CES - Software and apps

LAS VEGAS--Browser-maker Opera Software is taking advantage of the tablet rage at CES this year to demo a preview build of the Opera browser for tablets and Netbook PCs.

We got a look at it last night on an Android-powered Galaxy Tab and on a Windows 7-powered IdeaPad tablet. We even took a video, but unfortunately, one important feature--Flash--wasn't implemented on the demo units we saw.

What we did see has potential. Opera for tablets has the usual URL and Google search bars, and tabbed browsing. It also has the typical features of search, bookmarking, and history, to name … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. In the weeks leading up to CES, we guessed that Skype would take two-way video calling to Andorid phones.

What we didn't expect was that it'd do so by snatching up the competition. At a press conference, Skype announced that it acquired Qik, a rival that became well known when it was preloaded onto the HTC Evo with its front-facing camera.

Tony Bates, Skype's new CEO (about 17 days new, Bates says), wouldn't disclose Qik's purchase price (it's rumored to be a cool $100 million), … Read more

LAS VEGAS--These days, cloud services are all the rage for early adopters and business-minded individuals, but they haven't managed to make their way into the mainstream quite yet. However, companies like RealNetworks are banking on the fact that someday all consumers will want to store their content--media, in particular--up in the cloud.

Today, RealNetworks announced Unifi, a multimedia-centric cloud service that aggregates your photos, music, and video files from across multiple devices and online services. In other words, instead of having to keep track of multiple media libraries, you get a single online interface for organizing and accessing your … Read more

LAS VEGAS--VoxOx debuted several years ago as a high-powered multi-protocol chat alternative that incorporated some nifty VoIP features thanks to its parent company, a small telecom outfit called TelCentris.

Today at CES 2011, TelCentris announces a revamped VoxOx with an emphasis on simplicity and messaging unification.

The big improvement to the latest version of the program, available for Windows and Mac, is the unified messaging window. People will be able to interact via instant message, SMS, VoIP phone calls, and social networking all from the same communications stream. This includes voice mail transcriptions similar to Google Voice, although TelCentris … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you've never engaged in a VoIP to your friend or loved one in real time on a 50-inch display, your luck could change two ways. First, Skype is extending its lineup of Skype-enabled TVs to include the Sony Bravia and Vizio Via. Those will show up later in 2011.

If buying an HDTV isn't your style, Skype has also announced deals with Panasonic and Sony to include Skype on select Blu-ray players. You'll still need a Webcam for this approach, but as we briefly saw in a Samsung press conference earlier today, Skype has a … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Skype's official CES press conference isn't until tomorrow, but there's a lot we already know, thanks to Nvidia. During a press conference today, the Tegra 2 chipmaker confirmed what we've been speculating for weeks, that Skype will introduce two-way video calling for Android devices.

The announcement came casually, as Nvidia President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang welcomed Manrique Brenes, Skype's director of Business Development, to the stage to show off Skype video chatting on an Android tablet running one of Nvidia's dual-core chips.

Choked bandwidth caused Huang to scrap the demo and move … Read more

Microsoft announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show that the next version of Windows will support system-on-a-chip (SoC) architectures, including ARM-based systems from partners Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said that on the x86 architecture, Intel and AMD will "continue their work on low-power SoC designs that fully support Windows, including support for native x86 applications."

Microsoft made the announcement during the 2011 CES in Las Vegas. Here's more from Microsoft's statement.

Vimeo, one of the few online video hosting services to both survive and thrive in a YouTube-dominated world, announced at the CES 2011 show in Las Vegas today that it will now allow members of its paid Vimeo Plus service to upload videos of up to 5GB in size. That's enough for a 2.5-hour-long movie in high definition.

The announcement comes at a time when Vimeo is trying to make itself a friendlier destination for long-form content as well as for living room viewing. This fall, Vimeo launched "Couch Mode," a big-screen-friendly version of its video … Read more

LAS VEGAS--In its quest to keep your hard drive fully defragmented, Diskeeper plans to release a new program aiming to both prevent and instantly clear up fragmentation.

Being demoed at CES this week, Diskeeper 2011 will combine two features to handle disk fragmentation. First launched in Diskeeper 2010, IntelliWrite will stop up to 85 percent of most fragmentation before it happens by intelligently writing data to the disk, according to the company. And the new Instant Defrag will instantly and automatically defrag any remaining fragments, the company says.

The company sees Instant Defrag as a way to ensure continued system … Read more