CES 2008: Four web sites worth a visit

The Consumer Electronics Show has become a showcase for content as well as hardware, and more exhibitors are featuring electronics-related websites. Here are four intriguing sites I learned about while browsing the exhibit booths last night—two that help you buy gear and two that help you share the content you create on your gear.

The tagline for Retrevo.com is "matching people and electronics." The site offers category overviews and product pricing summaries in real time. But its real distinction lies in capabilities built on computer algorithms. Retrevo crawls the Net to gather features data on products, which it then analyzes against a list of possible features, each assigned an importance level. It rolls those together with price data to assign a value score to each product. You can view a list or a rather complex "value map" reflecting Retrevo's judgment of the best-to-worst values in the product type you're seeking. The site also offers handy content for products you already own, including searchable manufacturers' manuals and tips on using the gear from users and expert sources.

When it comes to finding out how easy it is to use a cellphone, there's no substitute for actually holding the thing in your hand and trying it out, as we recommend in our advice on buying a phone. But tryphone.com offers the next best thing: a virtual, actual-sized version of the phone with menus and buttons you can explore by pressing your computer mouse. For now, there are only 10 phones up on the site, including the iPhone, the Blackberry Pearl, and the Samsung Juke, but tryphone says it will add three more phones a week until the site boasts hundreds. This site might be worth a visit even if you already own one of the listed phones, because there are tips on how to use them.

While there are plenty of sites for sharing and storing your photos, there are few or no such services for home videos. Motionbox.com fills that gap. There's a free service that's limited to 300 MB, a capacity you can quickly exhaust if you're a true camcorder auteur. A premium version, which costs $29.99 a year, offers unlimited capacity and the ability to download your videos in full resolution. Either service allows you to order Motionbooks, 3.5-by-2-inch flip books that animate a 15-second video clip of your choice. They're $8.99 apiece.

Finally, there's eJamming.com, a site for musicians that made a high-profile debut during yesterday's CES keynote address by Paul Otellini, the CEO of semiconductor giant Intel. The popular band Smash Mouth used this site to play together although each musician was at a different location in Las Vegas and the singer was on-stage with Otellini. The performance seemed flawless.

You can view the keynote address and performance via the CES Web site, www.cesweb.org/about_ces/multimedia.asp (scroll through the "playlist" of videos on the right) and via Intel's CES-related Web site, http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/ces2008/index.htm?iid=pr1_marqmain_ces2008 (scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link to the online video.).

To replicate the way musicians settle into a groove in a room, each adjusting their timing to that of their colleagues, eJamming's software analyzes the time delay, measured in milliseconds, among the players and adjusts it as needed. The site, which is free, allows you to post a recording of your playing and to solicit musical partners. Spokesmen say the site already has over 10,000 users and has been responsible for bringing together musicians from disparate countries to, er, e-jam together.

—Paul Reynolds