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CES announcements are already rolling out. Here’s just a few wireless-related ones from today:

AT&T’s next frontier: AT&T (NYSE: T) told Reuters (NYSE: TRI) ahead of CES that it wants to wireless-enable car entertainment systems and all sorts of consumer devices, and has forged deals to add wireless services to almost 20, such as e-readers, mini-computers and digital photo frames. One partnership announced today is with Pandigital for a Photo Mail LED Digital Photo Frame. [Reuters and Release.]

Presentation gadget for BlackBerry: RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) said today that a new accessory called the BlackBerry Presenter, which plugs into a projector or monitor, so a user can wirelessly display a PowerPoint presentation using Bluetooth from their phone. Release.

FLO TV on iPhone: Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) announced today that it has teamed up with mophie to create products that will bring live mobile TV to the iPhone and iPod touch platforms. The TV antenna will act as a case for the phone and as a battery back-up, so that it will always be with a person. Release.

MTV Mobile Ads: MTV has partnered with Crisp Wireless, which will develop advertising campaigns for smartphones. Ad formats include: location aware, click-to-call, click-to-video, and socially connected ads. Crisp will also provide real-time analytics.

Streaming music provider Pandora has struck a deal with electronics manufacturer Pioneer that will connect the internet radio service to users’ cars. The companies announced the deal at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The deal could represent a considerable threat to Sirius (NSDQ: SIRI) XM’s satellite radio service, which is offered by some automakers as a factory-installed option for newer models and accounts for a significant portion of the company’s revenues.

No money has changed hands between Pandora and Pioneer, a rep for the electronics company told the WSJ. Instead Pioneer will sell a device that will detect users’ Pandora settings on their Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhones. The internet radio service claims about 42 million users, which could mean substantial revenue for Pioneer, even if just a fraction pay the $1,200 to buy the Pandora connection system.

Pioneer will start marketing the device in March. Pandora founder Tim Westergren believes that the Pioneer partnership will help change internet radio’s image from being “a computer thing” to being an “an anytime, anywhere thing.”

That could spell trouble for Sirius XM. The satellite radio provider has deals with over two dozen car makers, including Ford, Chrysler, and Mercedes-Benz, as well as rental companies like Hertz. Unlike Pandora’s free service, Sirius XM users pay $12.95 per month. The introduction of internet radio into cars could also be a further worry for some terrestrial stations, which are already trying to contend with the challenge of music recommenders like Pandora and Last.fm.

Related

• Pandora On Track For $40 Million Revs This Year; More Premium Options Coming

Jay-Z wants to help Cheryl Cole become a success in the US. The rapper-and-businessman has offered to assist the ‘Fight for This Love’ singer launch her solo career overseas after seeing how successful she has become in Britain.

He said: ‘I keep a close eye on the music industry throughout the world and I know how hot Cheryl is in the UK. The US marker is the toughest one to break into, but once you do it is by far the most lucrative. I think Cheryl has that talent to do it. There is nobody in the US like her right now and I would be very interested in helping her break the US market this year.”

The 40-year-old musician was first tipped off about the 26-year-old Girls Aloud singer after his pop star wife Beyonce Knowles watched her sing live. He explained: ‘Beyonce has seen her perform and she told me how impressed she was. I checked her out and I was impressed as well.’

Alexandra Burke, Beyonce & Cheryl Cole

By Aaron Back, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Chinese search engine Baidu Inc. is entering a field that is quickly becoming crowded and highly competitive in China’s online video market.

Baidu is launching a new business unit that it envisions will work on a similar business model to Hulu, an advertising-supported video site in the U.S. that has licensed, copyrighted content from several television broadcasters.

Hulu, which is not available in China, is jointly owned by NBC Universal, Walt Disney Co. (DIS), and News Corp. (NWS). News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.

“As the country’s leading search engine, we’d like to grow in this space to meet our users’ needs. We see large volumes of our users searching for high-quality licensed videos and currently there are no video sites that can fulfill this need,” said Ren Xuyang, vice president of marketing and business development at Baidu.

But Baidu will be competing with many other players all eyeing the same market opportunity in China, such as online video sharing sites Youku.com and Tudou.com.

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News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.

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Filed under: OS, Software, Snow Leopard

The release of Mac OS 10.6.3 moves closer as Apple has begun widespread testing of build 10D522. According to AppleInsider, this update focuses on stability and core components like AppKit, CoreMedia, Desktop Services, FileSync, Fonts, HIToolbox and more. The current build is 665.7MB in size.

Reports indicate that nearly 60 crash-happy bugs have been squashed across more than 90 components with this update, like printing issues with iCal, Mail and PhotoBooth (fortunately I haven’t experienced those). Additionally, 10.6.3 includes native support for the Magic Mouse.

Apple began limited testing in December, and has released several builds since. Now that testing has become more widespread and the fixes increase, we move closer to release.

TUAWMac OS 10.6.3 to bring many fixes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Article Tags: Rod Liddle, World Temperatures

So, this is now the coldest winter for thirty years and the snow is likely to hang around for two weeks, maybe three. How does this square with last year’s prediction from eminent scientists – the Met, the UAE change-the-numbers-monkeys, Marcus Brigstocke etc – that 2010 was going to be the hottest year on record? It could still be, of course – but it will have to go it some. Let’s keep an eye on the figures – so far, coldest for thirty years, remember.

December was cold too, if you remember – yet apparently not included in the figures for 2009 which, if you recall, were jubilantly announced as being the fifth hottest since records began in the middle of November – ie when there was still 11 per cent of the year to go, the coldest bit. None of this disproves man made climate change, of course – but it does surely bring us back to that argument about whether or not we’re qualified to comment. I am well aware that one cold winter proves or disproves nothing; it is the mere blink of an eye, almost an irrelevance. But then, it wasn’t me who said that 2010 was going to be a scorcher and that this was indicative of man-made climate change. 2010 is also the blink of an eye, in the scheme of things. But as I say, the same people who insist that we are going to burn to a crisp and all the polar bears will die told us, authoritatively, that 2010 was going to be a scorcher for this very reason. So far it isn’t. So far they are very wrong. And could not be more wrong. This is why we should question their calculations and why we have the right to do so.

Source: spectator.co.uk

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By Ben Stein, contributorJanuary 7, 2010: 10:35 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) — Man doth not live by financial capital alone but also by human capital. And, of course, Warren Buffett had a lot to say about that, too, when he took Phil DeMuth and me to dinner a couple of weeks ago in bitterly cold, snowy Omaha.

“It’s vital to be able to communicate well,” he said. “Just being able to communicate with others on the job adds at least 50% to your value.” Apt words indeed from the man whose annual report (I would guess) is read by more people than all of the other annual reports in the world combined, and whose words have probably saved more lives than any book except the Bible.

“It’s also incredibly important to get along with people,” Buffett also said. He talked at length about his early days working with Ben Graham’s firm and how he made it a point to not only work very hard but to get along well with everyone he worked with, and still makes it a point. He spoke highly of an old standard, Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People” — a book that still teaches me and one that I consult almost every day.

I asked him about the problems of having a significant part of the labor force that has little intellectual aptitude and learns very little in schools. “For some of them,” he said, “there will be better and better tools, tools that allow even people with modest skills to do useful work.”

But when I pressed him about the segment of the population that does not really care to learn at all, such as members of violent gangs or others who just refused to learn, he sighed and said that the government would have to come up with some make-work projects for them, projects that paid a modest wage and allowed such people to have some feeling of self-esteem. (I wonder whether they would rather do those jobs than what they are doing….)

But what about people who refused to learn how to do work that is a way to convert human capital into financial capital, i.e., people who refuse to learn to do value investing? He threw up his hands. “I learned it right away when Ben Graham said it,” he said. “It was like a vaccination that just took right away. Some people can get the same shot and it doesn’t take at all. Some do get it right away.” (I am paraphrasing.)

He was kind enough to sign a copy of his famous article, “The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville,” about value investing compared with other forms of investment, “To Ben Stein, who understood this a long time ago,” and I only wish it were true.

In my case, the vaccination only works sporadically. (Buffett has also famously said that in any card game there’s always one sucker and if you don’t know who it is, it’s probably you. I do know who it is, and it’s definitely usually little me…except when it isn’t.)

The overall vibe I get from Warren Buffett, besides his astonishing kindness, mind-boggling intelligence, and perfect, self-deprecating humor, is a reminiscence of something once said by a childhood neighbor who knew Ted Williams. The great baseball player, said my neighbor, had vision so good he could see the stitches on a fastball zooming towards him. No matter how much he might try to explain to you how to do it, if you did not have the natural talent to do it, you couldn’t do it.

But what if you could have made a wager on how many home runs Williams would hit? Or what if, for a few dollars, you could have gotten a share of Ted Williams endorsements? That’s what astute people could have done with Buffett, and it was a rare opportunity.

In the meantime, value investing starts at home, with building up your own value as an earner, enough so that you can some day be a Superinvestor of your ownville.

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Google and video bandwidth reducer On2 Technologies have amended their merger agreement that was originally announced in August. At that time, the search engine said it would be acquiring the company for $166 million.

Now the deal is being revisited to address On2’s value. Since Google’s stock has gone up since August, the company will provide additional cash per share to its investors. According to Google:

Under the revised terms, each outstanding share of On2 common stock will receive 0.0010 of a share of Google Class A Common Stock for each share of On2 common stock, as previously announced by On2 and Google, plus an additional $0.15 per share in cash consideration.

There’s speculation that Google’s decision to increase its share price and final offer is motivated by the possibility of another company scooping up On2. In particular, comments on various message boards suggest that Oracle’s newly acquired Sun Microsystems and On2 could be a good fit. These speculations could be on target, especially considering that several investor groups have attempted to sue On2 after the Google acquisition was announced. They felt the company didn’t “shop around” enough for a buyer and sold at a discount.

Regardless, On2’s board of directors has approved the amended merger — since Google has made it clear this will be its final offer — and has asked its shareholders to approve the proposal during a special meeting on Feb. 17.

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After a couple of years on the market, Ford says its Sync car voice control technology has been a smash hit. Now the car company will use the system to add Wi-Fi and apps to your car.

Thanks to the new additions, you’ll be able to get everything from Mapquest driving directions to Twitter to Pandora Internet radio in your car.

Alan Mulally, chief executive of the American car maker, said in his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show that the Sync technology has been critical in the sale of Ford vehicles. In surveys, 32 percent of buyers said that Sync was important or critical in their decisions to buy a Ford vehicle. Ford hit its target of selling a million vehicles with Sync last May, Mulally said. About 81 percent of customers are satisfied with Sync and 77 percent would recommend it. Sync is a $395 option on many vehicles and is now sold on 70 percent of Ford’s new vehicle sales.

Microsoft developed Sync, working closely with Ford. Sync lets you control a car’s electronics with your voice. You can use it to dial a cell phone call with your voice. You can switch channels on a radio or change songs on an iPod with voice commands. And you can access a web browser with full Wi-Fi connectivity while the car is in park.

One of the key areas where Sync pays off, and where Ford is investing more research, is in minimizing driver distraction. In Ford’s Virttrex driving simulation center, drivers take tests on driving in Ford vehicles. With Sync, they can select a song on an iPod in 4.9 seconds and their eyes never leave the road. Changing a song on a handheld device can take 30.3 seconds and the driver’s eyes leave the road multiple times.

Among the popular features built into Sync are getting traffic information and 911 assist. Ford’s cars also have high-tech features such as blind-spot information system, cross-traffic warnings, and active park assist to make it easy to parallel park.

The good thing about Sync is it is a software platform that can be continually improved. The idea is to keep the car company moving at Silicon Valley speed, Mulally said.

The company is racing ahead with a new improved version of Sync and other dashboard changes. The new cars will have thumb wheel controls on the steering wheel and colorful LCD displays for its dashboards, dubbed myFord touch, with new touchscreen technologies and no mechanical knobs. The new Ford Edge will have myFord Touch this year, and 80 percent of models will have it in the next five years. The cars will have music jacks, universal serial bus ports, SD memory cards slots and other ways to connection electronics.

You can use the big eight-inch touchscreen to control your phone, or use your voice to do so. You can also use it to navigate, get travel data such as nearby fuel stations, check traffic or view vehicle maintenance information. Ford has its own appstore to add new apps to the Sync service. That’s how you can add apps such as Pandora, Stitcher or Twitter.

You will be able to beam in content via the Ford Service Delivery Network, with data downloads including things like Mapquest maps, local directories, sports scores and traffic information. With Mapquest, you can find directions on a computer and then send them to your car wirelessly via Sync. This “send to Sync” feature is pretty cool.

You can also use a song “tagging” feature to identify songs that you hear on the radio, and you can use Sync to record satellite radio shows and play them back when you want them. You can also send text message replies by voice, choosing from among 15 different pre-created responses.

Check out our CES 2010 coverage.

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Cool news for music geeks: Songza Media has launched a new internet radio service it is calling Songza Sets. Free to use, it organizes songs into playlists created by actual humans (”music curators” who work for Songza) — similar to the lists users compile on sites like eMusic and Amazon, only it uses them to drive new music discovery.

“There is an abundance of good music online, but a lack of high-quality music programming,” said the company’s Peter Asbill in the announcement. “With Songza Sets, we aim to offer that excellent listening experience –the kind that is original, relevant, informative, and thematic, but pleasantly unpredictable. In order to do this, we ask our curators to roll up their sleeves, filter through all the music out there, and thoughtfully create interesting programming.”

Songza’s “expert team of music curators” creates the playlists, and they’ve kicked off Sets with some interesting choices. So far, there are three categories: Mainstream Pop, American Roots, and Independent, with a total of about 34 set lists to choose from. Example playlists include Murder Ballads, Truck Driving Honky Tonk, Grunge Before Nirvana, and Independent Women. Each set list contains 12 songs. Unfortunately, you can’t preview a set list before listening, but the song choices are intriguing and the accompanying text is informative.

The user interface is also pretty snazzy, and the site, like Songza.fm itself, looks pretty Web 2.0 savvy. On the other hand, how Web 2.0 can it be if there’s no user-generated content? Songza is clearly betting on the value its “curators” will provide, but the site would arguably be more compelling if everyone could create playlists. Add that capability and Songza might successfully bring out the Pitchfork-wielding hipster contingent — a key to success these days.

Along with Songza Sets, the company is releasing a new custom radio offering called Songza Radio. The problem is that it looks a lot like Pandora. You create a new station by entering the name of an artist, and you hear tracks from other artists that have a similar style. Users also have the ability to give Songza’s choices a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. So, of the two new services, Songza Sets seems to have a more distinctive and original flair.

The company, which launched in 2007, made a statement with its smart and simple integration of streaming music from around the web, augmented with YouTube video content.  But it hasn’t garnered much market share in the years since its release. Perhaps Songza Sets and Songza Radio will make it a tougher competitor in an arena dominated by Pandora and Last.fm.

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Once upon a time, microblogging was all about simplicity. Today, even services like Posterous that started out as very simple and easy-to-use tools have begun to add more and more features. Microblogging, however, can’t get much simpler than TXT.io. The service offers nothing more than a simple text interface. No more, no less. You log in with a Google account, type your message and hit “post.”

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For users who want to do a bit more with their text (link, underline, italicize, HTML headers, etc.), TXT.io offers support for the Textile markup language.

Features? What Features?

Besides this, though, TXT.io offers almost no other features. The service, for example, doesn’t allow you to add images to a post and developers won’t find an API to add to their tools. What TXT.io does offer, however, are RSS feeds and a mobile version of the site.

TXT.io is an experiment in minimalism and won’t appeal to everybody. Indeed, “elitist microblogging” is the service’s tagline. Sometimes, though, simple tools like this are exactly what it takes to bring us back to the basics. Minimalist text editors like Ommwriter or WriteRoom, for example, are popular because they only focus on one thing and do it extremely well.

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What Google unveiled this week was not just a device, the Nexus One, but a vision for the way phones should be bought and sold.

Andy Rubin, who became Google’s mobile chief after it acquired his startup Android, said he sees a future where people buy phones the way they purchase digital cameras. They’ll do it primarily online and use the web and word of mouth to research different models, instead of in a carrier’s store and with a two-year service contract.

The way phones have been sold in the past — with a subsidized device and that pesky contract — has partially been a prison of our own making. With price expectations anchored at $200 or less, consumers balked at paying the upfront cost of a high-end phone at between $400 and 600. Apple initially tried to woo people off that model when it launched the iPhone, but the company quickly reverted to the older pricing structure.

The problem with that model is that pure competition on service quality and pricing suffers when customers are trapped in two-year contracts. It incentivizes carriers to focus on getting exclusive hardware and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on brick-and-mortar stores and expensive marketing campaigns over improving the coverage and quality of the network. The U.S. has Byzantine pricing schemes compared to other countries. Americans pay twice for every call — a charge for the caller and the receiver and sensible pay-as-you-go models common in Europe and Asia are few and far between.

Google is taking another crack at trying to break the legacy pricing model, but with baby steps. You can either buy a phone unlocked or choose a subsidized price paired with a two-year contract from a mobile operator. As of this point, only T-Mobile is on board, with Verizon coming on in the spring. With the Nexus One, Google says its keeping its sales strategy “pure and simple.” As of now, there won’t be models in physical retail stores. You’ll have to look at it on-line or have the good fortune of having a friend who has one. Although for now Google’s online store will just have the Nexus One and presumably future Nexus models, a longer-term implication is that the company could sell other types of hardware, perhaps even Chrome OS netbooks, online.

All of these moves are far from what’s needed to reshape the way we buy phones. The concept of buying unlocked phones then choosing a carrier isn’t particularly novel. It’s just that a company with the brand weight and technical expertise Google carries hasn’t done it yet with multiple carriers in tow. For it to work, enough consumers would have to vote with their dollars in Google’s store to show that’s the way they want to buy phones. The other two major carriers, AT&T and Sprint-Nextel, might need to jump in with proper monthly pricing plans for the phone as well. Or more imaginatively, if the search giant really wanted to remake the system, it could buy cellular bandwidth and offer its own data network, with Google Voice obviating the need for any traditional calling plan. Or maybe we could dream that in the distant future, it could apply its Googly “free” model and offer an ad-supported phone.

We talked to several carriers to get their thoughts. T-Mobile’s subsidized Nexus One price is a $179, with a $79.99 monthly fee. Verizon hasn’t yet to disclose its pricing details, according to the carrier’s spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. If (for whatever reason) you want to be on AT&T’s network over Verizon’s, AT&T spokesman Rolf Gatlin says Nexus One owners can buy the unlocked phone, then purchase a data plan for $30 a month, plus their choice of voice plans based on the number of minutes per month. That data plan rate is month-to-month, not a contract rate.

It’s hard to break bad habits though. The old model persists — yesterday T-Mobile said it’s getting the HD2, an HTC Windows Mobile-based phone exclusively, while AT&T said that some devices in its new slate of Android-based phones will have some exclusivity as well.

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The Arc keyboard, debuted by Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, updates the stodgy PS/2 keyboard with a slim, light, gracefully curved aesthetic. The keyboard weighs under a pound and is designed to be usable both on a desk and in your lap on the couch.

Instead of cables, the Arc comes with a tiny wireless USB adapter that stows in the keyboard’s underbelly. There’s a matching Arc mouse, too, that folds up to half its size for travel.

Best Buy has exclusive dibs on the Arc for its launch on February 21st. Best Buy’s price: $59.95 for the keyboard, $49.95 for the mouse.

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Sony announced that it will open the “Sony 3D Technology Center,” located at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, to train and nurture a community of experts in the rapidly growing market of 3D entertainment. The announcement was made today at the Consumer Electronics Show by Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman, CEO and President of Sony Corporation. The new center will offer professionals from across the industry a hands-on opportunity to learn more about the techniques and equipment used to create top-quality 3D productions of all kinds – including sports, movies, television and games. The center will also feature Sony’s top-of-the-line business and professional products, which are widely used in capturing, manipulating and displaying 3D productions.

“Our mission is to support the spread of high quality 3D throughout the marketplace,” said Chris Cookson, President of Sony Pictures Technologies, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Chief Officer of the Sony 3D Technology Center, Sony Corporation of America. “Modern technologies and techniques can create much more natural and realistic 3D than most people had experienced in years past, so we have an interest in helping the industry as a whole seize this opportunity to give audiences really great 3D experiences. People must reliably and consistently be able to enjoy what is presented in 3D for it to gain acceptance in the long term.”

“Making 3D is easy, but making good 3D is hard,” said Buzz Hays, Senior Vice President of the Sony 3D Technology Center, Sony Corporation of America. “I’ve had the pleasure of making 3D movies with Hollywood’s true pioneers over the last five years, and I am excited to dedicate my time fully to sharing what we’ve learned as this medium makes its way toward primetime.”

Sony Pictures Digital Productions studio Imageworks has been a leader in both 3D animation and live-action 3D conversion. Imageworks has produced more recent 3D movies than any other studio. Sony Pictures Releasing International has released multiple 3D films for the studio including Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s September 2009 3D release of “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” which has earned more than $200 million dollars to date in worldwide box office ticket sales.

The 3D Technology Center is scheduled to open in February 2010.

Weighing less then a pound, the Arc Keyboard practically floats on your lap. The designers created this with the intention of having it blend in with your other household items. It’s design is taken particularly from light fixtures and flatware. With the a domed shape, it should rest comfortably on one’s lap. This is a gold star for minimalist design. Available at Best Buy starting in February for  $59.95. Details here.

One of my favorite features of the Palm Pre is the Touchstone that wirelessly charges the phone. Powermat joined this wireless charging revolution with some basic products last year, but is poised to do far more in 2010. At the Digital Experience mini-show, I spent time looking at where the company is heading.

The original Powermat only supported the charging of a few devices like the Apple iPod and iPhone and a few BlackBerry handsets. New this year is support for many more devices thanks to custom sleeves. But Powermat is also starting to manufacture device batteries with standard-looking covers. For example, I saw a Samsung phone that looked “stock” from Samsung. However, the back battery cover and the battery was made by Powermat, even though you couldn’t tell. So it looks like the same phone that would have a standard Samsung battery, but it can be charged through a Powermat. Very slick and a smart business move. The company is working with OEMs to offer such a solution out of the box.

The newest Powermat models look far sleeker and industrial than the originals. And there are more options. What used to be one single mat to charge up to three devices is now available in models for one, two or three devices. Powermat figures that customers might want several variations around the house, so they can simply drop their devices on the mats as they move around. And the three-device charger ($99) can now be folded up for better portability.

Most impressive to me was the new Powermat option that can actually charge a netbook. Although it requires a wired brick on the mat (see above), it looks far easier than struggling under a desk to find an outlet to plug in. Powermat expects this to work with all of the “major netbook brands.”