digital life

A year after announcing that it's getting into the home security and remote monitoring business, AT&T is announcing the first markets where the service will be available, plus how much it will cost.

On Friday, AT&T will announce that its Digital Life service is available in 15 markets: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colo.; Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; Philadelphia; Riverside, Calif.; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis; and select areas of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The company said the service will be available in up to 50 markets by the … Read more

Social networking is more popular in Latin America, the Middle East, and China than in the U.S., Japan, and other Internet-saturated markets.

That is just one of the findings of the "Digital Life" study released today by British research firm TNS. Polling nearly 50,000 people across 46 countries, the survey was designed to gauge changes in online behavior globally.

The study found that online users in certain rapid-growth regions are now spending more time on social-networking sites than on e-mail. Consumers in Latin America, the Middle East, and China put in 5.2 hours each week … Read more

Citing economic troubles, Ziff Davis Media has canceled this year's DigitalLife Expo, a trade show held each fall at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center.

"The poor economic conditions have created a very different and difficult dynamic for us this year, and we weren't confident that we could present a show experience that was consistent with the successes of prior years," DigitalLife Vice President Paul O'Reilly said in an e-mailed statement. "Hopefully, a bigger and stronger DigitalLife will return in 2009. We will make additional announcements about the future of the show when … Read more

With Digital Life finally drawing to a close, some were excited by what they saw and others were, well, a bit disappointed. Unfortunately, you can add my name to the second group.

All in all, Digital Life proved to be small, lackluster and boring. The majority of the people at the show were obsessed with Guitar Hero III while device exhibitors were left wondering what was left. Even worse, with most exhibitors you could see eyes glazing over as the day drew to a close.

It's unfortunate that such a well-known event can't bring the bacon like we hoped it would, but that's life I guess.

I took some pictures of the event. Check them out.… Read more

Your intrepid editor returns from vacation and resumes her roundup of the week's laptop news.

It was a big week for laptop announcements, fueled by the DigitalLife tech show in New York and the upcoming holiday buying season. (What, you haven't started your holiday shopping yet?)

Sony hit the ground running, pimping the water-resistant keyboard on its Vaio G series laptops and announcing its cheapest Vaio yet, the $750 NR series. We also saw the Vaio brand attached to this slick, holographic laptop concept that's straight out of Minority Report.

Meanwhile Acer announced an update to its … Read more

NEW YORK--While DigitalLife 2007 did see a better turnout than last year according to those who attended both, there wasn't all that much in terms of new tech toys at the show.

Lots of favorites simply continued to make the digital world rounds.

The R2D2 television projector from Nikko was set up to play the famous lightsaber sequences scenes from the Star Wars films.

Lots of people were playing with the Novint Falcon at the Novint Technologies booth. The company announced Thursday that the 3D game controller would be available at CompUSA stores this October for about $239.

WowWee … Read more

NEW YORK--Novint Technologies' 3D virtual feeling game controller will be available at CompUSA stores this October, the company announced Thursday.

The Novint Falcon, which originally debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, creates a more realistic and natural experience of movement when playing video games. It allows players to virtually feel things like texture, weight, dimension, 3D motion and force.

The Novint Falcon will be available in October 2007 at CompUSA as a limited edition bundle package for $239. The package will include 24 games and a sports pack that includes bowling, table tennis, basketball and baseball. Like the … Read more

NEW YORK--Who's running things over at Mattel?

The Barbie Girls MP3 player that doubles as a paper doll with plastic clothes is now out.

First, I don't think parents should pay $59.99 for an MP3 player with 512MB of storage, even if you can dress it up. For that price I'd recommend spending a little more and getting their child the "big kid" iPod Nano or Shuffle you know they really want. To be fair, the device can hold a microSD card of up to 2GB.

But that's not my real problem with … Read more

NEW YORK--What's black and white and scares me?

The Roboquad robot from WowWee for $99. It's the first robot that's ever startled me or made me nervous. And I loved every minute of the interaction.

I've had the opportunity to meet more sophisticated lifelike robots such as Domo and "Tony X." While some find these humanoid robots unnerving, I've never felt anything toward them but the amused affection one might have for a dog or, say, a Muppet.

The Roboquad is another story.

Watching them in action, these arthropods move so organically that … Read more