Walking With Dinosaurs

This looks to be the big show of the weekend here in the Bay Area, with big crowds showing up all over the country.
The "Walking With Dinosaurs" show is selling out arenas .. I just pulled up a random YouTube clip of the show, and aw that it had been viewed nearly half a million times.

So, how do they do it?
Today, we get a look behind the scenes, at how it's put together, and how they make the dinosaurs look so realistic.

We'll bring you the story tonight at 5 & 6 o'clock ..

Also, a note about a post from earlier thsi week .. thank you to all of you who have responded to the note about the Church in Hayward facing foreclosure because of mortgage problems. We've seen a lot of comments, and the Church says people are already talking to them about possibly giving them some help. We'll keep you posted, but hopefully the Church (and its congregants) will be able to breathe a little easier soon.

Shopping, The Day After

I just got back from the mall, and this time the mood of shoppers seemed to be a lot more relaxed than the last couple of times we went.

Lots of exchanges, yes, but even more people seemed to be taking advantage of low prices, and deals by stores to try and clear out inventory. You've probably read about retailers struggling a bit this holiday season. The one we spoke to say it really depends what you sell: Technology items, for example, flew off the shelves .. this has been a blockbuster season for gadgets - proof that what comes out of the Silicon Valley is in high demand.

Also, online sales came in well. Amazon.com says this has been its best Christmas season in the 13 years it's been in business. As someone who personally helped that along by shopping online, I'm not surprised. It's easy, convenient, and a way to save time.

Hope you got what you wanted .. or are out getting it right now.

A Church In Need

We steer away from technology for a day, because there's a Church in the Bay Area in serious need of financial help.

The Upper Room Church in Hayward, featured on tonight's 5 & 6 o'clock news broadcast, is facing what many homeowners are facing: The threat of closure, because of a mortgage it cannot pay.

Congrgants have done what they can, but many of them are also feeling tough times, and the Church needs to reach out to other sources for help. They didn't ask us, but we're going to do what we can anyway. if you might have seen the story, or perhaps know someone in the Church and would like to help, here's a phone number: 510-586-7745.
It belongs to Youth Pastor Tammy Rodriguez. Ask for her, and she'll do the rest.

They seem like nice people, facing a tough time at should be a happy time of year.

Free Phone Calls!

Who wouldn't want to call anywhere in the world for pennies?
It's the promise of Voice Over Internet Telephony, or VOIP.
But VOIP scares a lot of people, what with the need for internet connections, head sets, and other gear.

Now, a multi-national startup, based here in the Silicon Valley, wants to change that.
Jajah uses the power of the 'net to send your phone calls .. for pennies on the dollar, all over the world. But you don't have to have any extra gear.. you don't even need a computer.

You can even give the service a try for free on Christmas eve or Christmas day .. the company really wants your business.

It's a www.jajah.com, if you're interested.

If you try it, let me know what you think.

Last Minute Shopping?

Tonight at 5 & 6, our focus is last-minute shopping.
Where can you find that Wii?
The HDTV?
Still time to ship presents from dot com retail stores? Etc, etc, etc.

We'll check in with representatives from Santana Row, and Best Buy, to find out what you have to do to still find what you're looking for.

A tip? Try a website called Retrevo (www.retrevo.com)
This site will match you and the product you're looking for, making last minute shopping much faster.

Best of luck.

The Oracle Play

Just a though here, in the midst of a fairly busy day for technology stocks ..
Oracle not only came out about 90 minutes ago with blowout quarterly earnings (sales up, profit higher, well above Wall Street expectations...), and it has me thinking ..

This is one of the few earning reports we've seen in some time that has not mentioned either oil prices, or mortgage concerns.

Could it be that Oracle, a bellweather stock in the tech world is becoming a place of safety for investors? Could tech stocks, long the home of risk-loving investors, be the one place to put your money free from credit and mortgage concerns?

Could be .. recession concerns? Probably not.
But watch Oracle tomorrow, and see if investors decide to buy up some other tech stocks, while they're concerned about all those risky financials.

Consumers Unite

I could use your help on this one ..
The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is coming.
CES has become the biggest technology showcase in the US, and this year promises to be bigger than ever.

The trends on the show floor, if my 347 (so far) e-mail pitches are any indication, will be focused largely on what you can do with wireless devices, how big your next HD TV can be, and how entertainment of just about every kind is coming to your home.

So .. hundreds of companies, pitching thousands of devices. I'd love to hear if you have any preferences as to what we focus on. This blog has gotten a lot of feedback lately, so thanks for that. You can always e-mail me at scott.budman@nbc.com

The big show is coming .. what do you want to see?

Your Last Chance

If you haven't bought your gifts yet, we've got some technology that can help.
The big retail websites like Amazon and BestBuy will tell you that if your gift absolutely positively has to make it under the tree by December 24th, you'd better hurry.

If you're still undecided about what to buy, or where you can find it (Wii shoppers, for instance), here's a site you may not know yet .. www.shoppingvale.com

This is a Silicon Valley startup that works to track down what you want, to simplify your web shopping experience. To be honest, given the technology available on most big websites these days, we're not sure this kind of thing is necessary, but I tried it for even a few minutes, and it really is convenient.

At this point, that alone counts as a winner. If you still have to shop -and you're reading this in front of a computer, anyway- give it a shot, and let me know if it helped you.

The Bamboo Computer

I've seen a lot of ways technology companies are trying to help the environment .. but this one may take the prize: A laptop computer, made out of bamboo.

Specifically, the casing on the new Asus laptop is made of bamboo. That's an environmental benefit, for sure, but the company doesn't stop there. It also uses logic chips inside, to regulate the amount of power the computer needs. If you're playing a high-graphic video game, it'll use a lot of energy, but if you're merely word processing, it'll use less energy.

But bamboo? We'll show you how well this looks, and works, tonight at 5 & 6.

Mixed Messages

This one of those times where it pays to be long-term .. investing, planning, you name it. Try to play any part of our economy day by day, and you'll go crazy, or at least get a headache from your feeling of vertigo.

Just this morning .. news that Alliance Title may close some of its offices (I've got calls into Alliance, and will have more by newstime...) because of the mortgage crunch; Palm Computing is laying off; inflation is on the rise; the stock market falling again.

We also hear that the biggest fear economists had -that shoppers would stay away from retail stores this holiday season- was way off. Waaaay off. Turns out shoppers did their thing again, and retail sales numbers are higher than they've been for six months. Also out today .. fewer people are filing for unemployment insurance.

So .. why the pessimism? I'll admit, it's easy to see high gas prices, credit problems, and a fluctuating stock market and get queasy. But if the recent numbers are true .. most people have jobs, and enough money to buy Christmas presents.

And that's good news .. if you feel a headache coming on, maybe it's best to think long-term.

Ampex: Tale of the Tape

I have a personal interest in Ampex, the sound and video pioneer based in Redwood City. About a year and a half ago, I worked to put together a documentary on sound recording that featured the history of (and many engineers from) Ampex.

If interested, you can see it here:
http://www.nbc11.com/soundman/index.html

That said, Ampex was recently left for dead. It wasn't the first time. The company is really nothing like the innovation machine it once was. But a couple of years ago, it was back to making money, largely from patent settlements because it invented so much.

Just a couple of weeks ago, though, Ampex tumbled again, admitting that it may not have enough cash to continue operations. That sent its stock price all the way down to $1.39. Things looked dire.

But this week, without any news hitting the wire, Ampex stock is on fire again, all the way up to $7.00 today. Not sure why, but this company is once again becoming an interesting Silicon Valley story.

We'll follow it, and keep you posted.

Dude, You Got A Touchscreen!

I got to play with the new, soon-to-be-released Dell touch screen laptop yesterday.

It's one of those products that really doesn't need a long-term test to realize that it's going to make a lot of young surfers happy, but it's not perfect. Just talking about a laptop that you can touch instead of using a mouse or stylus pen, the young people in the newsroom pointed out that after using their iPhones and iPod touches, they expect to be able to touch their PC screens.

That's the market Dell wants. The company has seen its market share, and stock price, wither as Apple and HP come up with hip high-tech products young people want. Apple has the iPod and iPhone, HP has Jay-Z, and Dell.....?

Maybe the laptop "touch" will bring people back into the Dell fold. It certainly works, and is pretty easy to learn, even for a long-time mouse user like myself. Revolutionary? I think not. But it's cool, and will likely get better as the years go on.

You'll be able to give it a try at the end of the year .. it starts at $2500.

Government vs. Tech

A new bill, aiming at child pornography. A good idea, for sure. But I quote some of the text here for you ..

Anyone providing an "electronic communication service" or "remote computing service" to the public who learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain illegal activities or an illegal image must (a) register their name, mailing address, phone number, and fax number with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's "CyberTipline" and (b) "make a report" to the CyberTipline that (c) must include any information about the person or Internet address behind the suspect activity and (d) the illegal images themselves.

The key here is the "anyone..." because we're clearly talking about WiFi .. if "anyone" providing a "communication service" is liable, then your local coffee shop, your home, even Google could be a criminal...not to mention your ISP.

The bill, which passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives, somehow misses how much WiFi is out there, and how there's really no way to tell just what is being sent over those waves.

I'm all for targeting those who traffic in child porn .. but this bill will not effectively do that, I'm afraid .. it will probably just make a lot of technology companies, and users, nervous.

To The Moon!

We all know where Google is putting a lot of its money .. cell phone ads, web ads, web TV, and social networking.

You may not know that Google is also funding the latest space race. The company's 30 million dollar funding of the so-called "X-Prize" is already inspiring the newest generation of would-be moon travellers .. some of whom we met today. As a life-long fan of the space program, I must say that this was very cool.

The company called "Odyssey Moon" wants desperately to win Google's 30 million. Not because it would cover the moon mission (it won't), but because being out front of what's being (seriously) called "Moon 2.0" could be a huge deal .. both financially and socially.

Odyssey Moon wants nothing less than to conquer the surface of the moon, so that you (or at least your kids) can someday visit, even do business on the lunar surface. It's a crazy idea, but the founders themselves admit to being crazy .. and after all, here in the Silicon Valley, we know that's typically step one to coming up with the next big thing.

We've gone there before .. the next trip to the moon could be even more ambitious. Stay tuned.

Parents Just Don't Understand

Video game ratings have been out for years. If you're a parent, they warn you about games like "Manhunt 2" or "Grand Theft Auto." They're not for your young children, no matter how much fun they are.

Problem? Parents, according to the National Institute on Media, are not paying attention to the video game ratings. They're posted, just like on movies, but they're apparently not being noticed, and noted.

It's an interesting study out today .. not blaming the game makers themselves, but rather putting the onus on parents to pay attention to what their kids are playing. If a game is marked "Mature" or "Adults only," it means just that. Lots of violence, some language, and mature themes. Just like in the movies.

We'll have more on the study tonight at 5 & 6.

In "Sync"

We all talk to our cars .. now, technology has made it possible for the car to actually respond.

Tell it where you want to go, and your car will automatically punch up a GPS map.
Tell it what music you feel like listening to, and it will find the artist and song to play for you.
Want to talk on the phone? Tell your car, and it will set up a hands-free, blue tooth phone call for you, as you drive.

I'm writing about Sync, the new software Microsoft has made for cars .. starting largely in Ford models, but likely to catch on all over the place. It's convenient, it's safe, and it's pretty cool.

We'll take you for a ride in a sync-powered car tonight at 5 & 6 .. early impressions are good, I must say. I, like a lot of people, have a lot of gadgets with me in the car (MP3 player, cell phone, GPS) that I know I shouldn't concentrate on. Sync make it possible to focus more on the road, and less on the gadget.

If you're in the market for a car, check it out, and let us know what you think.