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Google made two significant enhancements to Google.com on mobile phones Wednesday.

The first, history sync, now makes it possible to carry over a record of your search queries when you switch between mobile and desktop versions of Google.com. Dubbed "Personalized Suggest," Google will now remember your searches and will add them into the list of search suggestions you see as you type into the search bar. The new feature saves you from browsing through your history to repeat a query.

Of course, you do have to be logged in to Google for this to work, and you've got to have Web History switched on. Enable it on a phone by selecting "save searches" in the Settings menu on Google.com. At launch, the feature is only available in the U.S. on Android, iPhone, and Palm WebOS phones.

Google Local on mobile.

(Credit: Google)

The second addition today similarly gets the mobile and desktop versions of Google.com talking to one another. Google has redesigned local search to make finding places of interest while on the mobile Google site much more finger-friendly. Click or tap "Local" on the mobile browser and you'll see a Start screen with categories you can browse to find restaurants and other businesses nearby, similar to what you can do on Google Maps. You'll need to have the My Location feature enabled.

There's also a category for viewing the points of interest that you starred as favorites on a Google Map. Starring essentially bookmarks the location's Google Place page. Bookmarking isn't anything new, but the browsable layout is relatively new to Google, which generally favors bare links to graphical enhancements. This treatment has the mobile Google site looking like a mobile hot-spot-finding app you might find in an on-phone app store. We have to say, it's a nice change.

The rejiggered Local Search kicks off in the U.S. and China, with support for more regions in the works.

The well-equipped Vizio VF552XVT takes aim at the best HDTVs available when it launches in November.

(Credit: CNET)

The Via line of HDTVs from Vizio, due this January, promises the most comprehensive suite of interactive features yet seen on any HDTV, including a Bluetooth remote control with a keyboard. The two largest models will also pack LED backlighting with local dimming, the holy grail of LCD picture quality. These highly desirable features, combined with Vizio's customarily aggressive pricing, propel the flagship Vizio TVs past their counterparts from major brands like Samsung, Panasonic, and Sony--at least on paper.

Designed foremost to compete against current Internet-enabled HDTVs, the three "Via" (Vizio Interactive Apps) models are available in 42-inch, 47-inch, and 55-inch varieties. Here's a quick rundown:

Key features of the Vizio Via 2XVT series:

• LED backlight with local dimming (47- and 55-inch models only)
• 240Hz processing
• Bluetooth remote with full QWERTY keyboard
• Integrated 802.11(n) Wi-Fi
• Support for Adobe Flash for the Digital Home
• Yahoo widgets engine
• 42-inch SV422XVT: $1,199 MSRP | 47-inch SV472XVT: $1,699 | 55-inch XV552XVT: $2,199
• Available in January

As CNET noted earlier, the Bluetooth keyboard remote and built-in Wi-fi will be firsts among interactive TVs, which typically require cumbersome virtual keyboards for text entry and expensive extra dongles or third-party solutions for wireless connectivity. Since few people have an Ethernet cable next to their televisions, Wi-fi makes setup much more convenient, while the keyboard on the remote should make accessing and using the TV's "Apps" as easy as sending an e-mail on a BlackBerry.

(Credit: Vizio)

Vizio promises to have more such applications on the Via platform than any other current maker, and the list is impressive indeed. ... Read more

The Toshiba SV670U is one of the least-expensive LED-based LCDs with local dimming.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

At the high end of the LCD TV cost spectrum sit models equipped with LED backlighting. Whether edge-lit or local dimming, these sets command a price premium and deliver somewhat better energy efficiency and markedly better black level performance than standard LCD TVs.

But with black levels on par with plasma comes a price in the form of blooming, subpar off-angle performance and, in the case of the Toshiba flagship SV670U series, an overactive backlight. On the flip side, it still delivers those inky blacks, along with accurate color and solid video processing.

The Toshiba SV670U can get you into the LED game for less, and for LCD-over-plasma fans who crave black levels, that's reason enough to consider one.

Read the full review of the Toshiba SV670U series.

Toshiba SV670U series -- photos

We've reviewed a few edge-lit LED-backlit LCDs from Samsung this year, but what home theater fans have really been waiting for is an update to last year's Samsung LN46A950, which uses local-dimming LED technology. The wait is over: Samsung announced on Thursday its flagship line of LED-backlit LCDs, the UNB8500 series, which uses local-dimming like last year's 950 series. Considering that we wrote last year's 950 series was "the peak of flat-panel LCD TV performance and picture quality," these will be highly anticipated TVs--but you'll pay a pretty penny for their state of the art, with prices starting at $3,600 for the 46-inch model. Let's check out the specs.

Samsung UNB8500 series--photos

Update 7-30-2009: Samsung has announced that the model numbers of these TVs will be UN46B8500 and UN55B8500 respectively, not B9000 as described below. For more information refer to the blog of the announcement.

A replacement for this LN46A950 is coming later this year.

(Credit: CNET)

Prior to CES, Samsung's reps mentioned in a conversation with CNET that a successor to the company's best 2008 HDTV, the LNA950 series, would be available later in 2009, and now details are beginning to emerge.

According to a report on Danish news and reviews site Flatpanelshd.com, the new models will be dubbed the B9000 series, and will be available in 46- and 55-inch versions, presumably named UN46B9000 and UN55B9000, respectively. The new series will incorporate "local dimming" technology, which sets it apart from the current LED-based LCDs in Samsung's 2009 lineup, which use "edge-lit" LED technology.

In our review of one of those current sets, the UN46B7000, we complained about a fluctuating LED backlight and uniformity issues. That review compared the UN46B7000 directly to the local dimming-equipped LN46A950 from last year, and the A950, with its superiority uniformity and lack of overtly distracting fluctuations, scored higher in Performance.

Aside from local dimming, the UNB9000 series will reportedly make use of a "wireless connection from an external media box" that should allow the sets to approach the 1.2-inch depth of the edge-lit LED-based sets, despite the fact that local dimming requires the LEDs to be mounted directly behind the panel. The box will contain the connections and presumably the tuner and other bulky electronics, a la Panasonic's Z1 and LG's 55LHX, among others. Other features are reportedly the same as the current UNB8000 series, which includes Yahoo widgets.

We contacted Samsung USA but the company would provide no details on the B9000 series. Availability and price are yet to be determined, but my guess is September and "$ky-high."

(Via CNET Asia)

Samsung's edge-lit LED-based LCD costs about $700 more than its non-LED counterpart. But it's really thin.

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung announced its new lineup of "LED TVs" at CES in January, and gave CNET editors a walk-through today to preview the technology. The company also set prices, and as expected, it'll cost you a fortune to take one of these thin models home.

The name "LED TV" sounds simple enough, but it's important to remember that these inch-thin sets are actually otherwise normal LCD (liquid-crystal display) TVs that use LEDs (light-emitting diodes) instead of the standard fluorescent backlights. But it gets even more confusing. We've reviewed LED-based LCD displays before, most recently the Sony KDL-55XBR8 and Samsung LN46A950--the two best-performing LCD TVs we've ever tested. A lot of the credit for those TVs' excellent picture quality can be attributed to their local dimming technology; groups of LEDs behind the screen can be dimmed or turned off to achieve those deep, inky blacks we all love so much.

The 2009 Samsung LED TVs we're previewing here do not utilize local dimming, so we don't expect them to match the picture quality of the local dimming sets. Of course, we'll know more once we can review one. In the meantime, we'll refer to the new displays as "edge-lit LED-based LCDs." More complex, we know, but also quite a bit more accurate.

Edge-lit LED-based LCD by Samsung explodes--photos

The slideshow above goes into the nitty-gritty behind, or along the edge of, the technology. The short story is that the LEDs themselves are arranged along all four edges of the screen, and a special "light guide" sends light toward the middle. The result, according to the company, is similar uniformity characteristics to standard backlit LCD displays.

Edge-lit LED-based displays are also 40 percent more energy-efficient than standard Energy Star-certified LCD sets, and measure just 1.2 inches thick.

1.2 inches thin looks great from the side.

(Credit: Samsung)

The downside is that they're extremely expensive. The cheapest model, the 32-inch UN32A6000 ($1,599), will cost more than twice as much as the company's standard 1080p 32-incher, model LN32B530 ($749) does. ... Read more

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In this day and age when every other person is a self-described foodie, finding the best mobile application to point you to a taste bud-bending experience requires as much discernment as finding the authentic voice from among throngs of folks who think they know good eats.

I'd be lying if I didn't claim snobby epicurean tendencies, myself.

This headstrong belief in one's own taste credentials is exactly what fuels the need for informative and well-designed food-finding applications. Too simple and a foodie will shun it. Too esoteric and it could alienate a growing segment of people who really care about the art and science of meal-making.

I've recently studied several restaurant-recommending applications for iPhone and other mobile platforms, including Yelp and Urbanspoon for iPhone and Zagat To Go for Windows Mobile, Palm, and BlackBerry, and wondered how relative newcomers Munch ($0.99) and LocalEats ($0.99) compare to these more established services.

Munch for iPhone turns out accurate results, but what's with the ratings?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

There are, of course, things to laud and criticize with each app. Munch's interface has a great method for quick-launching searches for pizza, Mexican, and so on from icons in the screen navigation. You can select other cuisines from a scrolling list. Munch returns wonderfully accurate search results, but is devoid of context. There are no reviews, no Web site listings, and every restaurant we looked at was rated with five empty stars. That's doable if you want a listings app, but for anyone trying to make intelligent choices, it just won't work.

LocalEats fares much better. The app brings you the best 100 (or more) restaurants in 50 U.S. cities as determined by a team of foodie professionals, authors of the online dining guide Where the locals eat. The benefit is that unlike Urbanspoon, no national chain even thinks of making an appearance. You can search each city's highest-rated establishments by alphabetical order, cuisine type, or the best of each category. For larger cities you can also search by neighborhood.

There's no shortage of local search applications for cell phone users to rely on. In addition to Google Maps Mobile, Yahoo OneSearch (which is also bundled into Yahoo Go), and TellMe's BlackBerry app, is newcomer FreeMobile411, a simple, clean-looking WAP app that searches local business and residential listings for people, business names, and business types. While the publisher, V-Enable, works on distributing a more robust client through cell phone carriers starting with Sprint, FreeMobile411.com remains as reliable a lookup for people on low-end Internet phones as it is on high-end phones.

If I had to describe LightPole in 10 words or fewer, I'd call it an interface for accessing location-aware services from mobile phones. More than anything else, LightPole's downloadable application offers a listings and mapping format that many location-based services, such as Yelp and Yahoo Local, can squeeze into to gain more visibility or avoid creating their own rich cell phone applications.

I added the CNET News.com channel; the rest are LightPole's.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It works like this. Users looking for stuff--a good restaurant, happy hour specials, or Internet cafe--can click open LightPole, select a service (MappyHour and Hotspotr are two more,) and can read about the establishment, call the establishment, and map the results.

New customization features, announced Wednesday, make the application heaps more appealing to the masses because it lets users do what users like to do best--add their own content by creating channels online.

From LightPole's Web site, you input any RSS feed or site URL corresponding to geotagged content into the blank field to transform it into a channel. A Google map and Flickr stream are two examples. A few more clicks and a manual phone update later and the content is ready to access. I'll admit that mapping the CNET News.com feed was a little useless (CNET headquarters doesn't move around much,) but I like the flexibility and relative ease of relying on LightPole's partnerships for my most-wanted content.

Two other announcements join ranks with the news of the now-open channels. LightPole's integration with Yahoo-owned Fire Eagle, a nexus for managing your location information. This integration lets registered users of other Fire Eagle-supported location services, Loki for example, post their whereabouts. LightPole will pick it up from there.

In a final enhancement, two of LightPole's partners, MappyHour and Hotspotr, have added functionality that lets users add favorite happy hour lairs and Internet cafes to the communities' Web sites from the LightPole application. There are still some usability hitches (a few too many menus and clicks for my taste,) but these second helpings already make LightPole more useful.