5 hot electronics gifts flagged by Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll

Electronics are again at the top of a lot of gift lists for the coming holiday season, according to the results of a Consumer Reports Holiday Shopping Poll released this week.

Here, are the five hottest electronics gifts, listed in order of respondents’ intentions to give them. I’ve added some reasons why they’re hot at the moment and, for some, details on the kind of people who are buying them:

• Video games and accessories. Planned as gifts by 28 percent of respondents. In a year where many people plan to cut back, as other survey data underlines, these are gifts that cost a lot less than most hardware. Nearly half of households with kids under 12 are planning such purchases, but so are nearly a quarter of homes with no such youngsters—underlining that games and extra Wii nunchucks aren’t just being bought for kids anymore. It helps that some of the hottest game titles of the year appeal equally to young and old players—notably Beatles Rock Band.

• Video-game consoles. Planned as gifts by 14 percent of respondents, including 25 percent of homes with kids under 12. With no new versions of consoles out this year, and the economy softening, prices have dropped for most brands. Also, after two seasons in which getting a Nintendo Wii consoles required military-level planning, the promise of its wider availability may be prompting some Wii holdouts to plan a purchase. (See our video buying guide for game consoles.)

U2 concert to stream live on YouTube

I recently attended a U2 show at Giants Stadium, and was excited to learn that this Sunday, October 25th, U2 plans to stream their final tour stop, live on YouTube for free. With 96,000 tickets sold to the Pasadena Rose Bowl show in California, this is expected to be largest concert ever streamed online.

This will be another first for U2 who produced the first concert performance to be shot in 3D for a theatrically released film.

Paul McGuinness, U2's manager tells of U2's desire to share their music across the Internet:

'The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time. As we're filming the LA show, it's the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2—this time U2 can go to them, globally.'

The show starts at 8:30 Pacific time and can be found at: http://youtube/u2official

So fire up your computers, Internet connected televisions or Apple TVs and enjoy the free show. —Dirk Klingner

Pandora does not care if your friends don't like Britney Spears

Pandora claims to have a single mission: "To play only music you'll love." For those of you not familiar with Pandora, it acts as a personal, customized radio station that with input from the user, works to play music customized to the listener's tastes. The New York Times recently published a piece titled "The Song Decoders" that looks at how the musicologists and computer scientists at Pandora work behind the scenes to make sure the music you hear on your personal Pandora stations is to your liking.

These musicologists break out hundreds of data points for each song, but ignore the one factor that is a mainstay of so many other music discovery sites: Popularity. When the cultural influence of your peers and the music taste-makers is removed from the equation, you may be surprised at what you actually like.

In the New York Times article, Pandora's founder Tim Westergren relays an anecdote that explains the implications of removing popularity from computer music discovery algorithms. 

...a Pandora user who wrote in to complain that he started a station based on the music of Sarah McLachlan, and the service served up a Celine Dion song. “I wrote back and said, ‘Was the music just wrong?’ Because we sometimes have data errors,” he recounts. “He said, ‘Well, no, it was the right sort of thing — but it was Celine Dion.’ I said, ‘Well, was it the set, did it not flow in the set?’ He said, ‘No, it kind of worked — but it’s Celine Dion.’ We had a couple more back-and-forths, and finally his last e-mail to me was: ‘Oh, my God, I like Celine Dion.’ ”

So if you have not tried Pandora yet it may be worth a spin, especially since a growing number of TVs and Blu-ray players are now built to stream it. (See "Internet TVs get more streaming options" and our post on new features for Blu-ray players.) Pandora's innovative approach to decoding songs may have applications in other data decoding areas in the future. And don't worry, no one will tell your friends if—against all odds—you wind up actually liking Britney Spears. —Dirk Klingner

Extra Extra: Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide is on sale

(Click to enlarge.)

It may be a tad early to start your holiday shopping, but there’s a good chance you’ve at least been thinking about it. Maybe you’ve had a big-ticket gift—like a new TV or home theater—in mind for a while now, but are putting off the purchase till November or December. If it’s sales you’re waiting for, you probably know what you want and how much you’re willing to pay. On the other hand, you might just a teeny bit leery of throwing so much cash at something you know very little about. Which is better: a plasma or LCD TV? Should you upgrade to a Blu-ray player or stick with standard-def DVDs?

If you find yourself in need of expert advice, consider the newest edition of the Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide. Inside you’ll find a wealth of information on everything from televisions and computers to smart phones, GPS units, and much more. For each product, the Consumer Reports editors walk you through the basics, explaining what’s available, which features matter, brand profiles, and offering tried-and-true shopping tips.

In addition to product information, the guide offers advice on how to shop smarter, including:

• Netting the best deals online, and protecting yourself when you shop on the Web


• When to repair and when to replace a broken item


• How to haggle effectively


• Finding the best electronics retailer based on our comprehensive annual survey


• How to save—and what to be wary of—with refurbished or open-box products on store shelves


• Where to get free office software, free computer security programs, and more useful freeware

Apple updates iTunes and the iPhone OS

The updated iTunes sync screen. (Click to enlarge)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Apple]

In addition to unveiling a new lineup of iPods, Apple today announced upgrades to its iTunes music-management software and store, along with making available a new version of the iPhone software for its smart phones and iPod Touch. All are available immediately.

iTunes version 9 adds the following key features to all iPods with displays:

iTunes LP. This includes expanded visual features to downloaded albums, such as live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, and album credits. But it's only available for a handful of albums from such artists as Norah Jones, the Grateful Dead, and Dave Matthews.

iTunes Extra. Similar to iTunes LP, this features documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries you can download from iTunes. But, it too, is only available for a small number of titles, which include "Twilight," "Batman Begins," "WALL-E," "Iron Man" and "The Da Vinci Code."

Home Sharing. As the name implies, this lets you transfer music, movies, and TV shows among up to five authorized computers, allowing up to five iTunes libraries to be shared on a home network. It claims to filter out the portion of the shared libraries each user already has, and allows content to be imported directly to their libraries and for new purchases made at any computer on the network to be automatically added to all users libraries.

Genius Mixes. A DJ application that plays endless mixes of songs from your library that Genius thinks "go together." Just click on one of the mixes, and start playing it—and it will go on and on and on, like a radio station.

iPhone OS 3.1, available now for free, will allows iPhone and Touch users to organize their apps on their computer desktop, using iTunes, and to automatically appear on your iPhone with the same layout. It also adds the ability to sync music by artist and genre and sync photos by Events and Faces. [[The upgrade is free for iPhones, and $4.95 for Touches]]—Mike Gikas.

Apple announces a “Nanocam,” tweaks the other iPods

[UPDATE Sept. 16, 2009: We've posted a video review of the iPod Nano evaluating its new video and radio features. See New iPod Nano: Video, radio, and features galore. —Ed.]

Apple today announced its first iPod equipped with a camera and modestly upgraded the rest of the iPod line.

The camera-equipped iPod isn’t the Touch, as we and others had predicted, but the mid-level iPod Nano. Available immediately for $149 (8GB) and $179 (16GB), the new Nanos will now sport a standard-definition video camera—and seemingly only a video camera; Apple’s press materials do not mention still-photo capability.

Apple chairman Steve Jobs, in his first appearance as an Apple spokesman since a prolonged sick leave, claims the Nano provides the same video quality as bulkier, so-called pocket camcorders, like the Samsung Pure Digital's Flip. (Such camcorders yield middling video quality that’s fine for online or other casual use, according to our tests, available to subscribers.) The Nanos also have a microphone and speaker built in.

The new Nanos boast the same diminutive size and oblong shape as their predecessors, though the display has been enlarged slightly, to 2.2 inches. Claimed playback time is five hours for video, 24 hours for music.

The Nanos are also the first iPods with built-in FM radios—the absence of which has long been a drawback for some consumers to Apple’s music player—with some innovative features. FM broadcasts can be paused, much like MP3 selections, and songs heard on the radio can be tagged for the later purchase on iTunes.

The Nanos also have a built-in pedometer that supposedly tracks calories you burned and comes in silver, black, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, red, and pink.

Here are the modest changes to the other iPods:

Touch. Apple's flagship iPod, the iPhone without the phone, gets a subtle facelift, beginning with faster graphics (courtesy of support of a standard called OpenGL) and a doubling of maximum storage capacity to 64GB—for the same $399 price as the old 32GB model. There's also an 8GB Touch for $199, and 32GB model for $299.

Classic. Apple’s only hard drive player didn’t disappear, as we and others predicted, but was refreshed in a higher capacity, of 160GB. It costs $249, the same as the old 120GB model.

Shuffle. The tiniest MP3 player in our MP3-player Ratings, available to subscribers, the 4GB Shuffle remains unchanged and is available for the same price of $79. But it now has a lower-capacity (2GB) twin for $59. —Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds.

Palm adds Pre's little brother, the Pixi

One of the Pixi's Artist Series designs. (Click to enlarge)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Palm]

Palm today announced a second phone that will use its webOS operating system. The Pixi is a smaller (and likely cheaper) sibling to the Palm Pre, the first webOS phone, and its promises many of the same noteworthy features.

Available on Sprint "in time for the holidays," no price has been announced for the Pixi, but it’s expected to cost less than the Pre—the price of which, in related news, Sprint has just cut by $50, to $150 after a $100 rebate.

The new phone lacks the Pre's Wi-Fi connectivity and is slightly smaller, measuring 2.17 in. x 4.37 in. x 0.43 in. It weighs 3.51 ounces and has a 2.63-in. multi-touch screen, 8GB of internal user storage (same as the Pre), and a 2-megapixel camera with LED flash.

Like the Pre, the Pixi has a proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear, and an accelerometer that automatically reorients web pages and photos when you tilt the phone.

Palm says the Pixi will have a separate Facebook application on its the desktop instead of the Web hotlink Pre users have now. Pre users will be able to upgrade to the new Facebook app when it becomes available. —Mike Gikas

The big day for Beatles fans: A primer

The Beatles Rock Band hits store shelves today. (Click to enlarge)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Harmonix Music Systems]

Today’s the day the Beatles Rock Band music game, along with remastered versions of their albums, becomes available. Curious about these launches, but haven’t had time to get up to speed on them?

Here’s a quick guide:

Beatles Rock Band. Among the more successful video games of recent years, Rock Band, like rival Guitar Hero, offers music fans the chance to play and sing along—using instrument controllers and special microphones—with classic rock songs. As for the game itself, you’re scored on how accurately you hit colored buttons on the instrument controllers in response to on-screen prompts or how well you hold pitch when you sing.

Where other editions of Rock Band come with 58 classic-rock and alternative songs from various artists, the Beatles game comes with 40 songs, all Beatles titles. The software itself costs $59 and is available for the Wii, X-Box 360, or Play Station 3. If you need to buy a console, they cost $200 and up, despite some recent price drops.

If you don’t already own controllers for Rock Band (or for Guitar Hero, most of which work with Rock Band), the best deal is probably to spend $70 or so on a bundle comprising drums, guitar, and microphone. But since the Beatles game is the first “music game to offer harmonies," you may want to buy an extra mic or two, at $20 and up apiece. You can also buy controllers that are replicas of the Beatles own guitars, like Paul McCartney’s violin-shaped Hofner bass.

The Beatles reissues. As Beatles fans are aware, tomorrow also marks the availability of the first remasterings of the full Beatles catalog in more than 20 years—an eternity in digital time. Most reviewers raved about the improved sound of “Love,” the 2006 Beatles’ Las Vegas show (and CD), which includes remastered versions 20 Beatles songs from the team responsible for this week’s reissues.

But there are also reasons to grumble about this week’s re-releases, even before hearing them. The extras are confined to making-of video documentary on each album. Also, though the albums have been remastered in both stereo and mono (the latter being the preferred format by some Beatles fanatics), the reissues do not combine both versions on one disc—as recent reissues for many other 1960s bands have done. Rather, when bought singly, the reissues only carry the stereo version of the album. To get the mono, you must buy the entire catalog, in a box set that lists at $300—if you can even get it (it sold out in advance at many retailers, though a second run is promised). And the titles aren’t being issued in Blu-ray or DVD formats, and hence there are no 5.1-channel surround versions as of yet.

To many observers, including me, the formatting decisions look like an attempt to sell diehard fans those thirty-something-minute-long Beatles albums not just once more, but several times more over the coming years. That’s a little unseemly from a band that’s traditionally been classier than most. —Paul Reynolds.

New iPods expected from Apple's conference

[PHOTO: Courtesy of marco.ziero]

September is the time of year when Apple refreshes its iPod line, so it's fairly safe to assume the press conference Apple is holding Wednesday, starting at 10 am Pacific time, will include news on the company’s media players.

We'll report on the event later in the day. Meantime, here are my predictions on what those announcements will be:

Higher-capacity iPods. Probably double the capacity of what's available now, for about the same price. That means a 64-gigabyte (GB) Touch, 32GB Nano, and 8GB Shuffle.

A camera and GPS capability for the iPod Touch. Speculators have been disappointed before on this topic, but this time the stars are properly aligned for adding a camera to at least one iPod. The company’s iPod Touch, essentially an iPhone without the cell-phone carrier connection or camera, is the natural first candidate, especially given that the latest iPhone boasts a 3.0-megapixel camera with editing capability. Also, the multiple GPS apps now available for the iPhone, including one from TomTom, could work on the Touch, were it to add a GPS chip, which reads position via satellite without need for a cell network connection.

Goodbye hard-drive models. Except for some niche portable video players made by Archos and iRiver, hard-drive MP3 players have all but disappeared from the marketplace. (Microsoft is dropping hard-drive models from the refresh of its Zune line, scheduled for mid-September.) The demise of Apple’s 120-GB Classic iPod seems likely.

An update to iTunes. Apple often combines iPod announcements with updates to its music-management software. Back in July, the Financial Times reported that Apple was working with major record labels, whose CD sales have steadily slipped, to spice up album downloads with more compelling extras that include "interactive" album material. Look for an announcement of iTunes album downloads that will insert a digital booklet of photos, lyric sheets and liner notes.

There’s also been speculation that the Apple event, being the same day as the Beatles catalog is re-released in remastered form (more on that in another post), will include a long-awaited announcement that the Fab Four’s music is being added to the iTunes Store.

Anything’s possible tomorrow from Apple (including announcements unrelated to iPods or iTunes), but it’s worth noting that the invitations for the event include the line “It’s Only Rock and Roll But We Like It.” Borrowing from a Rolling Stones song to help in announcing a Beatles deal seems odd, to say the least. —Mike Gikas

To iTunes, with love — for retrieving my music collection

After the author's iPod and computer died, iTunes helped restore her MP3s. [Photo: threefingeredlord/Flickr]

In a stunning reversal of my life-long good luck, my newish Mac mini computer blew its hard drive last month. This followed on the heels of the fatal crash of the five-year old iPod that had served as my back-up for thousands of songs, bought from iTunes, that were on my now-dead computer.

Two strikes - am I out? Is it too late to buy the back-up copy of my music that iTunes has been offering me, for about $250?

I searched the iTunes site in vain for any remedy, and finally, without much hope, made a phone appointment to speak to Apple support. The rep called, exactly at the appointed time, and said that iTunes would reload my music, gratis, to another computer. (No, I never told them I worked at Consumer Reports; we’re explicitly forbidden from using our affiliation for personal gain.)

I didn’t quite believe her. But soon after I brought home a new computer, an iTunes rep, Sandra, working on Mountain time, began to retrieve my songs and sending them to me via e-mail. I was thrilled—and also secretly convinced my good fortune was the result of good karma from skipping illegal downloads and buying all the songs in a way that supported artists for their work.