where I got it? Terrariumsale.com. Because that's what showed up in Google. Now, Terrariumsale.com is not a business unto itself. It's one of several front-ends to a catalog of goods sold by FineWebStores. I was reminded of this today when I got a pitch for FreeShippingOn.com, a site that helps you find items available for sale online that you can get without paying shipping fees. I wrote back to the person who sent me the pitch: "You'… Read more

If you're not the type of person to carry around a notepad or voice recorder with you, there are a handful of Web services raring to help you out if you've got a mobile phone. ReQall, a service that launched back at Demo 07 has a great new iPhone application that does just that. I got in touch with Sunil Vemuri, ReQall's chief product officer who showed it off during one of today's CEO pitch sessions at the AlwaysOn Summit.

The application's killer feature is that it saves your notes both locally and to the … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--There are nearly 30 start-ups promoting their wares today as part of AlwaysOn's Stanford Summit--and that's just before lunch. Many have been profiled by Webware in the past, but I wanted to take some time to dig into two of my personal favorites from this morning's CEO presentations.

MyTrybe. This is a behind-the-scenes service for site owners who want to add recommendation features to their content. It uses a sliding scale happy face that you can drag on tagged pieces of content like stories, videos, and pictures to establish a ranking. MyTrybe will … Read more

For all you electronic music fans and lovers of all things blinky, my review of the Yamaha Tenori-On music sequencer is ready for your consideration. The final ruling in a nutshell: the Tenori-On is an awesome tool for performing electronic musicians, but too pricey for nonmusicians and too limited for studio music production.

What a long, strange tease its been since we first caught wind of the mythical Tenori-On music sequencer back in 2005. Now, here we are at the end: you've seen the photo gallery, the unboxing video, my interview with Yu Nishibori, the requisite comparison to the Monome, … Read more

Some people seem to think they have carte blanche to spell any which way they want to when they're on the Internet. But whether you're writing Web mail or IMs, filling out a Web form, or just entering a term in Google's search box, spelling matters.

And that's not just because an abundance of spelling errors can make people think you're an eighth grade dropout. (Nothing against eighth grade dropouts!) It's also because misspellings can prevent you from finding the information you're searching for and lead to e-mail miscommunication.

Firefox 2 and 3 … Read more

It only took the Gadgettes one minute to break the cardinal rule: do not talk about "the device that shall not be named." We learn our lesson and boycott "it" for the rest of the episode. So here's everything but.

Congrats Kelly! http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12544_102-0.html?forumID=130&threadID=299650&messageID=2802693

Get your cat whipped into a frenzy for your enjoyment http://dvice.com/archives/2008/07/get_your_cat_wh.php

Tenori-On http://reviews.cnet.com/audio-input-devices/yamaha-tenori-on-music/4505-3144_7-33107337.html

Got a lead foot? … Read more