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Is this the future of Blu-ray?

(Credit: Amazon)

Brace yourselves. Less than two weeks after you open your gifts on Christmas morning, the consumer electronics industry will be reminding you that all those new gadgets--touted as lustworthy just days earlier--are already obsolete.

OK, maybe that's a tad cynical. But it's certainly true that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 5-10) codifies the trends and sets the bar for what you can expect to see on store shelves for the following 12 months. That's especially true in the home theater category. But before we look forward to the upcoming show, let's take a look back at what we saw in 2009.

As the 2009 show came to an end, we chose the Samsung HT-BD7200 home theater system and the EchoStar "SlingLoaded" HD DVR 922 as the most promising products in the home audio and video realms. The latter product, to date, has yet to make an appearance in the real world (an all too common trend for many high-profile CES

Project Natal

(Credit: Microsoft)

While last year's CES didn't blow us away in terms of gaming, we've got high hopes for 2010. Both Sony and Microsoft have new technologies right around the corner and we're hoping to get to see a taste of each at the big show.

Microsoft announced Project Natal at E3 2009, and it would make sense for the company to showcase some of the technology's applications at CES. Could we get an official release date and price for Natal?

Sony has a new motion controller that is almost ready for release so we're anxious to see if it'll be on display. The company has been mostly tight-lipped up until now, so what better venue to unveil it?

Another big theme at CES will undoubtedly be 3D gaming. We got to see a sneak peek last year with the Nvidia Geforce 3D Vision, but now we look to the home consoles to start offering a similar experience. Sony has teased the notion before, so don'

We love having guests on the show, but it's always good to get back to our bread and butter: making fun of silly tech news! Today we cover several stories that've slipped through the cracks, including the new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, a new autotune iPhone application in the works, a new Queen of Text Messaging, and a huge Calls from the Public.

Johnny Depp as a ginger Mad Hatter.

(Credit: Disney)

I hadn't heard about this, but Jeff shells out some news about the upcoming "Alice in Wonderland" remake, directed by 404-favorite Tim Burton. Check out the video below to see the pictures and hear our comments, but so far we're pretty impressed with the CGI and makeup used on Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, and Matt Lucas. Wilson, film buff extraordinaire, has a healthy dose of skepticism based on Burton's recent disasters, but we'll have to wait until March 2010 like everyone else to see how it all pans out.

We also have more news to report about Autotune. Turns out T-Pain is in the process of developing his own Autotune application for the iPhone. Expect the usual dose of hatred from Beff Jakalar, but I'm personally a huge fan of autotuning no matter how much it's overdone. How can you listen to this and not want to get up and dance?

Thanks to everyone that's been leaving us voicemails. Rest assured that although we've had a long string of guests, we'll play all of them in the coming weeks. If you want to hear yourself on the radio, give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and tell us how much you love/hate the show. You can also e-mail us at the404{at}cnet(dot)com. Check us out on Twitter and Facebook as well!

This month in video game screenshots - March 2009 - photos

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There are plenty of reasons to get excited about March if you're a gamer. Now that highly anticipated titles like Street Fighter IV and Killzone 2 have been released, it's time to look ahead to March. We're starting to see a spike in the portable console games department as both the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS have various titles making their debut.

Highlighting this month's screenshots are Tom Clancy's HAWX, Resident Evil 5, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Madworld. Make sure you check out all of this month's featured games in our slide show in addition to the five game trailers you should be watching.

What games are you looking forward to in March?

With estimated unit sales approaching 100 million worldwide, Nintendo has proven itself time and time again as the industry ruler of the portable console market. With the DSi--the second refresh of the Nintendo DS--we're starting to see the company move in an evolutionary direction with its flagship handheld.

The DSi takes with it most of the features the DS Lite had to offer, but adds new multimedia capabilities. The DSi has been on sale in Japan since November 1 of last year and has already sold well over an astonishing 1 million units. Now that Nintendo has announced that the DSi will go on sale April 5 in North America, it certainly leaves everyone asking one big question, "Should I buy one?"

First, let's look at what exactly separates the new DSi from the DS Lite. In terms of actual form-factor, the difference between the two portables is negligible. The DSi is slightly slimmer, but you're not going to see the massive change in size like we saw when Nintendo upgraded the original DS to the DS Lite. What you may notice is that both screens are a quarter of an inch larger. The DSi hardware also actually eliminates the Game Boy Advance slot found on the Lite, so you won't be able to play older Game Boy Advance games or DS titles that make use of the port, such as "Guitar Hero: On Tour."

Up close with the Nintendo DSi

The Nikon D90 arrived on Wednesday, and since we've had some great weather this week here in NYC, I immediately headed out to Madison Square Park to shoot a few hundred photos and start to get a feel for the camera. Then I passed it back to Matt F. for some initial performance testing. (Here's a slide show with some photo samples.) My first impression? For a sub-$1,000 model, the D90 is verrrrry nice.

Continuous-shooting with the Nikon D90. Click for a slide show of sample photos

(Credit: Lori Grunin/CNET Networks)

First up, the D90's movie capture. I shot the flags blowing in the breeze and a fountain that I typically use to test camcorder and camera video. (Unfortunately, I can't display those here without compressing them in a way that defeats the purpose of showing them.) The clips themselves look OK, although for some reason Nikon bumps up the saturation beyond the photo settings, and I wish the camera shot 30fps instead of 24. You also need three hands if you plan to use the zoom--which requires manually focusing--because it's hard to hold this relatively heavy dSLR out in front of you steadily while videos shooting in Live View. But I like the creative potential of the mode and look forward to shooting with it some more.

Ever since the first time I saw Lt. Frank Bullitt thrash his Ford Shelby GT around San Francisco, I have longed for a chance to drive the streets of this city unhindered by traffic restrictions, pedestrians, and other such annoyances. Thanks to a Microsoft application, my dream has virtually come true. The Virtual Earth Local Technology Preview makes use of streetside-view photographs similar to those used by Google's Street View application.

(Credit: Microsoft)

With the Microsoft service you get the added bonus of navigating the maps in either a yellow race car or a blue sports car. Drivers get a view out of the front windshield and out of the two side windows as they use the computer arrow keys to cruise around. Currently, only the downtown areas of San Francisco and Seattle are drivable via the service, which is still in beta, but we figure that will be enough time-wasting entertainment to get you through to the end of the work day. Try out Virtual Earth for yourself.

Canon has countered Nikon's competitive new SLR cameras, revamping its high-performance line with the EOS-1D Mark III. The camera introduces a bevy of new features: a higher shooting rate, a new image processing chip, a live display, a more sensitive image sensor and a self-cleaning sensor.

Canon's EOS 1D-Mark III digital SLR

(Credit: Canon)

The 10.1-megapixel camera, announced late Wednesday, can shoot 10 frames per second. That's a notch up from the 8.5 per second of the preceding model, the 8.2-megapixel 1D Mark II N. It can shoot a burst of as many as 30 raw images--those pulled directly off the sensor without camera processing--or 110 JPEGs.

That frame rate is aimed squarely at the photojournalists who gravitate toward this line--the kinds of people who have to get the shot of the sprinter crossing the finish line. It's got a price tag only a pro could love, though--about $4,000, not including a lens.

The camera also is the first Canon SLR to sport the new Digic III ... Read more

Yes, it's almost that time of year again: No, not the holidays--we're talking CES. The biggest consumer electronics confab of the year is only two months away, and we're giving you an early look at what to expect in Las Vegas. Among the sneak peeks are a super-thin wearable virtual display, a new podcast microphone, speakers that disguise themselves as antiques and 3 Doors Down on the future of music.