Circuit Breaker

The success of "Avatar" could spur more consumers to buy 3D TVs for the home, once they become available.

(Credit: Scott Ard/CNET)

Besides a $300 million budget and James Cameron's reputation, the movie "Avatar" is also heaving under the weight of the future of 3D entertainment.

When the uber-hyped 3D film opens on Friday, Hollywood studios will, of course, be closely watching the box office receipts. They won't be alone: the consumer electronics and cable television industries are also hoping for a blockbuster. If "Avatar" is a hit, it could be what pushes 3D from the movie theater to the living room.

Chock full of big-budget fodder like computer-generated creatures from another world, as well as live-action human actors, the film is getting positive reviews, especially for the technological achievement. Already it's been called "The Jazz Singer of 3D filmmaking," transforming 3D from a cheap Hollywood gimmick and embracing the full potential of what the technology can do.

The title itself, "Avatar," is a reference to the concept of a 3D image in a virtual world. Cameron's idea for the film has actually been germinating for more than a decade; he has said he was waiting for the technology to catch up to his vision. Now, he says, the time is finally here.

Filmmaker Twentieth Century Fox is offering Windows 7 users a custom theme for the movie "Avatar."

(Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET)

Leading up to the film's release, even a panel discussion on 3D at the Digital Living Room Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., earlier this week, the buzz was all about "Avatar." Not only because it's one of the rare 3D film for grown-ups, but because it has all the full force of 20th Century Fox's marketing department behind it.

"Many of us are expecting 'Avatar' to be the tipping point to the mainstream in the cinema. Hollywood will see 3D as a real business," said Pat Griffiths, senior director of technology for Dolby Laboratories, which provides the equipment to show 3D films to thousands of movie theaters around the world.

Though 3D film releases have been ramping up over the past few years, it's been primarily with animated flicks aimed at the youth market. Few studios have dared throw money at 3D for adults. But the recent box office returns for "Coraline," "Up," and "Bolt" have been promising. Last year, 3 percent of the movies released were filmed in 3D, but brought in 10 percent of the box office gross. Once "Avatar" hits, many in Hollywood are expecting even better. Next year there will be 24 films released in 3D, and more than 50 scheduled for the year after that.

If "Avatar" does well, studio heads will likely green light more 3D movies, which will generate more support for getting 3D standards for filming, recording, and playback, and sell 3D-compatible TVs and video players, which will make companies like Dolby and Sony and Panasonic, well, very happy. Many in the consumer electronics industry think this will be what will push 3D from the theaters and into the home.

"It's not just animation that's going to be a driver here," asked Andy Gellis, of Evergreen Films earlier this week. "Are you really going to buy (a new TV) to watch 'Monsters vs. Aliens' and 'Up'? Is that going to drive you to go out and change your whole (home theater) system?"

3D is "the new HD" a lot of industry types like to say. As in, now that HD is becoming fairly commonplace in North American homes, with estimates of 35 percent owning them. What new, bigger, better, faster technology will help TV makers sell more products? Right now, that's 3D. The more well-received movies that hit theaters in 3D, the more people will want to watch them again at home, and to do that, they'll need a 3D-compatible TV.

Sony, Panasonic, JVC, and others have said they'll have them. But it is admittedly a lot to ask people to rush out and buy a brand-new TV that can display 3D content when they start hitting store shelves next year, when many have probably just recently upgraded to an HDTV. But just as HD took several years to ramp up, so will 3D. It will certainly be a process, but that doesn't mean there won't be people interested in being the first to own a 3D TV, Gellis said.

"With all technologies there will be early adopters, people who can afford it," he said. "If programming is there that wows them, the it becomes something that people have to have."

3D-capable gadgets on the rise (photos)

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Even if that means wearing the glasses, he says. While many people understand that wearing the plastic lenses in a dark theater is just part of the experience, there is some concern that wearing them sitting on the living room couch will be a strange proposition for some consumers, at least right now.

Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks Animation--one of Hollywood's chief evangelists of 3D--was famously quoted earlier this year predicting that we actually won't even need the glasses in "a handful of years." He might be getting ahead of himself. Though we have seen some small-scale versions of auto-stereoscopic displays at Ceatec, that technology applied to 50-inch television sets is likely further away than he thinks. "In a family viewing situation, it's going to be awhile," Dolby's Griffiths said.

Steve Shannon, executive vice president of RealD, a competitor of Dolby's, agreed. While he broadly agrees with Katzenberg's vision of 3D as the future of filmmaking, "the timeframe is a little aggressive."

"Consumers by and large haven't come around to the message the 3D is the future," Shannon said. "It'll take a while."

In the meantime, the consumer electronics industry is committed to helping consumers get more comfortable with the idea of 3D at home idea. It has been the dominant theme at most of the major tech trade shows around the world this year. And it looks like the industry will be stepping on the gas at CES next month too.

Several companies are expected to talk up 3D TVs and video players, and actually announce shipping dates. Sony just got a head start on it, confirming Thursday that not only will the PlayStation3 be a 3D gaming machine, but a 3D Blu-ray player as well.

And there's more to come even after CES. Early next year in the UK there will be a 24-hour 3D TV channel launching. And just like it was the "killer app" for HD, sports are expected to play a big role. This summer the biggest sporting event on the planet, the World Cup, is scheduled to be filmed in 3D, which will be huge for the format, according to a research note from analyst firm Futuresource: "Given the positive impact that this sporting festival always has on TV demand we can expect the retail trade to put its full weight behind 3D very quickly."

Though still losing money, Palm might have something in the way of positive momentum going.

The smartphone maker on Thursday reported second-quarter fiscal 2010 revenue of $78.1 million, but a loss of $85.4 million, or 54 cents per share. It's a drastic improvement from the $508.6 million loss, or $4.64 per share, a year ago, and the $164.5 million, or $1.17 per share, loss in the previous quarter.

Wall Street analysts were anticipating a loss of 32 cents per share.

Palm says it shipped 783,000 smartphones during the quarter, a 5 percent decrease from last quarter, but a bump of 41 percent over a year ago.

Chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein tried to put a positive spin on the results.

Palm Chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein holds up the Pre at CES 2009.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

"Were pursuing our strategic objectives in a crowded market," he said during a call with investors. "Despite proliferation of products, we're still at the very beginning of a long race."

Rubinstein also referenced the recently released Pixi, the second phone after the Pre to run Palm's new WebOS operating system, which it started selling to customers on November 15. Palm has struggled in the last few years in comparison to companies like Apple and Research In Motion, but sees devices like the Pre and Pixi, coupled with integrated software as the key to its future success.

Though he didn't reference any competitors by name, Rubinstein was asked by an investor about his company's response to a potential Google phone.

"As I've always said this is going to be a very competitive business," he said. "From our perspective, it's one more competitor in the marketplace, but we haven't actually seen anything announced yet."

Rubinstein said he's pleased with the Palm community's response to WebOS. Palm released the 1.31 update to the OS in mid-November and it was installed by 70 percent of users within a week, he said.

Another way Palm has had trouble competing with Apple's iPhone is with the WebOS App Catalog. Since its inception, only preapproved developer partners have been allowed to create and submit applications. There are 800 apps available, a far cry from the 100,000 in the iPhone App Store, but it's an increase of 10 times the number of apps in Palm's App Catalog in the last quarter, according to Rubinstein.

He says there will be much more to come at CES in January, when Palm will introduce its full development program for anyone who wants to participate. Leading up to that, Palm on Thursday morning released Project Ares, Palm's new browser-based mobile development environment.

This post was updated at 2:46 p.m. PST with information from the earnings call.

With Psystar barred permanently by a judge from selling anymore Open Computers, the Mac clone maker became just one in a string of companies that have tried selling Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

During Apple's three decades in business, it has at some points licensed its operating system for use on third-party computers. But since CEO Steve Jobs' return in 1997, the policy has been clear: Apple will be the only company allowed to sell Mac OS preinstalled.

Though Psystar tried and failed, there are still two companies out there--safely outside the U.S. and the reach of American copyright law--continuing to defy Apple's legally upheld EULA.

Here's a look back.

A short history of Mac clones (photos)

In response to Nokia's own claims of copyright violation, Apple on Friday accused the largest handset maker in the world of copying some of the technology inside the iPhone.

In a suit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (PDF), Apple says Nokia is infringing 13 of its patents.

"Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours," Bruce Sewell, Apple's general counsel, said in a statement Friday.

Nokia issued this response: "We are aware that Apple has provided its response to Nokia Delaware Suit, which was due December 14th. We will study the details of the claim and respond in due course."

Apple's filing is a response to Nokia's October suit against Apple over 10 patents the Finnish phone maker says it owns related to wireless handsets. Apple is one of a few companies--Nokia wouldn't expand on who the others might be--that is not licensing Nokia's 10 patents. Nokia says that for any phone to run on a GSM, 3G, or Wi-Fi network, it would have to license one of its patents.

In its countersuit, Apple denies Nokia's claims of copyright violation, saying that the licenses Nokia insists Apple and other smartphone makers pay are "unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory" and "non-essential" to the iPhone. Apple is also asking the court to dismiss Nokia's suit, and goes so far as to accuse Nokia of borrowing some of Apple's intellectual property because it was losing market share.

Apple says Nokia is in violation of a range of patents, from real-time signal processing methods to list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display, and is asking the court for monetary damages, and legal fees.

This story was updated on 12/12/09 with response from Nokia.

Most college professors will tell students to put away their iPhone or iPod once class starts. But not Ken Joy. His class requires them.

Professor Joy teaches ECS 198H, Introduction To iPhone Application Development, to undergraduates at the University of California at Davis. On the first day of class in late September UC Davis became one of a growing number of schools that are tailoring classes and focusing academic resources on the making and selling of applications for Apple's popular mobile platform.

A professor for almost 30 years, Joy has mainly researched computer graphics and visualizations, until he and a former grad student came up with the idea to offer a class that teaches to the iPhone SDK (software development kit). Joy didn't have much experience in mobile platforms, but he was game for teaching something "relevant" that would keep his students motivated.

"Nothing is more relevant than the iPhone or iPod Touch right now," Joy said in an interview this week.

One of the apps developed in Professor Joy's first iPhone app making class.

(Credit: Sunny Dhillon and Fei Li)

He's not the first to teach this class to undergrads. Stanford University has offered the class for a year, as have Florida's Stetson University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

But while those schools have taken advantage of Apple's iPhone Developer University Program--which provides free access to the SDK, Apple hardware, and Apple employees as teachers--Joy's course is a bit more of a grassroots effort.

ECS 198H wasn't approved as a university course until 10 days before the fall quarter started in September--in other words, students already had their class schedules set. But less than four hours after Joy placed it in the registration guide, the class was filled to its 35-student capacity, with another 40 people staking out wait-list spots.

"I saw the e-mail (about the class) and I thought, 'Oh gosh.' I jumped right on my computer and signed up for the class as soon as I saw it," said Kip Nicol, 22, a computer science and engineering major. "It was a pretty hot class."

Jules Houts, 21, also studying computer science and engineering, jumped at what looked like a "fun" class, he said. "It seemed better than operating systems or something like that."

Besides room on their schedules, students also had to provide their own iPhone, iPod Touch, or Mac that can run the SDK, thanks to the UC system's well-publicized budget problems.

"We had no choice; students had to find resources themselves," said Joy.

And they did. So did several faculty and university employees who chose to audit the class, or sit in without getting a grade, illustrating much of what we already know: the App Store is popular. Apple's online marketplace for iPhone and iPod Touch programs has been bombarded with submissions from developers in the year and a half it's been open for business. There are more than 100,000 applications currently for sale and 8,500 new and updated programs submitted every day. And its competitors want a piece too: Research In Motion, Google's Android, Palm, Nokia, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile have followed suit, opening up application marketplaces, though none has university professors teaching courses about them. Or at least not yet.

Granted, squeezing the entire learning and development process into a 10-week academic quarter was a challenge. The first five weeks were spent learning the SDK, some Objective C programming language, and making simple apps like an RSS reader, while the last five weeks they split into two-person teams building their apps.

Joy said he is impressed with what his newbie iPhone developers came up with: an app for properly tuning a piano, one for tracking location of the GPS-equipped UC Davis student-run bus system, and one application for all UC Davis students, including information about student groups, maps of the campus, class locations, to name a few. That one will be in the App Store next quarter, Joy is already predicting.

The class was deemed a success, but it's unclear if it'll be back on the schedule come next fall. "We hope to offer it next year, but with the budget problems of the University of California system, no one quite knows what's going to happen."

Either way, Joy says teaching to the SDK is one of the most hands-on real-world classes he's ever taught to undergrads.

"We got to develop some apps for the real world. Students got to see a really good SDK...This is something we normally don't get in a university," Joy said. Most classes "tend to solve limited problems and don't really deal with real world that much. These that do, trying to develop bigger applications, get the students closer to the experience of industry. Which is very good."

"It was one of the funnest classes I've taken because it was project-oriented, and it created a community of developers," said Houts, who created the piano-tuning application.

But besides teaching the programming language to build iPhone apps, Joy's class also included business how-tos for those who may want to create their own iPhone app developer companies.

Some students, like Houts, are already thinking that way. As a member of UC Davis' lacrosse team, he plans on making an iPhone game based on his sport, a market he believes has some good potential.

"There's nothing except for a lacrosse stats (app) on the App Store. I want to make a little lacrosse game, and be the first to get on that market. There's a new lacrosse Xbox game that just came out, so it's still a new market right now."

If all goes well, Houts said he could see himself starting an iPhone app-making business. "I think I'll submit the first couple apps under my name, and if they're successful then I might start something."

Cheaper average selling prices on items like PCs dragged down Black Friday sales results.

(Credit: Dell)

Shoppers were out in force during the week of Black Friday, but price cuts brought in less revenue than last year's recession-mired sales, according to a new report.

Retail analyst firm the NPD Group on Wednesday released its yearly accounting of technology sales during the week of Black Friday. More than $2.7 billion was spent on TVs, PCs, video game consoles, cameras, and more in the first burst of holiday shopping, but it represented a 1.2 percent decline compared to the same period a year ago. Still, it's better than the previous year's 3.4 percent decline.

Retailers will have to blame their discounting practices, since actual unit sales were way up in many categories: PC sales volume increased 63 percent, Blu-ray players were up 53 percent, and GPS units increased by 15 percent.

The battle over holiday pricing started even earlier than usual this year, with Amazon.com and Wal-Mart targeting the iPod, Nintendo Wii, HDTVs, and Netbooks with steep discounts, and in some cases, drastically lowered shipping charges.

But while retailers so far appear to be having a ho-hum season revenue-wise, there's still several weeks to go before the end of the quarter. And the biggest sellers, like Wal-Mart and Amazon, say that while Black Friday and Cyber Monday are important to their bottom line, their biggest sales days typically come mid-December.

(Credit: Dell)

Showing it's serious about smartphones, Dell is reorganizing the company around its newest product.

Dell is forming a new communications business unit to be helmed by Ron Garriques, a former Motorola executive brought in to run Dell's consumer business two years ago, Reuters first reported Friday. Dell officials confirmed that the consumer group will be folded into the small and medium business group run by Steve Felice.

Dell started selling its first smartphone at the end of November in China and Brazil only. The new unit run by Garriques will develop hardware and software for phones and other mobile Internet devices.

Dell has recently fallen even further behind its once-lofty perch as the world's biggest producer of PCs. It is now No. 3 behind Hewlett-Packard and Acer, both of which offer consumers computers and smartphones. The company is, like most consumer hardware makers, increasingly moving to smaller mobile computers like smartphones and laptops as the desktop market has cratered.

If you're serious about rechargeable batteries, and saving money on disposables, this charging kit can't be beat.

(Credit: Amazon)

A battery charger is essential gear for any household with a game console (those controllers burn through AA's like nobody's business), childrens' toys, or anything else battery-powered.

Because, let's face it, you'll pay a lot more in the long haul for disposable batteries than you will for a good charger and some rechargeable batteries.

Of course, a good charger--one with features such as a heat monitor and status LCD--can cost you upward of $70 or more--batteries not included.

Today only, Amazon has the La Crosse BC-9009 AlphaPower Battery Charger for $34.99 shipped. And in addition to the kick-ass charger, you get four AA rechargeables, four AAA's, adapters for C and D cells, and a travel case.

What makes the BC-9009 so special? Start with four independent status displays, one for each of its four slots. They can cycle through stats like charge rate, discharge rate, elapsed time, and total battery capacity.

The charger also includes a heat monitor to prevent overcharging. And buyers certainly seem to like it: nearly 650 reviewers rated it 4.5 stars out of 5 on average.

Looks like a perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for person (or blogger) in your life. I'm just hoping this doesn't sell out in five minutes like everything else I post these days. Dang holiday season!

Backup deal: It's that time of year when we clear out some space on the ol' iPod to make room for the holiday playlist. If yours is a little, well, played out, Amazon MP3 has Diana Krall's "Christmas Songs" album for just $2.99. It's a digital download, of course, in DRM-free, universally compatible MP3 format. Perfect for cozy nights by the fire.

The world's second-largest PC maker has designs on being the first to offer a Chrome OS Netbook.

Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said in an interview with Digitimes that he's "confident" his company will be first out of the gate with Google's open-source operating system pre-installed.

Chrome OS will be coming to Netbooks next year. Acer says it will be first.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The earliest it would be available is mid-2010, according to Digitimes' unnamed sources.

Acer was just one of several hardware makers previously announced to be working with Google on implementing Chrome OS, along with Asus, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba. Dell, which hasn't committed to it fully yet, has released an experimental version of Chrome OS based on the source code that will work on the Dell Mini 10v Netbook, though it's not an official product.

Though Wang didn't offer details or specifications for Acer's Chrome OS Netbook, the guys behind Chrome OS have already let on what they're expecting.

At the OS's first public demonstration last month, Google said its vision includes slightly larger keyboards and screens than what's currently available, x86 or ARM processors, solid-state drives, and 802.11(n) Wi-Fi chips.