t4

Friday's news roundup will have you eyeing Google's competition:

We've sung this tune before: Amazon is tinkering with creating its own smartphone. A recent Bloomberg report has the media buzzing again about the possibility, but we first heard this last year from an analyst. If true, would Amazon knock Windows from the No. 3 spot? I think we're just hungry for more choice.

Google wasn't the first company to tinker with a computerized headset for augmented-reality vision. With all the buzz on Google Glass, Olympus felt confident about sharing news on its Glass-like prototype. And … Read more

We can't remember the last time it snowed on Halloween weekend, but the cold weather kept all but one of us from dressing up today. Tune in to see who conjured up the spirits of Halloween!… Read more

Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison made his fortune with software, but he'll take the stage today to show off the first servers powered by the company's new Sparc T4 processor.

The product, called the Sparc SuperCluster T4-4, is "the first engineered system from a new generation of high-performance Oracle Sparc servers," according to an Oracle invitation to the event . Ellison will share the stage with John Fowler, the systems executive vice president who also led Sun's server group, at Oracle's Redwood Shores, Calif., headquarters.

Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year for its server products, … Read more

The cast of Buzz Out Loud has a message for HP that we hope they'll hear: guys. Seriously. Please stop talking. Don't tell the press you may or may not spin off your PC unit if you can figure out what that would mean for the company, and don't let the EVP of the PC business say HP might get back into tablets. I mean, how hard is that, really? Plus, Wikileaks springs a major leak, and Beyonce's baby pwns Twitter.

Don't look for a slew of 4G LTE phone announcements out of the AT&T camp anytime soon. Instead, the carrier plans to devote the next few months to building up its LTE network.

Speaking at a Oppenheimer Technology and Communications Conference today, Peter Ritcher, senior vice president for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, indicated that the company still expects to launch its 4G network in five markets--Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio--in the next few months, with plans to cover 15 markets by the end of the year.

Instead, AT&T will initially … Read more

It's our final live show from CES 2011, and it's safe to assume our position as Worst Podcast of CES. Case in point: did any of the other CNET Live podcasts receive an anti-teen-sexting pamphlet from PicsChecker after their show? The 404 must give off some kind of unique vibe, because this service seems to appeal to our demographic. Check it out and let us know what you think. No guest on today's show, but there's plenty of stories from CES to run down, so let's go right to it!

At last year's CES, Polaroid appointed Lady Gaga to the role of creative director, and this time we get to see exactly what she's been working on for the past 12 months. At her big press conference this year, Gaga announced that phones are truly the cameras of the future and debuted the GL20 Camera Glasses, an innovative pair of shades that feature two embedded OLED screens that can capture and display images of anything around you.

Also announced were the GL30 Instant Digital Camera, a printer enabled device that seems to be a throwback of the old "shake it to develop" days of Polaroid film that works in conjunction with the GL10 Instant Printer, a Bluetooth wireless device that can produce Polaroid-style prints in under a minute. TOLD you me and Gaga have a lot in common!

CES is no stranger to extravagance and ridiculousness, and this year saw a bunch of both, starting with the insane Samsung press conference. With their own child from the future emceeing the night, Samsung and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeff Katzenberg stole the show with 3D images, Samsung dance routines replete with rectangular TV props, and a sneak peek at the Xfinity TV app for the Samsung Galaxy Tab that turns the tablet into a remote control and video player.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, indulge us as we take a minute to do what we do best: poke fun at some of the stranger, and perhaps more useless, products featured here in Vegas starting with this Wii/Kinect/Move-enabled bowling ball courtesy of our friends at CTA Digital.

This CTA booth girl looked all right playing with it, but this single-function accessory had us shaking our heads and wondering who would buy this toy.

Let's move on to the booth for Christian gaming site GameChurch.com that actually features a cardboard cutout of Jesus himself fragging enemies like there's no tomorrow. We had no idea Jesus was a gamer, but apparently he's achieved "Ub3r Pwnage since 33 A.D."

GameChurch.com is based on the idea that video game ratings aren't stringent enough for the God-fearing consumer, so the site is here to award its own "morality ratings" to popular video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Strangely enough, the site also has a sister site at an adjacent convention called XXXChurch.com that seeks to save blasphemers from their own hands.

Stick around after the break, because we have plenty more craziness from the showroom floor to get to, including an exhibiting insurance company that lets you smash an Asus laptop with a hammer, a Steampunk keyboard fetish, and more rumors about the impending Apple iPhone coming to Verizon on February 3. Plus, don't miss our picks for Best of CES 2011. Thanks for listening!

Jeff left CNET's New York office Friday as an ace tech reporter and returned Monday morning as TerrorByte, a hip-hop lyricist of his own creation who is dedicated to shutting down the haters--one awful tech metaphor at a time. We apologize for the sad attempts to parody Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" using the nerdiest of storage terms. It's a rather slow news day, give us a break!

There is actual tech news to report this morning; owners of Sprint's latest Android phone, the HTC Evo 4G, will be happy to learn that the Evo … Read more

AT&T has confirmed that it's working on a fix for the software glitch in its Alcatel-Lucent equipment. Reuters reported earlier today that the wireless carrier will issues the fix in the next two to three weeks.

The fix, which AT&T says is relevant for less than two percent of its customers, is expected to significantly boost upload speeds from as low as 100Kbps to as high as 1.7Mbps. Download speeds, which were not affected by the glitch, should not change.

AT&T first admitted the problem on July 7 after customers in select … Read more

Reports began to surface Sunday charging that AT&T had blocked broadband access to parts of the notorious (and powerful) Internet forum site 4chan, which the telecom company confirmed on Monday. Late in the evening, a fake story surfaced on CNN's iReport citizen journalism site alleging that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had been "found dead in his multimillion dollar beachfront mansion" after a cocaine overdose.

Suffice it to say that the two events are likely connected. Access to 4chan has since been restored for AT&T broadband customers.

For those who stepped in … Read more