Yesterday, at Google I/O, Google announced the latest extension of its empire, Google TV.

This technology could potentially revolutionize television, as it opens the door to many possibilities by  implementing the web into your TV screen with just a simple “Box.”

For a myriad of information on this new technology, make sure to stop by here.

We’ve been pretty slow on keeping you all up-to-date recently, so a quick apology for that. There are some big things in the works for later on this year and I’m working hard to get these new features up-and-running. Now back to the news:

• Apple updated its desktop line today, bring hardware updates to the Mac mini (long overdue), iMac, and Mac Pro. Most of these updates deal with detailed specifications on hardware (processor, hard drive, graphics, etc), so check out Apple.com for all the details.
• Amazon launched the “Kindle for iPhone” application yesterday, bringing almost all the features of a $359 device for FREE. Users cannot purchase books directly from the app and subscriptions are not automatically updated, but users can get their full Kindle library on the device and purchase books via the Safari Mobile browser on the phone and get them directly on the device. Basically, users have a fully loaded Kindle (without subscriptions and the controversial text-to-speech features) on the iPhone, something almost everyone has been waiting for.

So that’s the news everybody. Again, apologies for being pretty slow recently, but we’re working on big things, so stay tuned.

This year marks my third for attending the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.  As a few of you might already know, my father is the almighty Yahya Ahdout, the owner and CEO of dreamGEAR, a video game/iPod accessory and speaker producer and distributor, and he is my ticket into this amazing show.  You can find his wonderful products at many places including your local Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Blockbuster.  One of his latest items is the Warbeast Guitar Controller for all Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Rock Revolution games on PS2/PS3. But, enough of that, lets get to the good stuff.  I will be at the show for its entirety, and I will constantly be blogging and posting every interesting thing that I find.  Like Engadget and Gizmodo, we will be posting about the biggest announcements by all the different companies, but I will also use my time to go around the smaller booths and post about the pretty cool things that everyone forgets about.  As I roam from hall to hall and booth to booth, I will be accompanied by a very good friend of mine, Michael York, who is getting his new blog off the floor, and will be working in compliance with us at blargKABOOM.

Finally, the things I will be bringing with myself on my journey:
Canon EOS 30D – To snap pictures of everything for all you guys to see!
Asus eee 901 – For blogging on the go while on the show floor.
Apple iPhone 3G – For constant tethering, and music on the go. As it is also of course my telephone.
MacBook Pro – Yes, mine is in fact the first generation model, but it will be my home-base for posting in the hotel room. 

And also, a little background for those of you who do not know what CES is; ah god im too lazy, just read about it on Wikipedia here!

So which fact is more important, Jobs not delivering the keynote or Apple ditching MacWorld? We’re gonna go ahead and say the real news is Jobs not delivering the keynote. So, is this the end of Steve Jobs? Doubtful, but more likely it’s the start of a transition phase. The transition from Steve Jobs the high holy God of Apple – to – Jobs, Schiller, and Cook: the executive team. Who is this Cook? Well, Tim Cook is Apple’s COO and delivered the “State of the Mac” to start off this October’s notebook event. According to many articles, Cook is the cheese to Jobs’ macaroni (yes, a Juno reference), he is more numbers based while Jobs is more “boom” and “wow” based. But back to point: this switch doesn’t represent Jobs’ retirement, just a transition. If this was his retirement there would probably be a big show with Jobs himself (not a sidekick) handing over the reigns.

But what about another theory: does Jobs just have nothing to present? Doubtful, if there was nothing, Jobs would spin it as something. Remember, we’re talking about a man who could turn water into wine.

The keynote will take place January 6 starting at 10:00 am, until then: let the rumor mill keep on spinning. But one thing is for sure: things will never be the same.

Unless you’ve been sitting under a rock for the past year, you’ve probably heard of Flip Video. Pure Digital, the company behind the Flip Video lineup, has been selling their budget camcorders like hot cakes to the YouTube crowd and everyone else shooting video on the spot. Earlier this year, they released the Mino, a thinner more compact camcorder to counteract new contenders in the market. However, Kodak and other companies are selling new budget HD camcorders, making it more competitive. Thus we have the MinoHD. Just released yesterday, this new model records 720p HD video, unlike previous model’s VGA quality. Besides this addition, the software included for sharing to YouTube and other places around the web has been vastly improved. The product, along with the original Mino, can be customizable with personal images on the front. Retailing at $230, however, is a tad pricey; though the company’s great repuation allows the price. Early reviews tell us that the product is impressive.

via Engadget

via Gizmodo

TiVo is easily the most popular DVR around the country and for those TiVo users with the TiVo HD, HD XL, and Series3 models, you are about to get a welcome addition to your TiVo: Netflix streaming. Similar to the current streaming offered by the Roku box and other services, the service offers Netflix subscribers “all you can eat” access to over 12,000 movies and TV shows streamed over the internet. The rollout of Netflix has already begun through a beta program, but the official rollout is planned for mid-December.

via the Crave blog

In the beginning of this month, Microsoft launched a new $300 million ad campaign designed to start combatting back against the ever-so-popular “Get a Mac” ads and the increase in Mac popularity. Their first attempt grabbed funny man Jerry Seinfeld along with Chairman Billy G to give Microsoft a more amicable and personal feel. The ads weren’t really successful and most people didn’t relate the ads to Microsoft and didn’t get the point. Only two Seinfeld/Gates ads aired, the first about Bill Gates getting shoes at a discount shoe store, the second about the two living with the average family. Well, the second phase of that ad campaign has begun and Microsoft has kicked Seinfeld out and switched to a larger campaign to attack the “Get a Mac” ads more literally. Featuring a John Hodgeman (PC in the Mac ads) look-a-like starting the ad by him saying “Hi, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype,” and then the ad continues with a large amount of people all saying “I’m a PC” or something of the sort. This second campaign aired tonight during The Office and will, hopefully for Microsoft, be successful. Check out the ad after the jump.Click here to view the embedded video.

Yesterday, Dell popped out a netbook of its own to jump on the bandwagon made popular by the Asus Eee PC as well as other small notebooks. The Inspiron Mini 9 has an 8.9 inch screen and rocks a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor with either 512MB of RAM or 1GB depending on which model you spring for. There are two Windows XP models and there’s even an Ubuntu Linux version. The Linux version has a 4GB solid-state drive (SSD) and 512MB of memory, but includes 2GB of free internet storage from Box.net, that model retails for a cool $349. Next is a Windows XP model with the same 512MB of RAM but includes an 8GB SSD and retails for $399. Last up is another XP model, except this one not only has a memory boost to 1GB of RAM, but also brings up the storage space to 16GB (still using a SSD) and retails for $449. However, Dell is running a promotion until 6 am (central time) September 9 where if you are ordering another Dell computer (either the Studio 15, XPS M1530 or XPS M1330), you can get the Mini 9 for just $99.

Remember around two months ago when Ryan Block, former editor-in-chief and current editor-at-large of Engadget, announced his resignation from Engadget and that he and Peter Rojas (founder of Engadget and Gizmodo) would be starting a new gadget-focused online site. Well, say hello to “gdgt” (prounced g-d-g-t). gdgt is their new consumer electronics site that they have been preparing for months. The site hasn’t launched yet, but they have released gdgt weekly (iTunes link)–a podcast featuring the dynamic duo similar to the style of the old Engadget Podcast. The first edition is around an hour long and overviews what has happened in technology throughout the past year. Personally, I can’t wait to see more from these two guys and am pumped for the launch of gdgt.

Well the invitations have been sent, there is an Apple event on September 9th just as rumored. It looks like iPods will be the name of the game, considering there is always an iPod refresh around this time (and the invitation is definitely the iPod style.) Hoepfully, Steve will throw in some new notebooks in the “one more thing…” I guess we’ll all see soon. September 9th, 10:00 am, get ready.

Google is a pretty busy company. Not only does it run the largest search engine in the world, but it also has Gmail, YouTube, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Maps, and even its own 411 service. But that accounts for a tiny percentage of the services Google offers. Well, you can add a web browser to that list. Google Chrome is the latest innovation from Google, and it aims to give you the best browsing experience yet. Chrome is a web browser based on WebKit, the same basis for Apple’s Safari web browser. Offering users a newer, easier tabbed interface that saves memory and makes the browser faster, Google Chrome looks like it could be a great browser. The beta version will be released for Windows tomorrow with Mac OS X and Linux following soon. To give a simple explanation of the browser, Google has released a comic book to explain it all.

via MacRumors

After weeks of speculation, Palm has launched the new Treo Pro. Probably one of the best Treo’s ever, combining the small, sleek design of the Centro with the more business friendly atmosphere of the Treo 800w, the Treo Pro has a few tricks up its sleeve. Not only does it have WiFi, but GPS as well (a first for Windows Mobile Treo’s) and the phone has 3G capability. Probably the least redeeming aspect of the device is its Windows Mobile interface, which isn’t a personal favorite. No US carrier has picked it up yet, so it’ll run you about $549.99 unlocked, but Vodafone and O2 have the device abroad for around €399 w/ a contract. The new smartphone definitely looks like it could be one of the best Treo’s yet, now lets hope that a US carrier picks it up and lowers that hefty price.

Rumors have been spreading out around numerous websites that the iPhone 3G will get a (RED) makeover just in time for the holidays.  Could it also be joined by a 32GB upgrade for the iPhone 3G and a 64GB upgrade for the iPod Touch?

Photo Courtesy of http://www.macblogz.com

While configuring the HP Blackbird 002 on HP’s website, I noticed that the unreleased, unannounced NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT was an option in configuring the Blackbird 002.  The card supposedly has 512MB GDDR3 of SDRAM, but no other information about the card is listed.  Maybe it could just be a stupid mistake and the card is really the 9800 GTX? Is anyone brave enough to drop $2299 for one of these badboys to get more info on the card? 

Check it out for yourself here.

Update: It seems Dell has joined the party: Link

Around three years ago, Art Lebedev studios started talking about making a fully customizable keyboard, complete with displays under each key. Not until the beginning of this year did they actually release that full keyboard, the Optimus Maximus, and for a hefty price of almost $2000 ($1877.43 to be exact). The keyboard has 113 keys with OLED screens inside of them, each fully customizable to display anything the user wants. You can trigger a certain key to open an application, display a certain image when a certain application is open, you can make it do anything–it is completely customizable through a computer software. Before Art Lebedev released the Maxiums, they teased us with the Optimus mini three: basically the same thing, except instead of 113 keys, it only has (you guessed it) three. The mini three is only $183.48, however, which is a much easier buy than the Maximus. Now Art Lebedev has added another product to the line – the Optimus Pultius. Little information is known currently, and all we do know is that it has 15 of the same customizable keys and works alongside any keyboard. Pricing is unknown and the only dates given are end of 2008/early 2009. Hopefully, they’ll let this bad boy have a relatively small price tag–my best guess is around $400–because a set of customizable keys like this is exactly what a lot of users are looking for.

Apple has had some big days this past week with MobileMe’s launch (no matter how inconsistent it was), iPhone 2.0 and the App Store going live early, and of course iPhone 3G’s launch (even with those pesky activation problems). Apple’s announcement today proves how big this weekend really was: they sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs this past weekend (Friday to Sunday) and over 10 million applications were downloaded from the App Store (now containing over 800 applications). Apple only sold 250,000 phones for the original iPhone’s launch, however that was only in the US and this was in 21 countries. But it took Apple a total of 74 days to sell 1 million iPhones the first time around, so there could be arguments about which launch sold more (we’ll need US statistics to make a true comparison). Considering some stores still have lines now, iPhone 3G must be doing fantastically well.

After a delay that bumped up the transition from 6 pm to 8 pm and countless hours of waiting, MobileMe is finally up and running. Apple gained some time by launching the App Store, but they still were late in MobileMe delivery. The service which is replacing .Mac, which went offline (except for getting and sending Mail) at around 9:14 pm, offers push email, contacts, and calendar, as well as giving users most of the same .Mac features with a storage upgrade to 20GB of space. Me.com email addresses have been working for a few days and now the service is officially working. www.me.com is the web portal which offers desktop like contact, email, and calendar applications and you can read the MobileMe setup guide for how to get it up and running on your computer. The service is $99 per year for a single account and $149 for a family account, however current .Mac users will be automatically converted over to MobileMe. One fact of note, current .Mac customers will keep their @mac.com email address as well, so don’t worry about sending mass emails to everyone in your contacts to let them know you’ve changed your email.

UPDATE – MobileMe is currently back offline.

UPDATE 2 – MobileMe is back online, but it’s been going on and off frequently pretty recently, so we’ll see if this stays.

UPDATE 3 – Back down again.

UPDATE 4 – MobileMe is online for good now, so prepare for the all the push goodness you can get.

Just in time for the (supposed) launch of MobileMe, Apple has released iTunes 7.7. This latest version of iTunes is required for not only MobileMe, but iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 firmware, and the App Store as well. Apple’s description of this update is:

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.

So that yet again confirms the free Remote application for iPhone and iPod touch users from the App Store, at least when firmware 2.0 is released.

The ‘Applications’ tab was also added in this version of iTunes, making us even more desperate for the App Store and it’s precious apps.

• Both David Pogue and Stuff.tv added video reviews of iPhone 3G today, now offering a total of 4 video reviews of the latest iPhone. Also, The Boy Genius Report added an unboxing video of the phone after releasing a set of pictures yesterday.
• Both the NY Times and USA Today released articles about the App Store tonight, giving us new numbers and apps to look at. Both papers spoke to Steve Jobs and according to him, the App Store will launch with 500 applications on Thursday (coinciding with New Zealand’s iPhone 3G) and 25% of those apps will be free, while a third of the apps are games. Also confirmed through the articles and images are applications from MySpace, Facebook, AOL, eBay, Pandora, and more will be available. For some pictures and videos of the apps, check out NY Times and USA Today. Apps like Tap Tap Revenge and Twinkle should look familiar as they are based off of apps from the Installer.app.
• A video of AT&T employees bring iPhone 3G boxes from the trucks to the store shelves and locking them up reveals to facts: the white iPhone 3G will be available at AT&T stores, contrary to previous rumors, and the white version will come in a white box.

Apple has updated the .Mac service status to show that they have delayed .Mac’s death from 6 pm to 8 pm. Going hand-in-hand, Apple has also delayed the launch of MobileMe from 6 pm – 12 am to 8 pm – 2 am.

Apple’s service status for .Mac was updated tonight to include details about MobileMe’s launch. The service, the replacement to .Mac, will offer most current features of .Mac as well as ‘push’ calendar, mail, and contacts support; Apple’s tag line for the product is “Exchange for the rest of us.” .Mac will be shut down at 6 pm pacific time on Wednesday, July 9th and all services (except for .Mac Mail, which will be available on any desktop client, iPhone or iPod touch) will be offline. The MobileMe service will “be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window” and they give 6 pm – 12 am pacific time as the launch timeframe. Current .Mac customers will be automatically upgraded during the MobileMe launch.

Apple chopped $500 off the price of the MacBook Air with SSD (solid-state drive). The price drop was not even mentioned on Apple’s home page. The $500 drop, bringing the better Air to a new $2,598, is due to a $100 decrease in the price of the 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo chip and a $400 drop of the 64GB SSD. Considering the laptop now has a price tag below $3000, it won’t look as scary as it did before and should attract new users.

So, for all of you PC enthusiasts out there who wanted a drive that performs like the velociraptor, but has more space and is cheaper, you shall wait no more.  Although Western Digital announced this drive about a month ago, this drive was nowhere to be bought.  As soon as benchmarks are made, they will be posted.  This drive comes in 750gb ($200.00) and 1TB ($250.00) flavors.  This drive is 7200rpm, but it is the fastest 1TB 7200rpm drive……EVER!  Get it before it sells out, because it is only for sale here.

With iPhone 3G launch date getting closer, AT&T decided to give us even more information to chew on. Not only have they given us the plan information (detailed after the break, but we now know that AT&T’s doors will swing open at 8:00 am on July 11th for iPhone 3G customers. Besides that nice tidbit of information, the plans shown below show a definite price hike up since iPhone original. Information to note: plans do NOT include SMS messages, so look at the SMS plans for pricing (they raised the price of the 1500 SMS messages a month plan by $5). Besides the full voice and data plans listed below, AT&T will offer a $30 data plan similar to the current $20 plan offered. SMS messages will not be included in that plan as well. Also, to access the full capability of Exchange service, users must have the Enterprise Data plan which is an extra $15 a month. Besides announcing the plans, AT&T gave details on upgrades, pricing, and related details. Those eligible for an upgrade pricing ($199 and $299) include: “new customers, current postpaid iPhone customers in good standing prior to July 11, and AT&T non-iPhone customers who are currently eligible for an upgrade discount.” Those ineligible for upgrade pricing will put up $399 and $499 for the 8GB and 16GB models, respectively. Activation fees for upgrades are $18, while activation fees for non-AT&T customers will be the normal $36. Lastly, those looking for a unlocked, no contract iPhone will pay $599 and $699. Apparently, that unlocked pricing is more expensive than just buying the phone with the cheapest service, paying the upgrade fee, and then canceling the service. Click the read more link to view the plan pricing.