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Personally, I'm completely happy with my USB keyboard and optical mouse. But if you're a fan of alternative input devices, such as the PaperShow, you now have another choice.

Hitachi Software announced Tuesday its new StarBoard WT-1 interactive wireless tablet. Basically, it's a mouse and keyboard replacement that lets presenters in educational facilities and corporate environments interact with their audiences.

The device has a range up to 30 feet thanks to RF wireless technology, and a battery life of up to 16 hours of continuous use. This seems nice as the PaperShow offer only a few hours … Read more

On Thursday, Web storage provider Dropio took its presentation tool Presentio out of private beta and opened it up to all users. Similar to the recently launched, real-time activity view found in its collaborative storage folders (or "drops" as the service calls them), the new tool gives users a simple set of controls to present those files to others.

It's effectively like watching someone else's screen as they navigate around the storage folder. If they open a file, you see it straight away. If they jump to a certain page in a PDF or PowerPoint presentation, … Read more

When a business is just starting out and its founders need to fill some administrative holes inexpensively, simple Web apps can fill the void. The apps we're going to look at here are not always good for large organizations; in fact, several are designed specifically for smaller companies that need simple but robust solutions to common business needs.

Manage projects with Basecamp Once a company starts servicing multiple clients, it needs to manage logistics and ensure that employees are doing what's expected of them. That's where Basecamp comes in.

Basecamp is not only a simple online project coordinator, it's the best of its kind on the Web. Once you sign up, you can immediately start creating projects and share them with employees. The site features to-do list creation, the ability to share files, project progress tracking, time tracking to see which employees have been working on the project, and more. In essence, Basecamp provides a full end-to-end project management service that allows you to see how well your company is performing every step of the way.

Creating and monitoring projects in Basecamp couldn't be easier. But Basecamp is not free. Its Basic edition costs $24 per month and allows users to create and track 15 projects at the same time and store up to 3GB of data. Plans go up from there to $149 per month, which allows for an unlimited number of projects, 50GB of storage, and time tracking (the other plans don't offer time tracking). If you're looking for something simple and effective at managing your projects, Basecamp is worth the money.… Read more

Today we have a new president to lead a new American path through what will be a tumultuous time. But President Obama won't be able to do it alone. He and his administration need to work together, and communicate with one another and the country, to ensure everything is running well.

That's why I've compiled a "cheat sheet" for the Obama administration, listing five services it should use in the White House. Sadly, it probably won't. Record-keeping laws and security concerns will ensure that none of my suggestions take effect.

AIM for White House … Read more

There's twelve days of Christmas, eight days of Hanukah and for the first time ever, five days of Yuletide 404 Mini-sodes. Installment Two invites you to come hate "the most wonderful time of year" with us! We've saved up all our bitterness for this one mini-sode. Christmas music? Bah. Pine trees? Feh! The film - A Christmas Story? Horrendous! Claymation? Sucks!!! Bah-Humbug!

Google Australia employees--and those in many other countries--received an HTC Dream Android phone as a holiday gift.

"We've never developed anything like the Android software before, so this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement," a Google representative told ZDNet Australia on Monday.

Apart from spreading holiday cheer, having all the employees using the phone would help make Android better, the representative added. "Giving the Dream phone to Googlers also allows us to once again dog-food a product and make it even better."

Other Australians won't have to wait long for their own … Read more

Does a loved one suffer from infomania? Do you have an incorrigible number-cruncher on your gift list? Whether your favorite data-tracker is a runner or a gardener, here are five devices that could be a hit at home this year.

1. Fitbit

About the size of a thumb drive, this fitness and sleep tracker discretely clips to your clothes. At home, it auto-syncs with its base station and uploads information (such as how many calories you burned that day or how many hours you actually slept) to a website where you can track data for yourself, … Read more

Twitter may be the leader in the micro-blogging space, but it's missing key features--features its competitors offer. Will Twitter pick up on these omissions? We know groups are coming to Twitter, but we're not so sure about some of these other useful features...

Friendfeed: Twitter++

Although some say Friendfeed isn't a direct competitor to Twitter, I think it is. Twitter has one way to deliver content to the service--you type a thought in 140 characters or fewer and post it--but consider the fact that Friendfeed can do that in a flash, as well as import your blog, … Read more

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb has put together a great roundup of online slide-show tools. One that's not on the list, and instead showed up in the user comments is ZuiPrezi, a not-yet-launched online presentation creator that ditches the idea of individual slides in place of a giant expanse that can be navigated with a mouse, keyboard, and eventually touch screens.

The end result is pretty incredible and feels a lot like Google Maps. It uses vector graphics to keep lines and text nice and clean as you zoom in and out of bits and pieces of a presentation. … Read more