Filed under: Cell Phones, Computers, BlackBerry, MySpace, YouTubeThe Pew Internet and American Life Project has been mighty busy as of late. Hot on the heels of its study that revealed that people like to Google themselves, but like to Google others even more is a fresh batch of stats about how teenagers communicate. The survey of 12 to 17 year old boys and girls turned up some shocking information -- teens still prefer a good old-fashioned landline phone to other means of communication. 39 percent of teens said they talked to friends everyday via a landline phone. That's actually slightly more than the 35 percent who said they talked to friends on their cell phones everyday, but is almost twice the number who relied on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and good chunk more than those who used text messaging daily.Not surprising is the lowly 14 percent who said they used e-mail daily. Past studies have already shown that young people are not fans of the oldest form of electronic communication.One thing is for sure - they won't be using public pay phones for long, as AT&T plans to phase those out.From USA Today%Gallery-11309%Related links:Stalker Alert -- 53 Percent of Adults Google OthersMost Americans Haven't Googled Themselves, Study FindsNew Finding: Teens Hate E-Mail Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Audio/Video, Cell Phones, TVFor those of you who aren't AT&T Wireless (or Cingular) customers, we're gonna let you in on a little secret: AT&T is notorious for getting things done in a less-than timely fashion. For example, things like the Windows Mobile 6 update for the BlackJack get pushed back repeatedly and release dates pass without a word from AT&T.The latest victim is AT&T's MediaFLO-powered mobile TV operation. Originally AT&T's mobile TV offering was supposed to be released in Q4 of 2007. As of recent, that date has been pushed back to early 2008. AT&T has said they want the service up and running as soon as possible, though a specific launch date was not set. We expect to see it some time in the third quarter. What's worse is it appears that the feature list for the forthcoming mobile entertainment initiative has been stripped down. Initial discussion mentioned datacasting (forsending additional information such as news and weather) and music streaming, but now it appears as if AT&T is simply porting Verizon's VCAST to its network.From EngadgetRelated links:AT&T Drops 'Fewest Dropped Calls' ClaimAT&T Opens Network (But Not iPhone)AT&T CEO Says High-Speed 3G iPhone Coming Next Year Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Cell Phones, Editor's Picks, Interviews, CelebritiesIt's safe to say that Rosie O'Donnell has done it all, from stand-up and comedy movies to talk shows and even a video blog (that she actually updates regularly). She's also involved in R Family Vacations, a cruise line aimed at gay and lesbian families, which was designed to let the kids of gay and lesbian parents meet other kids from similar families. This year, Rosie and her partner, Kelli O'Donnell, who have four kids, will once again be part of the entertainment on board, along with other celebrities including Cyndi Lauper and Sam Harris. The parental pair took a few minutes to answer our Switched Questionnaire, and it turns out they're pretty stacked in the mobile phone department. To find out more, read on....What gadgets do you always bring with you to the set (for down-time)? Rosie: We always have our Nextel cell phone plus an iPhone when I travel. What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it? Rosie: We have a Nextel phone because we love using the two-way radio service with the family. It's easy for the kids to use, plus it seems to work many times when regular cell service does not.Kelli: I also have an iPhone that I have become addicted to. There are so many cool aspects to it that I have not even figured out completely. Who's the last person you sent a text message to and what was it about? Rosie: We sent a text to our oldest son before he was beginning his swim meet race to wish him good luck.Where do you go (site or service) pretty much every time you get online? Rosie: We frequently go to The Drudge Report and the Huffington Post almost every time we're online. What annoys you most about your iPod, cell phone, or laptop (or any other gadget)?Kelli: I wish that my iPhone had the two-way radio service so I did not have to bring both gadgets with me. Other than that, I am constantly amazed at how far technology has come and have very few complaints.Name one thing you wish your iPod/cellphone/laptop (any gadget) could do that it doesn't do now? Rosie: I wish that you could iChat from your iPhone -- wouldn't that be cool?!?!What upcoming gadget can you not wait to get your hands on? Rosie: There are no new items that I can think of. I feel content with what I have.You're stranded on a desert island: What gadget do you bring?Rosie/Kelli: I would bring my iPhone. You can do just about anything -- from e-mailing and surfing the 'Net to listening to music, watching movies, and taking photos -- on it. What more do you need? Well, besides someone to share it with on the island!!!!What's the most-played song or artist on your iPod?We love Broadway show tunes, but we also love Annie Lennox, Robbie Williams, and a number of '80s tunes that make us feel young again!What's the longest time you've ever spent playing a video game in one sitting and what game was it? Rosie: We don't play video games."Do you use/have a Mac or PC? Why?" Kelli: I have a PC 'cause it makes the most sense with how my brain works.Related Links:Worst Airbrushed Celebs of 2007Emmy Rossum: Actor, Singer, Mac AddictSwitched Questionnaire: Alan AldaSwitched Questionnaire: Sandra Bernhard Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Cameras, Advice, Traveler, $500 and Under, Digital Camera, holiday gift, Holiday Gift Guide, ReviewsA reader writes: I'm getting ready to go on vacation for the holidays, and I want to bring along a small point-and-shoot digital camera. Thing is, I want the thing to be able to do a little bit of everything, so I'm willing to spend around $300. I'm mostly concerned about picture quality, fast movement, and lots of flexibility in terms of lighting situations as I'll be taking pictures both during the day and at night, inside and outside.Hey reader: There are plenty of $300 point-and-shoot digital cameras out there, so we understand your confusion. Sounds like you need a feature-packed camera that won't break the wallet -- or the fanny pack -- for your vacation.We recently got to play around with Panasonic's new Lumix DMC-FX33 camera, and despite the crazy confusing name, it's a great little unit. It's super small, has a big 2.5-inch screen and has plenty of scene modes for all your vacation-taking needs.One thing that really sets this one apart is how easy it is to use. If you want to turn off the flash, just push a button. If you want to take a picture inside and don't want to think about the flash and ISO settings, just put the camera in auto mode and it will adjusteverything for you. All that said, if you're a bit of a camera geek like we are, you can manually set just about everything.What makes this camera stand out is Panasonic's use of 28mm Leica optics, which are some of the best lenses in the biz. Typically, Leica lenses are only available in much more expensive cameras.Outside of that, this camera has all the standard features you would want in this price range. It does 8.1 megapixels, has a wide 28mm lens, uses inexpensive SD cards, does 4x optical zoom, has a macro setting (for close-up pictures of flowers and what-not), a widescreen video mode and this it's pretty quick when you need to take multiple pictures. Finally, for fashionistas, the Lumix comes in an assortment of colors: black, silver, blue, and the brown seen above.Related Links:Just Tell Me What to Get: 42-inch PlasmaJust Tell Me What to Get: Bedroom HDTVCamera Posts at Switched Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Need a gift for that person in your life who can't spend a moment not listening to or making music? Fear not, for the Switched Holiday Gift guide has everything from geeky guitar straps to music-playing toothbrushes for your music hound. Yes, we said music-playing toothbrushes. And they're cheap, too! Get on it!The Switched Holiday Gift Guide for Music Hounds >> Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Computers, iPod, iPhoneYou might remember back in 2005 when Apple sued the Apple rumor site Think Secret. The suit had one specific goal in mind: to find out the sources leaking information from Apple after Think Secret had managed to score the lowdown on a little piece of hardware called the Mac Mini.Apple and Think Secret have settled, out of court, and as part of that agreement Nick Ciarelli, publisher of Think Secret, has shut down his site. According to a statement posted at Think Secret, the two parties reached "an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published." Nick is then quoted later on, "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement."We hope he's telling the truth and wish him luck.From EngadgetRelated links:Are the Rumored Upcoming MacBooks Getting a New Color?New Ultra Portable MacBook Out in January?AT&T CEO Says High-Speed 3G iPhone Coming Next Year Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Audio/Video, TV, Gift News, holiday gift, Holiday Gift GuideLCD (liquid crystal display) high-definition televisions have taken the HDTV market by storm. When they started to go mainstream nearly a decade ago they were expensive and couldn't match the picture quality of the rear-projection or plasma sets of the day. These days, though, they're inexpensive, efficient, look great, and are super-lightweight. All that has combined to give them huge popularity among consumers. LCD's popularity is so clear that Sony is getting out of the rear-projection television (RPTV) market, focusing entirely on LCD televisions.Sony already ditched their plasma production line this time three years ago to focus on LCD and rear-projection. That the company is focusing solely on LCD is an indicator of just how dominant the technology has become. The problems that plagued early sets, such as poor contrast ratios and dull colors when viewed from an angle, have been all but eliminated. Meanwhile, other TV manufacturers like Toshiba and Philips have also ditched rear-projection televisions. RPTV's rely on an internal bulb to beam an image onto the back of a plastic screen. Rear-projection televisions are even cheaper than LCDs inch-for-inch, but they can't match the form of the one- or two-inch-thin flat-panel displays, a feature many shoppers find appealing. If you were in the market for one of Sony's SXRD rear-projection sets, better hurry up and pull the trigger while you still can. Or, you could just save your pennies for a few more years until OLED televisions get cheap enough to kill off LCDs. From Engadget.Related Links: Sony's Almost-Paper-Thin OLED-TV Coming to U.S. Gateway's New 30-Inch Display Launches Today The World's Thinnest TVs  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Audio/Video, ComputersSo, you know the ubiquitous video phone that's been a staple of science fiction since the early days? We live in an age where the technology to make the things is not only possible and inexpensive, but still nobody has them. Of course, people are chatting with video online via iChat, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and AIM already, but the link between video and phone has failed to happen.Creative is looking to finally change that with the inPerson video phone, shown in a pic above as snagged from the FCC by Engadget.Details are scarce, but the device will tie into the SightSpeed video conferencing network, which currently offers video conferencing via a software client available for Windows and Mac computers. This means that Creative's device will not just work over a phone line (it includes Wi-Fi support and an Ethernet network jack for connecting to the Internet) and will require a SightSpeed account to use. But, thankfully, you can use SightSpeed for free, so that's something.What we don'tknow yet are price and availability, given that Creative hasn't officially announced the inPerson.From Engadget%Gallery-12092%Related Links: Optical Zoom Coming to a Cameraphone Near You High School Teacher's Global Warming Video a YouTube Hit It's Video. It's Free. It's For Your Mobile Phone. It's Not YouTube.  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Computers, MySpace, YouTubeJust when you thought YouTube was starting to be old news, along comes a survey that the video sharing site is far more popular than ever, and is kicking the pants of its competitors. According to a new survey, 65 percent of those polled watched a video on YouTube this year, up from 42 percent last year. That's a huge jump in popularity, mirrored by a huge jump in page views (shown above). Those page views are also helped by numbers indicating that 42 percent of those who did visit YouTube said they came back to the site "frequently," an increase of 11 percent over 2006.YouTube's continued success is all the more surprising considering the increased competition in the online video realm from media entities as varied as MySpace and MTV. Those sites have also seen growth, but nothing compared to what YouTube continues to deliver. Can the site that started it all keep ahead of the younger upstarts, and will it eventually conquer the television networks? We shall see. From ReutersRelated Links: MySpace TV: A Better YouTube Competitor? EMI Signs Up With YouTube Every Episode of 'South Park' to be Available Online for Free  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Car Tech, TravelerWhat if your car's tires could do more than hug those turns, but also tell you when they might be about to blow? Researchers at Purdue University have created just such a round tube, full of sensors and a chip that they claim will warn drivers ahead of time if the rubber starts to shred. Hey, even a few seconds advance warning could save a big blowout from being a big car wreck, right? Though they still haven't secured a patent on the new technology, researchers say race cars will be the first to use it. Of course, that would put an end to exciting videos like this.In the meantime, drive safely.(In the photo above are Gary Krutz, director of Purdue's Electrohydraulic Center, and graduate research assistants Timu Gallien and Alyssa Brune, with one of the experimental tires. Photo courtesy of Purdue News Service.)From Reuters. Related Links:Honda Testing Clean Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car Nissan Saving Pedestrians' Lives Featherweight Plastic Rims Roll Closer to Production  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Cell Phones, CamerasThe ubiquitous 3x optical (using lenses instead of digital processing) zoom has become standard fare on your point-and-shoot digital camera. But, the little lenses found on the backs of cameraphones tend to be fixed, meaning there's no zooming or focusing offered. For quick snaps of that chick or dude you met at the bar last night this isn't usually a problem, but if you're the type looking to take some serious shots with your phone, that little piece of plastic just won't do. Good news, then, that optical zooming lenses are setto become standard fare on higher-end cameraphones. Many cameraphones offer what's called a "digital zoom," which does succeed in making a certain part of the picture bigger. But, this is more like cropping, ignoring the portion of the picture on the edges and blowing up the rest so that the overall image is the same size. This does horrible things to quality. An optical zoom, on the other hand, uses a moving lens to change the image that's projected onto the camera sensor. With optical zoom, you don't lose any quality and your pictures stay sharp as you move in. As cameraphone sensors creep out of the two-megapixel region and start to move toward five megapixels (like the Nokia N96), optical zoom lenses will be installed as well to ensure that the sensors get all the light they need. But should you care? Well, that depends on what you want it to do. If you're okay with your phone just being a phone, then a better zoom probably won't do much for ya. But, if you carry a pocket digital camera and a phone with you wherever you go, this is definitely a feature you will want to look for in your next camera.From DigiTimesRelated Links: Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 HD Webcam Nikon D80 Digital SLR Camera Hot New N96 Phone From Nokia?  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Computers, MySpace, Google, YouTubeHappy belated birthday, blogosphere! In case you didn't know, December 17 was the 10th anniversary of the term 'Weblog,' which was shortened to 'blog' at some point. The term started with a man, Jorn Barger, who used the phrase to describe his Web page where he posted links of interesting things he found around the Internet.Back in 1997, blogging was hardly the phenomenon it is today. Some of the most conservative estimates put the number of true 'weblogs' at that time in the lower double digits. These days no one can really say how many blogs are out there. Technorati, a blog tracking service, estimates that 120,000 new blogs pop up every day. In April the site was tracking just over 72 million blogs.The blog has morphed from its early days as a way of sharing cool finds (like Digg minus the voting), to the primary form of information dispersal on the Web. Blogging has become the format of choice in the fast-paced world of tech (like Switched.com) and politics, and has empowered a generation of new journalists. Now the New York Times has blogs, the Daily Kos is one of the most important forces in the Democratic party, and even CNN has the YouTube-esque iReport citizen journalism program. Like it or not, in less than 10 years time, blogs have completely altered the face of media.From the BBCRelated Links:Texas School District Sues Blogger MomBlogger Sued for Negative Book ReviewsArmy Cracks Down on Soldier BlogsBest Blogs on the Web Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Slideshows, Style Maven, Gadget Head, Creative TypeCheck this out: A new prototype dress may one day help dense men or women clue in on their partner's emotional condition. The Daily Mail reports that the Bubelle Dress, designed by scientists at the Dutch electronics company Philips, changes colors depending on the wearer's mood. The dress's development was prompted by a research venture dubbed the SKIN Probe Project, which imagines daily living in the year 2020. The garment has two connected layers, an inner layer equipped with biometric sensors that pick up physical information correlating to certain emotions, and an outer layer that casts different colors and patterns according to the information gathered. Sweat and temperature levels, the makers say, are key determinants in identifying a person's emotional condition. The garb is the latest "practical" application in the burgeoning biometric field. While it certainly is the most fashionable development to date, biometrics has been around for a while now, but has traditionally been used on security apparatus like locks and safes. Unfortunately, consumers intrigued by the prospect of such an outfit in their wardrobe will be disappointed to learn that the Bubelle Dress is not currently being produced for the public. On the plus side, this means that Cro Magnon males won't be able to masquerade as Dr. Phil anytime soon. From The Daily Mail %Gallery-12059%Related Links:Scented Movies Coming to a Theater Near YouSmart Bras Will Minimize Bounce and PainAlarm Wakes According to Body's Sleep Clock Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  Filed under: Video GamesWhile the name Bruckheimer may not inspire much confidence in those who prefer their movies to have deep meanings and thought-provoking storylines, you have to admit that the guy has made some of the greatest action movies of all time. ('Top Gun,' despite all its cheese, ranks up there pretty high on most peoples' lists.) So, it's with mixed thoughts that many will take the news of Bruckheimer forming a video game studio with MTV, a combination that will likely result in some big-budget gaming blockbusters in future years.The question, of course, is whether the games will be any good.MTV is spending $500 million on video games in the coming years, with its first big investment being 'Rock Band,' the 'Guitar Hero III' competitor which adds drums and singing into the mix. It's unclear just what Bruckheimer has in store for gamers, except that he says he will not produce games based on his movies. Ironically enough, Bruckheimer is flipping his rule, though: He's producing a movie based on a game called 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time', which is due for release in 2009.He also says his studio's games won't fit into any existing genres like shooter or role-playing game. Instead, Bruckheimer plans to form new gameplay types and series where none exist today. Lofty goals, indeed.Will he succeed where other Hollywood to video game crossovers have failed? Time will tell, and while we're not expecting any paradigm shifts in the gaming world to come out of this, a little fresh blood wouldn't hurt. From ReutersRelated Links: Rock Band (under $250, Gamer) 'Guitar Hero III' Is Ready to Rock, Say Reviews Grateful Dead Comes to 'RockBand' Video Game  Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments