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Welcome to Challengers, a blog about the next big things

Out with the old. In with the new. That's been the way of the personal technology industry for as long as there's been a personal technology industry. (I cut my computing teeth on Radio Shack's TRS-80--a personal computer that helped render the original personal computer, MITS' Altair, obsolete in the late 1970s.)

It's also the beat I'll cover here in Challengers. This blog is focused on new things--companies, products, services, and technologies--that aim to go head-to-head with established ones. I'll explore what makes them different and, in theory at least, better. And while I'more

NewYu fitness monitor tracks wide range of activities

Wearable, connected fitness monitors are a dime a dozen these days. But developers of NewYu, a monitor that will be available in September, claim they've got an edge on their competition.

The device, which is meant to clip to clothing on the torso or to a pocket, is purported to provide a more accurate view of calories burned by tracking, and differentiating between, all movements throughout the day.

In other words, NewYu knows if you've been running or walking, cooking or cleaning, shopping, or (presumably) mating...You get the idea. Actually, Van Krueger, CEO of parent company Wellcore, tells me they decided to steer clear of the "mating" category, but that it will register as low-, medium-, or high-impact aerobics, depending of course on the intensity of the, shall we say, heat of the moment.

Krueger says the fitness monitor is able to differentiate among activities by using advanced pattern recognition technology. This works much the way voice recognition does;more

Ceatec's cell phones of tomorrow

CHIBA, Japan--Cell phones in Japan have long been more advanced than what we can get in the U.S. Watching TV, filming video, paying for groceries with a mobile phone--none of that is new here.

But there are still some cell phones that are too futuristic even for here. We scoured the halls of Makuhari Mess here at Ceatec 2010 and found a variety of phones and some accessories that are intended to be prototypes or design concepts.

Some seem more realistic than others, like this dual-pane device from Fujitsu. It's a flip phone with two touch screens that more

Apple 2010 iPod lineup, reviewed

Maybe you thought Apple's latest unveiling of iPods was the best refresh the product line has seen in years. Or, perhaps you're a little burned out after a year of iPads, iOS, iPhone 4, and antenna-gate. Personally, as CNET's resident expert on all things portable audio, it was nice to get a new crop of iPods to play with and put through their paces.

Call me a geezer, but I still carry an iPod separate from my phone. One of these days, I'm sure I'll bite on a new smart phone to make my iPod more

TruFocals: New glasses for the fidgety

Twenty years in the making, physicist and inventor Stephen Kurtin's adjustable focus eyeglasses--with the cute, Web 2.0-ey name TruFocals--are finally here:

Each "lens" is actually a set of two lenses, one flexible and one firm. The flexible lens (near the eye) has a transparent distensible membrane attached to a clear rigid surface. The pocket between them holds a small quantity of crystal clear fluid. As you move the slider on the bridge, it pushes the fluid and alters the shape of the flexible lens. Changing the shape changes the correction. This mimics the way the lenses in more

If a mosquito bites in Sub-Saharan Africa, grab your cell phone

In the fast-emerging field of "telemedicine"--which is basically health care in absentia--an increasing number of procedures and examinations can occur long distance. Telemedicine refers to anything from the most basic transmission of data (like emailing your medical records) to the most complex operations (like surgery by remote control).

In recent months, a team at U.C. Berkeley has been developing and testing a new use for the CellScope, a small microscope it invented that connects to mobile phones. According to the U.C. Berkeley News Center:

The team has previously demonstrated the CellScope for bright field microscopy, which uses

more

In Italy, futuristic bus stops to blend practical, chic

High-tech bus stops so cool they might actually entice you to take a ride will be installed next year in Florence, Italy.

The urban fixtures have been designed by a group of researchers led by Carlo Ratti, head of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The EyeStop is a touch-screen bus shelter that monitors environmental conditions and real-time bus movement and also provides information and communication tools that can interact with your cell phone.

The EyeStop, which has touch sensitive e-Ink screens as well as LEDs, features a bus map plotting locations in real-time, e-mail and more

Study: Single ladies match bachelors on tech toys

Single women rival single men as tech device owners, according to a Forrester Research survey released Thursday.

Obviously, to an organization filled with female tech geeks, the study was met with bemusement.

But the survey of more than 1,000 single adult males and more than 1,000 single adult females in the United States and Canada had some interesting gems.

Did you know that single women prefer laptops while single men prefer desktops? Among the adult singles surveyed, 47 percent of women said their next computer would be a laptop, and 29 percent said it would be a desktop, more

LaCie merges with online-storage start-up Wuala

LaCie, known in the United States for its external-storage products such as the LaCie Biggest, announced on Thursday its merger with Caleido, the Swiss creator of an online storage service called Wuala.

The move is a sign that LaCie intends to enter the cloud storage service market.

Unlike the established LaCie, which was founded in France in 1989, Wuala is still a relatively new start-up. Before the merger, the company's personnel included just 11 people, including two part-timers. Nonetheless, Wuala has gained substantial traction with tens of thousands of users, mostly Europeans.

Wuala's service include innovative online storage more