automationiworld.com

In addition, a number of tech and media companies–PaidContent, Flavorpill, The Onion, Thrillist, and Nokia, to name a few–have announced preliminary plans to host events in conjunction.

Called Internet Week New York (OK, they could have picked a better name), it will span June 3 to 10 and encompass several existing events like Federated Media Publishing’s Conversational Marketing Summit, Advertising Age’s Advertising 2.0 conference, and the 12th annual Webby Awards.

“The event can take whatever form you imagine,” the Internet Week site promises, “within the boundaries of good taste, of course.”

Despite its A-list leadership, the organizers of Internet Week have said that as an homage to the “open structure” of the Web, anyone can create an event in conjunction with the festival for free.

In addition to Bloomberg’s office, Internet Week is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Webby Awards. The festival’s “executive council,” meanwhile, is a who’s-who of Gotham digital media: among its ranks are About.com CEO Scott Meyer, TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, Greycroft Partners czar Alan Patricof, former AOL exec and current Pilot Group investor Bob Pittman, NBC Universal digital chief George Kliavkoff, and CondeNet President Sarah Chubb.

It might not be Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive, but New York City will be getting its own digital-culture festival.

The office of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a local tech baron, has officially sanctioned the festival. “It will capture the energy, diversity, and creative spirit that are a hallmark of both New York City and the Internet,” a statement from Bloomberg read.

Hosting a week of technology events isn’t entirely new for the city, as it has traditionally held a “Digital Technology Week” in conjunction with Ziff Davis Media’s annual DigitalLife gadget expo. But with last year’s DigitalLife a disappointment, and Ziff Davis’ future uncertain, it’s an apt time for the city to shake up its showcasing of the local tech industry. And with a focus on new media and entertainment, Internet Week will be a more accurate portrayal of what actually goes on in Gotham, rather than centering on a hardware trade show in which most of the products are brought in from out of town.

Sony Vaio NW160J

Is Blu-ray the future of laptops? If Sony had its way, that would certainly be the case. And if all Blu-ray-playing laptops were as well-executed as Sony’s Vaio NW160J, that wouldn’t be the most daunting consideration. Sony has been packaging its Vaio laptops as design-centric, relatively expensive multimedia machines with a Blu-ray-playing focus for a while now, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the company’s new line of slightly higher than midrange laptops, the NW series, culminates with a 15.4-inch Blu-ray version.

Does Blu-ray matter to you, or is it superfluous to your laptop-purchasing considerations? Let us know below.

This model, the NW160J, comes in at $929. There are even more affordable NW Vaios with Blu-ray drives inside, but the NW160J also comes with above-average, gaming-capable ATI graphics along with its midrange Core 2 Duo processor, making it more expensive than slightly less graphically robust competitors. However, if you’re looking for a well-designed Vaio with Blu-ray, a very good screen, and an excellent-feeling keyboard and touch pad–without moving up to a massive 17-inch desktop replacement–you’ve come to the right place.

Where Blu-ray meets wood grain: the Vaio NW160J

Read the rest of our review.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

In the past two months, Yahoo and Icahn have been exchanging barbs, as the proxy fight gained steam.

Yahoo President Sue Decker

As Yahoo heads toward its annual shareholders meeting and institutional investor advisory services weigh in on which Yahoo directors to re-elect, the background noise may still be a bit distracting for the next week and a half.

She noted that the stock has held its ground, despite a tough economic environment. And that she tries to avoid getting consumed by the swirl of distractions that have been under way since Microsoft announced its unsolicited buyout bid in early February.

Pre- and post-Microsoft’s offer, our stock is pretty much in the same place as when we evaluated its $31-a-share bid.

Nonetheless, Decker, who has never met Icahn, said in the interview recorded Tuesday:

And in defense of turning down the $33-a-share buyout offer Microsoft had floated to the Internet search pioneer, which it later withdrew after Yahoo countered with a bid of $37 a share, Decker had this to say:

(Credit:
Yahoo)

I try to focus on things I can control.

I’m totally looking forward to meeting him and would love to get his advice.

Is it frustrating, sure, when people talk about the departure of employees, but I would like to get the distractions behind us.

Yahoo President Sue Decker has taken the high road. In a CNBC interview that aired Wednesday, she said she looks forward to meeting investor activist Carl Icahn when he joins the company’s board and would “love to get his advice.”

Icahn, who reached a settlement with Yahoo earlier in the week, agreed to halt his proxy fight in exchange for being appointed to the board after the company’s August 1 shareholders meeting. Yahoo also agreed to expand its board to 11 members and select two directors from a list that Icahn provided.

Sony also initiated a multipronged attack on the headlines this week, first with its 18.4-inch media laptop, the Vaio AW, followed by two more Vaios on Friday.

Meanwhile, Lenovo dealt Linux fans a blow when it quietly stopped offering the OS as a preinstall option for its ThinkPads, IdeaPads, ThinkCenters, and IdeaCenters. But Linux had a win as well: the gang at CNET Asia found a $98 laptop from Chinese manufacturer HiVision with components that aren’t likely to run any OS but Linux.

This week’s rumor mill churned up news of a possible Samsung Netbook that just might hit the States; reports that Intel’s next-generation Atom processor, codenamed Pineview, will hit the market in the third quarter of 2009; and wishful thinking for cheaper MacBooks.

Have a great weekend!

In other news, Asus released a 15-inch gaming laptop, the G50V; we admired the wooden Stiletto laptop stand; and the $849 Asus N10 has us wondering: at what point is a small laptop no longer a Netbook?.

And finally, watch what you surf in seat 12C: Flight attendants and management of the newly Wi-Fi-equipped American Airlines are debating whether they should filter their in-flight Wi-Fi networks to keep passengers from accessing “inappropriate” sites (read: porn).

This week, your Intrepid Editor returns from vacation, just in time to catch a Hewlett-Packard laptop-news trifecta. First, the company announced that it had achieved a mobile-computing milestone by getting the HP EliteBook 6930p to operate continuously for 24 hours on a single battery charge. Then came word that the Voodoo Envy 133 laptop, introduced in June, started shipping to customers. And finally, the company brought a bit of geekiness to New York’s Fashion Week when a Vivienne Tam-designed HP mininote hit the runways.

To start, just get back to that organize bookmarks menu (Ctrl+Shift+B) and use the search box on the top right. When you type a name it’ll search both history and bookmarks. You can pick either of those, or both categories, and save it as a search, which will now reside in your bookmarks toolbar as a smart folder. If you add or visit a site with that word or domain in the name it will automatically show up in that list, saving you from having to re-categorize it. These are incredibly useful if you drop them down into the bookmarklets bar, since they’ll act as drop-down menus that will save you crucial screen real estate.

To quickly add pre-existing tags without typing anything, just hit the little down arrow in the bookmarking menu. This will list all of the tags you’ve typed in before, and simply clicking on any one of them will add it as a tag.

Firefox 3 keeps multiple backups of your bookmarks, but so should you.

Now, what if you lose everything and need to re-import? If you’ve got a copy of that JSON file laying around you just import it using that same menu you just used to do the backup. Likewise, you can go back to previous versions of your bookmarks by selecting an earlier date from the drop-down list, although I wouldn’t recommend doing that unless you’ve made a mess of the ones you have.

Smart folders: Smart folders are similar to smart bookmarks but require far less work. There are a few ways to make smart folders for things like your browser history and browsing habits, but one of my favorite uses is to create little folders of bookmarks based on where you’ve been.

We’ve put together a small guide to help you take advantage of bookmarking in
Firefox 3. If you put these lessons to use, you’ll go from having a big, clumsy menu of sites you like to an ever-changing list that can quickly be parsed and prioritized with minimal effort.

Step 3: Use smart bookmarks and folders to discover new content
Are you an iTunes user? If so, you may be familiar with smart playlists, the playlists that will automatically fill with tracks based on what boolean values you set up. Firefox 3 has two similar features called smart bookmarks and smart folders that let you do this using query strings or simple searches. Now as a warning, this isn’t as simple to do as it is in iTunes, which has drop-down menus, but the good news is that there a ton of pre-built options you can simply copy and paste.

My way of doing this is to use two of Google’s services, Gmail and Google Calendar, to bundle reminders and file storage in one place. Step one is setting up a Google Calendar reminder every month for a backup. Now, every time you get the reminder just go organize bookmarks, then click on “import and backup.”

Besides the face-lift, one of Firefox 3’s less flashy, but incredibly useful features, is the new bookmarking system. Yeah, there are still folders and bookmarklets, but joining the party are useful items like tags, smart backup, and a new way to track which sites you’re actually visiting to help weed out what’s unneeded.

If you do want to access that dialogue without having to delve into the full-fledged bookmark editor, just click on the star again and you’ll get that same drop-down menu with quick fields you can fill in to edit tags or simply remove the link from your bookmarks.

Step 2: Use tags
Tags are helpful. If you’re bookmarking a site you think you’re going to keep around, it’s worth tagging. The biggest reason is that Firefox will now use tags as shortcuts in the address bar, meaning that if you tag this article “awesome,” typing awesome into the bar will automatically pull up this page as one of the top results. It’ll also take any tags you’ve previously added and autofill them for you as you type. This makes it easy to fill in some simple descriptions quickly and efficiently.

Smart bookmarks: Smart bookmarks are a grouping of links that change based on what values you plug into them. To make your own, click on bookmarks, then “organize bookmarks” (you can also hit Ctrl+Shift+B). Highlight “bookmarks menu” from the source list below, then right-click on it and select “new bookmark.” All the magic for making a smart bookmark is in the location field, which is where you’ll be dropping in a line of code that does all the heavy lifting. These codes can range from simple queries to a string that will search a domain and give you the latest stories, or simply those related to a keyword. The possibilities are nearly endless. The sad truth is that this method is complicated. MozillaZine has a huge thread on the ins and outs of building your own code strings, as does CyberNet News. Just keep in mind that you’ll have to have some basic coding knowledge to build your own from scratch.

Related:
Set Web e-mail as default Firefox e-mail
Three useful Firefox 3 ‘awesome bar’ hacks

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Save the backup JSON file to your desktop and e-mail it to yourself in Gmail. Be sure to set up a bookmarks label and tag every backup with it so you’ll save yourself some time searching later on.

If you don’t feel like sharing with anyone else you can also check out Foxmarks, which also has multi-browser bookmark sync and backup.

Step 4: Import/export and backing up your bookmarks
There’s nothing worse than having to try and remember all the things you’ve bookmarked in case of a hard drive crash or corrupted file. Save yourself the trouble and make backups from time to time.

Of the three, my personal preference is Delicious, if only for its community and browser plug-in that was recently updated to work in both Firefox 3 and IE7. We’ve written about Delicious many times before, but the gist is that you can access your bookmarks from anywhere, and when saving a bookmark it’ll automatically suggest tags for you based on what other people have saved that same link with. It’s a huge time-saver, and if you’re seriously into Firefox 3’s tagging system, you’ll end up saving a lot of time by integrating it with Delicious.

Step 1: Master the quickie
On a site you like? Don’t bother with keyboard shortcuts (although Ctrl+Shift+L is dead easy); just hit the new star button in the address bar. It’ll quick-save it to your bookmarks list the same way the keyboard shortcut does, although it saves a click or two by skipping the “edit this bookmark” dialogue that usually pops up when you try to squirrel a link away.

Step 5: Make it social
OK, so you don’t want to use Gmail and Google Calendar while saving and uploading files. I really can’t blame you. A far simpler solution is tying in your bookmarks with a service like Delicious, Magnolia, or Mister Wong.

Saving sites you've been to in a certain genre can be a time saver. Smart bookmark folders let you do this the easy way.

With tags, save typing and a visit to figure out what a site is about.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

These were just a few tips on how to manage and master bookmarks in Firefox 3. If you’ve got any of your own, feel free to share them in the comments.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

The portable speaker for the iPhone can be folded up into a compact "ball" that's very easy to transport.

DLO also has the Portable Speakers that instantly turns your iPhone into a mini boom box, which works well for a small room or when you are on the go. The speakers can be folded up into an “egg” that’s a compact 6 inches in diameter. It’s rather expensive, though, at $49.99.

Digital Life Outfiter (DLO) didn’t wait for long and has just come out with a slew of stuff that you can use to protect, carry, and enhance your iPhone 3G. Most of them work with the original iPhone and the
iPod Touch, too.

To keep your iPhone from scratching or bumped around if dropped, you can choose either the HybridShell ($24.99) that’s bulky yet stylish, or the VideoShell ($19.99), which is clear and sturdy. Of course, you can get other old-school outfits like the Jam Jacket ($19.99) or the HipCase ($29.99).

Personally, I prefer the Action Jacket ($29.99) for iPhone, which works well for when you go jogging, which is probably the only time I would want to use a case for a smartphone/music player.

Now that you’ve gotten your
iPhone 3G, it’s time to get some accessories for it.

But the industry complained that it needed more flexibility. So the revised plan, which could be announced today, loosens the requirements.

But having an old TV doesn’t necessarily mean that a special digital-converter box is needed. Most people who subscribe to cable or satellite won’t have to worry about the transition, regardless of when their TV was made, because their set-top boxes will do the conversion. So for the most part, the only people affected are people who still use the old rabbit ears to watch TV.

Officials also fear that there is still confusion about what the digital transition means. While TVs made after March 2007 will have digital tuners built-in, TVs made before then won’t. This means that some folks will have to either buy a new TV or get a digital-tuner box, which will be subsidized by the government. The government is already offering vouchers to help people buy these boxes.

The Federal Communications Commission is backing off plans to force TV stations to air more advertisements about the upcoming transition to digital TV next year, according to several news reports.

Under the FCC’s previous plan, broadcasters and cable operators were asked to increase the number of advertisements about the digital transition to at least four 30-second public-service ads a day with this number increasing to as many as 12 ads a day on each station as the deadline approached.

The FCC supposedly backed down from its position amid criticism from the industry that feared airing more advertisements would displace lucrative paid advertisements during prime-time hours, The Wall Street Journal reported.

It’s estimated that there are 70 million or so analog TV sets that rely on over-the-air signals. And because many of these TVs belong to minorities, senior citizens, low-income individuals, and people who live in rural areas, the fear is that these individuals will not be ready for when broadcasters stop transmitting analog TV signals on February 17, 2009.

The FCC had originally rejected the industry’s first voluntary proposal, the Journal said. But broadcasters revised their proposal and agreed to run at least four ads a week during prime-time hours along with a 30-minute show about the transition before the February 17 deadline next year, according to the The Journal.

The FCC is expected to adopt a more flexible plan that will give broadcasters more leeway in choosing which ads to air and when.

“We will abide by the decision of the court. It is in everyone’s best interest to bring this case to an appropriate resolution without undue delay,” SAP said in a statement.

SAP has until February 18 to issue a counterproposal. A settlement conference is scheduled for February 23.

The judge’s order is common practice in lawsuits, in which the parties are ordered to attempt to reach a settlement before the case heads into trial. The trial date is February 8, 2010.

Judge Joseph Spero on Monday ordered Oracle to give a specific dollar amount by February 13 to settle the lawsuit it filed in March 2007. Oracle previously indicated in its lawsuit that its damages were in excess of $1 billion.

A federal court judge ordered Oracle to name its settlement price in its ongoing litigation against archrival SAP over the handling of proprietary maintenance and support information for former Oracle customers who had switched over to a subsidiary of SAP.

Oracle declined to comment.

In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Zen is Creative’s answer to the 3rd-gen
iPod nano. It offers a 2.5-inch screen, an FM tuner, an SDHC slot (for adding up to 16GB of extra storage via cheapo memory cards), a voice recorder, and support for music-subscription services. You can also stock it with TV shows and movies from Amazon Unbox. In short, it’s way more versatile than the nano, which is why CNET and users alike gave it such a high rating.

(Credit:
Creative)

Creative is clearing out a mess of refurbished gear, including 1GB Zen Stone MP3 players for $13.99, 2GB Zen Stone Plus players for $21.99, and my personal favorite: the 4GB Zen for $64.99. All prices include shipping!

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

If this sounds like a winning deal to you, don’t wait: I’m certain these will sell out in a hurry. If they do, or you’ve got an extra $19 to spare, you can get the 8GB model for $83.99.

Creative's 4GB Zen media player is a ridiculously good deal at $64.99 shipped.

The company added that MySpace China, which it described as a “locally owned, operated, and managed company,” and MySpace’s joint venture in Japan won’t be affected by the restructuring.

The company, which already announced a 30 percent layoff in the States last week, said on Tuesday that it will reduce its overseas staff from 450 to 150 employees and close at least four foreign offices. MySpace also announced proposed restructuring that will narrow its international focus to a “smaller number of territories.”

“As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions,” CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement.

As part of the restructuring, London, Berlin, and Sydney will become the “primary regional hubs” for the company’s overseas business. “All existing offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain (are) under review for possible restructure,” MySpace said.

Social-networking giant MySpace is cutting 300 international jobs–two-thirds of its workforce outside the United States.

Combining both layoffs, MySpace’s is cutting its total workforce from about 1,950 to 1,150–or by about 41 percent.