Selling TVs is a Tough Job

For those readers who've been living in a cave, the last few weeks have been earnings weeks, that time each quarter when corporations announce earnings, compare them to analysts' estimates, and either puff out their chests or duck for cover. Well, this week it was Dell's turn, and the news was not very good.

To make matters worse, last week the company recalled some 4 million Sony-made batteries that could spontaneously combust and announced it had been cooperating with an "informal" investigation by the SEC. In all, it was an extremely forgettable week for the nation's second-largest PC maker.

What does this have to do with TV, you ask?

Well, all that bad news made me wonder why tech companies like Dell are still in the highly competitive HDTV business. Shouldn't these companies learn something from Gateway's forgettable foray, particularly given today's corporate focus on cutting divisions that drag on the bottom line? Would they be better off focusing on their core business? More importantly, should I even consider buying a TV from a company that might not be selling them a year from now?

When Dell announced its intent to enter the business, analysts figured its mass production, cost-cutting, direct-to-consumer model would gain the company a foothold and bring downward price pressure on the market. Unlike PCs however, TVs are not commodities—they really need to be seen. As a result, the direct-to-consumer model is not conducive to selling televisions.

For its part, Dell says it is "very committed to our television business," adding "Dell is very much driven to deliver what our customers tell us they want. It is one of the benefits of our direct model—direct customer feedback in real time." I could be wrong, but it's hard to imagine Dell is overrun with customers begging them to sell TVs. Just the same, the company is not planning to do so without a slight change to its business model. Dell now has 175 kiosks around the country and is in the process of opening two Dell Direct stores where people can see the sets in action.
Unfortunately, the Dell price influence hasn't really materialized in the TV market. In fact, go to Dell's site and you'll find a 37-inch LCD for $1,799. Go to Amazon and you'll find a 37-inch Sharp Aquos—which you can also see at your local CE store—for less than $1,700. Few consumers, given the choice of buying a more expensive TV sight unseen from a PC maker or purchasing one from a reputable CE maker, are going to opt for the former.

For other manufacturers, the big issue is shelf space. Getting just a little bit for your product at larger CE stores is a hell of a lot of work—manufacturers really have to convince these people products will be around for the long haul. I know this is true because I did some work for a PR agency that represented the consumer electronics division at a major technology manufacturer. Frankly, the division was so small and brought in so little revenue to this giant company that the constant concern was whether it would be around next year. Everything hinged on shelf space and if the retail folks couldn't get it, the division would die.

Just how important are the home entertainment divisions to these companies? Watch reports on CNBC. Whenever there's an earnings announcement, you won't hear one word about the digital entertainment divisions. It's three years since Dell and other tech companies entered the CE business and still, they get virtually no play.
Frankly, I don't see how these companies can continue to compete against the likes of Sony, Samsung, Sharp or Panasonic. Selling TVs is a tough job and these days PC makers are so focused on their low-margin core businesses, I have to think the focus shifts to software or business services, driving the stepchild even further from the parent. How do these companies gracefully exit a business they never should have entered in the first place?

We may find out sooner than we think.

ShackWatch: Music Has the Right to Children

The biz-school adage I'm about to drop isn't quite a classic on the order of "Buy low, sell high." But it's a good'un nonetheless, and I hope you budding entrepreneurs out there will take note: When you can no longer compete on price, it's time to rebrand yourself for the hoity-toity. Take shrimp caught in the U.S.—it's getting massively undercut by cheap imports from Vietnam, so our pals out on those Gulf Coast trawlers (or, rather, their PR folks) are rebranding those tasty little crustaceans as Wild American Shrimp. Now, I'm a cheap bastard, so I'll stick with the imported dreck that Popeye's ladles out. But I can definitely see the appeal of this strategy.

So, too, can Radio Shack, once home to an array of low-priced keyboards perfect for the little Michael McDonalds in your household. But no longer—the cheapest Shack synth now costs over $50, and most are like the LK-1261 pictured at right—relatively high-tech beasts complete with LCDs, light-up keys, and USB ports. Why did America's favorite peddler of rectifier diodes forsake those of us who simply want a sub-$30 unit that rocks a little bossa nova beat? Because the mighty Shack knows it's no match for the music industry's answer to Vietnamese shrimp farms—Chinese factories that have produced a glut of toy-grade keyboards. The whole (somewhat) sordid story after the jump. PLUS: Transferring our Rowdy Roddy Piper obsession to Markie Post!

I actually first noted this phenomenon late last year, while shopping at my beloved Gem Gem Gem value store up on 125th Street. The Gem Gem Gem, as readers of this space know all too well, is a clearinghouse for the basest in electronic gear—if you've ever craved a craptacular Uniden cordless phone with the coveted RocketDial feature, this is your place. They also sell electronic toys made by a Hong Kong-based company called Polyfect, among them a darn fine keyboard that offers enough rhythms and sounds to satisfy anyone in the 3-to-9 age range. The price? A humble $19.99, which makes it an acceptable risk for mommies and daddies blessed with rambunctious young'uns, not to mention the creative forces behind innumerable ironic indie bands. (During my lamentable indie-rock phase—which I blame entirely on an ex-girlfriend—I once saw Mary Timony play a miniature Fisher-Price synth at the Black Cat.)

Even during its '80s incarnation as a total discount store, before someone figured out that selling cellphone plans was the wave of the future, the Shack couldn't compete with those kinds of prices. Its private-label Casio knockoffs were cheap, to be sure, usually in the $30 to $40 range, but it's not like they offered any more scintillating options than the Polyfect model. And that Gem Gem Gem offering is only the tip of the iceberg; check out this JCPenney model for $24.99, and comes complete with (per the hype sheet) "plastic, electronic components." The more aesthetically inclined may want to shell out an additional $5 for Cooltronix Tune-a-Fish. Yes, it's obviously intended for the wee-est of wee ones, but the specs actually compare favorably with what I remember from the Reagan-era Shack models—8 rhythm sounds and 8 instruments was pretty much the standard back in the day, and we didn't get no fancy "demo songs." Also, hey, it's shaped like a fish. So it's got that going for it, which is nice.

In the face of all these budget options, the tsars of Shackdom seem to have decided to abandon the low-end in favor of the mid- and high-ends of the market. Let's disregard anything over the $100 mark, as I'd sooner saw off my left arm with a rusty machete than part with a Franklin. What we're left with on the Shack's musical roster, then, are a bunch of synths in the $80-$90 range with some impressive specs—the LK-1261 isn't really all that different from the Yamaha PSR-70 my dad spent a literal fortune on back in the day. They're obviously going for cheap musicians, rather than kids just learning that whole Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge thing.

The Shack should tread carefully, however. Rebranding yourself for sophisticated tastes after years of serving the low-end market is one of the most difficult things you can do—yes, Penelope Cruz, it's even harder than becoming a mactress, believe it or not. The snobs have you stigmatized as for the peons, while the peons don't have the scratch to pay the premium you're asking. Would it be too much to ask the Shack to throw us poor misers a bone and come through with a sub-$30 keyboard to compete with the toys? My unborn children will thank you for giving them the opportunity to learn music; otherwise, they're gonna have to suffice with blowing on some empty Budweiser 40-ounce bottles.

MARKIE POST: A few eagle-eyed readers recently noticed that, once again, I recently namechecked the infamous "perfume on a pig" scene from John Carpenter's They Live, this time in the service of discussing low-end TV antennas. No, that was not an accident—I just think that "Rowdy" Roddy Piper is an unrecognized genius, and I was planning on plugging him until the cows came home.

But now, thanks to our brothers over at Jalopnik, I've got a new celebrity obsession: getting The Fall Guy on DVD, and in turn bringing glory to the force of nature that is Markie Post. Seriously, I remember totally salivating over a picture of her in a leotard circa 1986, and this is my way of thanking her for assisting in my gentle usherance (word?) into manhood. Wanna help out? Visit the Jalopnik link above, write a firm-but-polite letter to 20th Century Fox, and pray.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Gotta Read the Labels

Seriously, thank God for over-the-air daytime TV. Not only would I get pretty lonely without the virtual companionship of Judge Joe Brown, but I'd also miss out on some great column fodder. Case in point: an ad I spied during a recent 2 p.m. airing of Law & Order on TNT. (Like any good cheapskate, I go sans paid cable, relying on a spliced cable modem hookup to provide my signal; bless Time Warner Cable's heart for piping in gratis TNT and TBS.) The commercial featured an elderly couple who mistakenly donned each other's dentures. The solution? Why, a Dymo LetraTag 11944 labelmaker, of course. Print out a "His" label and a "Hers" label, and never suffer the embarrassment of misworn dentures again!

Okay, so the ad assumes that the couple in question has a collective IQ just a few points higher than an earthenware jug. But I didn't waste too much time nitpicking on the plot's believability; what stayed with me on this one was how humble labelmakers have evolved into low-end electronic gadgets, complete with two-line LCD screen and fax-like printing technology—all while staying below the vaunted $20 barrier. How do they do it? Methinks someone over at Dymo studied the shaving industry while obtaining their MBA. After the jump, a partial explanation as to why Dymo is worth nearly three-quarters of a billion bucks (for real), and where low-end favorite Casio fits into the picture.

What's really impressive about Dymo's budget LetraTag line is how much the designers took their cue from higher-end products, at least in terms of user interface. Playing around with the Blackberry-like QX50 the other day, I was impressed by how comfortable it was to manipulate the QWERTY keyboard. The more popular 11944, on the other hand, seems to be patterned after the PDA-style tools that are toted around by FedEx drivers and meter maids. Two-hand typing is trickier on the 11944, but it cradles nicely in the palm and features a satisfyingly crisp LCD readout. I mean, hey, what more could you expect for $12.91 (the going rate for a blue version of the 11944 at Provantage.com)? Okay, so you gotta feed it six AA batteries at a time—that's why CVS sells private-label batteries, right?

Now, let's rewind fourteen years, to the dawn of the digital labelmakers age, and do some comparison shopping. Back then, Dymo was owned by Esselte (the Pendaflex people), and dealing with some fierce competition from market leader Brother. Dymo was actually playing catchup in the space, having been slow to make the transfer from manual labelmakers to digital ones. Its 4500 machine displayed a bit more text than the Brother mode, and cost the same—an absurd $249. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd buy to tag little Johnny's underwear for summer camp, eh?

By 2000, Dymo had gotten the price on an equivalent machine (the LetraTag 2000) down to $49.99. Now the current LetraTag lineup beats the comparable Brother offerings by an average of $10 to $20 per unit. Dymo's only real competitor for lablemaker hegemony? Good ol' Casio, with models such as the KL-60SR going for around $17. But a meager four-character LCD display? C'mon, Casio—we all expect more from the company that brought the world the VL-Tone 1.

So, no question, Dymo's the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the labelmaker industry. (Quick etymological aside: Why 800 pounds? Why not 900, or 873? Discuss and share.) But I had no idea how much of a beast the brand truly was until I dug up news of Dymo's sale last year to Newell Rubbermaid, for $730 million in cash. True, Dymo makes a lot of coin off the enterprise market—Suzy Homemaker ain't dropping $168 on the RhinoPRO 5000. But it's the LetraTag line that gets the TNT ads, which means they're a pretty big revenue generator. Has Dymo really ratcheted down production costs that much? Have I underestimated the price-slashing effects of technology's Guandongization yet again?

Nah, me thinketh not. The catch with Dymo is that there's really no widely available knock-off tape to refill your LetraTag unit—you're stuck buying the name-brand stuff from the company, which runs about $6-$8 per roll. It's exactly the business model used Schick and all those razors folks—break even or take a loss on the frame, but make it back (and then some) on the blades.

It's a business model that works in large part because, let's face it, consumers aren't very far-sighted—myself included. When I got a "free" Mach 3 Turbo razor in the mail a few years back, I felt like I'd just hit a Pick Six at the track. Now, hundreds of dollars later, I realize that I was suckered out of my low-end ways.

Not that I think Dymo is sinister—just sharp business thinkers. They know as long as they beat the Brothers of the world on the hardware, they can make it all up on tape sales. And therein lies a couple of vital lessons on the psychology of us cheapo gadget buyers: it's easy to put stars in our eyes, and we're not particularly interested in long-term calculations.

Oh, and one more thing: we're suckers for design aesthetics that make a gadget look more expensive than it really is. That Blackberry-style QWERTY keyboard on the QX50? Makes me think I'm living in the future—a future in which I'm earning a wage worthy of T. Boone Pickens. Kudos, Dymo—you've figured out that, despite our modest incomes, low-end consumers are a vain and insecure loot as well.

NEXT WEEK: ShackWatch returns!

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Sony is the New Sorny

Many moons ago, when Low End Theory was still a metaphorical pup, I wrote a column about the principle of value spread—that is, the phenomenon of companies that manufacture both cheapo and ultra-expensive electronic goods. One of the true champs of value spread was Sony, which peddles everything ranging from flat-screen TVs costing five figures to sub-$25 cassette recorders. It's a beast of a brand, no doubt, and one that I've been particularly loyal to in years past—why, right this very minute, I'm tapping away on a four-year-old Sony Vaio laptop that's survived two massive hard-drive failures in fine style.

But as Sony wares have become ever more visible in the sorts of shops that include the words "Bargain, "Discount," or "Crazy" in their names, I've noticed a troubling decline in the brand's low-end quality. In fact, I'd daresay if I had $30 to spend on a transistor radio or corded microphone, I'd forego Sony's offerings in favor a cheaper, more reliable option from the likes of jWIN. How did such an ignoble fate befall the onetime emperor of gadgets? Rudimentary philosophizing on the matter once you click the "More" button below. PLUS: Name that Chinatown PDA, make a treasured Low End Theory reader immeasurably happy to be alive.

Now, I understand that this whole column is predicated on the notion that Sony did indeed have a low-end golden age. I'd place that era in the mid-to-late 1990s, after the buzz of the Walkman had worn thin, but before the advent of digitized music. Oh, what a glorious time—I reveled in the hardiness of my affordable Sony tape recorder, which survived being heaved against a wall during a National Bohemian-fueled tantrum, and bobbed along the streets of Mount Pleasant to theme music provided by my (less affordable) Discman.

The Guangdongization of the electronics industry killed that era, mostly for the better. Knock-offs and barebones products began to flourish, forcing Sony to make a choice: stay in the low-end sector, or abandon us shorts arms, deep pockets types and focus solely on higher margin goods. Not sure what the debate was like 'round the conference table in Tokyo, but Sony went for the former strategy—perhaps they were actually making serious coin on low end, or perhaps they just want to be a friend to the working man.

Whatever the reason, Sony now had to compete with brands that were explicitly set up to minimize price, dealing with fly-by-night contract factories as it suited them. Sony knew it couldn't compete on price, so it chose a slightly different strategy; lag behind the Cobys of the world by around $5 per product, but stress that tried-and-true Sony quality. Sort of like the way Oreos cost a bit more than private label "sandwich cremes," but use packaging and commercials to make clear that they don't taste like sandpaper dipped in corn syrup.

This might've worked if Sony's low-end goods were demonstrably better than their competitors in the space. But they're not—Sony's designers have developed a strange fascination with bells-and-whistles, and forgotten that what matters most in discount stuff is durability. Today's Sony tape recorders may feature dials that control playback speed, for example, but they also break extraordinarily easy. The digital stuff is even worse—raise your hand if the LCD screen on your Sony product cracked or went dead within hours of the three-month warranty expiring. Y'all too? Yeah, I figured.

My hunch is that Sony was so far behind on price, and so bound to its traditional supply channels, that it's been forced to cut corners on materials and quality assurance, merely to remain a straggler in the low-end game. It's a game that a megasized conglomerate like Sony is ill-suited to play—its strengths are pushing out products that require significant R&D and promotion, like Blu-ray. But cutting the lard out of the manufacturing process is a whole different skill set, one that requires a degree of ruthlessness that a patrician enterprise like Sony probably can't muster.

Sony, as many of y'all know, has been having some troubles as of late; the company is so diversified, its lagging sectors are dragging down its successful ventures. It's had the nerve to kill lackluster product lines in the past, as when the CLIÉ went bye-bye as the smartphone market emerged. Is it time for Sony to cast the same coldly rational eye on its sub-$30 gadgets biz? Maybe they could take whatever resources they allocate to making godawful analog tape machines, and redirect them to some of the more pressing issues facing the company. Super-high on my list: why on Earth did Sony's debut attempt at an iPod killer, the NW-1, force you to convert files into the proprietary ATRAC format? Anyone?

ZAURUS-LIKE: Deep down I'm a people person, and few things gladden my heart more than knowing I've assisted a fellow human being. But I'm also pretty lazy, especially when (as is the case at this very moment) I'm sitting on an Amtrak train, sleepy as all get out because a) I haven't had my morning coffee and b) I stayed up 'til 3 a.m. last night watching old episodes of The Wire on HBO on Demand.

So let me do a little Lazy Web thing here and toss out a reader's query for y'all to deal with. A delightfully monikered lad recently wrote in from San Francisco, where he spied a low-end electronic organizer in a Chinatown store. Sayeth out correspondent:

It looked a great deal like a Sharp Zaurus ZR-5800 (clamshell, with large, captioned icons on both sides of the touch screen, as well as looking flimsy and cheap), but with a color screen. I was stupid and didn't snap a shot, scribe model number or even note the manufacturer...Package art was in Chinese/Japanese, but the back had English features list and indicated an English language option.

If you want to help a pal of a pal out, and your up on Chinatown PDAs, drop me a line and I'll pass along your info. Trust me, you'll totally get into heaven if you do a Low End Theory reader a solid.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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A Mystery for Our Times

Okay, I'm not gonna lie to you: the mystery referenced in the title of this week's column isn't exactly a Top Tenner of all time. In fact, it's probably several thousand places behind such timeless headscratchers as "Who shot JFK?" and "Why is water wet?" (the latter of which I've yet to hear a decent answer for). But as far as stumpers go in the realm of low-end electronics, I'd say my question's pretty sound: why can't someone come up with a decent sub-$30 digital voice recorder?

Before y'all start shooting off angry e-mails, alerting me to the existence of some 64 MB refurbbed unit on Overstock.com or somesuch, lemme add some parameters to the mystery. I'm talking about a voice recorder that's brand new, designed solely for the task of getting folks on "tape," and has the capacity to handle more than a pair of western civ lectures. Anyone? Anyone? I thought not—unless you're willing to include cheap MP3 players that feature voice recording, of which there are numerous options. So, what gives? Why can I scoop up a 128 MB MP3 player with voice-recording capabilities for less than a Jackson, but a single-purpose player of lesser capacity will run me at least $10 more? Informed commentary tempered by wild speculation after the jump. PLUS: Those long-promised low-end reviews are en route, honest.

As a journalist, I probably have a bit more experience with portable recorders than your average citizen. I made the switch from my clunky ol' Panasonic tape recorder—which was hardy enough to survive a trip to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland—to a digital IC recorder back 'round 1999. I've experimented with several recording setups since then, including an ill-fated dalliance with an iPod microphone. I'm currently using a Samsung YP-MT6, a 512 MB MP3 player that's one of the few low-end gadgets I own—though, in my defense, I bought it used.

I didn't want to get the pre-owned route for a piece of equipment so vital to my profession, but the low-end pickings were just too slim. Take the models from Olympus, a leading low-end brand among digital recorders. Their products, such as the VN-1000, are nifty enough, and obviously designed with power users in mind; features such as index marks are a godsend when transcribing notes and interviews, for example. But even the 32 MB version costs over $30, and closer to $40 unless you can find yourself a real online bargain. Oh, and a USB port? Nein! For that, you've got to cough up an extra $30 or so for the next Olympus model up.

Compare that to something like this BenQ Joybee 210, a 128 MB MP3 player that can be had for right around $12. Sure, they installed the voice recorder as an afterthought, but I've always found BenQ's sound quality decent enough—certainly better than what I got from my mic'd-up iPod. And it's USB 2.0 compatible, to boot.

The downside to the MP3 players is that they don't have the transcription features, especially bookmarks and variable playback. But I refuse to believe that adding those features should triple or quadruple the cost of a barebones audio player. And I don't buy the inevitable argument from manufacturers that there isn't a market for dedicate voice recorders. Okay, okay, I acknowledge that you can't fire up the Guangdong factories to satiate the members of my profession—there just aren't enough journalists on the planet to justify the investment. (Cue snarky retort akin to, "And that's a good thing, punk!") But it's not just me and my ink-stained brethren who would be willing to shell out twenty bones for a stand-alone voice recorder. In the tradition of Homer Simpson's riff on who's watching TV at 3:17 a.m. ("Alcoholics, the unemployable, angry loners..."), here's an off-the-top-of-my-head list of potential customers:

*Students (duh)
*Insurance claims adjusters
*Attorneys (particularly of the ambulance-chaser variety)
*Genealogists
*Medical examiners
*Police detectives
*Stand-up comedians
*The stoned
*Send me your own

No doubt I've proven the viability of the low-end voice recorder market beyond a shadow of a doubt. (Okay, not really, but play along at this point.) But what do the fly-by-night brands give us? As Seen on TV dreck like Mr. Voice. Oh, the humanity...

Maybe there's some good, logical reason why no one's jumped on this opportunity. Maybe it's part of a grand conspiracy among reputable manufacturers of microcassette recorders, who don't want to see their media sales vanish overnight. But the more likely explanation is that everyone's been too busy ratcheting down the cost of faux Discmen, and they've simply overlooked a potentially profitable low-end niche.

Well, jWINs and Cobys of the world, I give you permission to steal my idea. Make us a nice $20 single-purpose voice recorder, and you won't regret it. I, for one, will buy one—perhaps even two, as I tend to lose things. Is that enough incentive, or what?

MEA CULPA, IT'S COMING: In a late-June column, I appealed to y'all for ideas on low-end gadgets to review. You see, my Gizmodo overlords are gonna hook me up with a nice lil' $50 review fund per week, which should be more than enough to buy a few cheapo MP3 players of portable TVs up on 125th Street or down on Canal.

A lot of my favorite readers came through with some excellent ideas for product categories to cover. Alas, I've dropped the ball recently, and need to get my ass on a shopping mission to round up the first batch of gizmos. For the very last time in my life, I'll use the wedding excuse, along with my stock "I'm writing a book and traveling a lot" excuse mixed in for good measure. But fear not—I'm gonna motivate ASAP, and those reviews will be here before you know it. Thanks, as always, for your eternal patience and patronage.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Skin Deep

There's a classic moment early in John Carpenter's They Live in which the protagonist (ably played by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) first obtains the Ray-Bans that reveal the aliens among us. He notices one such E.T., disguised as a dowdy fiftysomething women, applying lipstick to her lizard-like visage. "Lady," the Rowdster contemptuously snorts, "that's like putting perfume on a pig."

Little did everyone's favorite kilted wrestler know that he was neatly summarizing the decades-long design trend in low-end TV antennas, which have become ever-more impressive looking while still providing the same craptacular benefits. Come on, you know what I'm talking about—the humble rabbit ears of yore have given way to contraptions that resemble CIA listening posts from the 1960s. The skin-deep evolution of TV antennas provides an invaluable—nay, indispensable—object lesson on the psychology of low-end consumers. For those latter-day Icaruses who dare challenge the gods, that lesson is haphazardly described after the jump. PLUS: Disgruntled Brazilians sound off about the nimble-fingered Taxman!

I'm not exactly sure when set-top antennas started to take their design cues from the Hoth Planet energy cannons, but I vividly recall my own first experience with this particular segment of the low-end market. I was a freshman in college, Bill Clinton had just won the White House, and people were actually paying good money to see Home Alone 2 in the theater. Most importantly, my roommates and I couldn't get cable in our dorm room, and the factory antenna couldn't pick up much more than the local NBC affiliate. So a Radio Shack run is organized, and there we come across a set-top antenna featuring a knob-adjusted dish in lieu of a simple wire coil. It looked cool as all get out, and even worked a smidge—though you could hardly call the effects miraculous. If memory serves, we were able to get Fox and maybe one other VHF channel, but UHF was hopeless. So much for us watching Nova, like all good college students of the day.

Since then, I've had occasion to try at least half-a-dozen other futuristic-looking antennas. The vogue for radar dishes has since given way to sleeker designs, with the Jensen TV-631 being the best example. Another favorite, design-wise, is the RCA/Thompson ANT-145, which replaces the dish with a disc, one that closely resembles the naked woofer of a 1980s cabinet speaker. To the untrained eye, all of these antennas look as if they should perform a billion times better than a barebones loop-and-ears setup.

But that's really not the case, now, is it? In fact, I'd dare say that you're not going to find much better performance in a sub-$20 antenna than what's offered by the GE TV24731. Yes, there may be differences in durability, especially if you're the sort who likes to get all hopped up on Yukon Jack and throw bricks at your set. And I'll concede that I've been impressed by antenna hype sheets that make note of HDTV compatibility. But come on, if you went through the trouble of getting yourself an HDTV set, aren't you almost certainly the sort of bloke who will also spring for cable? Antennas are for those of us who are still stuck with 13-inch Apex boxes, and remain criminally deprived of access to the likes of Animal Planet.

Yet some pretty solid companies continue revamping their set-top antenna designs every few years, to make them seem increasingly fit for our Jetsons future—though they also manage the neat trick of keeping prices consistently under $20. (Good rule of thumb: If you can afford an over-$20 set-top antenna, get yourself frickin' cable, man.) So what does it all mean? Well, the obvious lesson is that, because the low-end market is largely devoid of reviews (an oversight I hope to be changing soon), us budget consumers can only judge a book by its cover. I hunted a looooooong time for an article that benchmarks rival sub-$20 TV antennas, but came up with nil. (Then again, benchmarking TV antennas is pretty hard to do, because the uncontrollable factors that affect reception—such as weather—change so suddenly, and without warning.)

But I also think the evolution of low-end TV antenna designs shows that low-end consumers are, in fact, a lot more status conscious than we're willing to admit. It may be a misguided consciousness, akin to that displayed by folks who brag about the really cool spoiler they just added to the rear of their 1989 Honda Civic. But even us cheap bastards don't enjoy being perceived as such—on some level, we're ashamed of our cheapness, whether because it indicates that we're losing in the game of life, or we're just hopeless misers. (In my case, a little from Column A, a little from Column B.) So if buying the $19 Jensen antenna will help cover up that shame a bit better than the $8 GE unit, then it's money well spent. We'll just save up the difference by eating unseasoned spaghetti for a few days.

Don't misunderstand me, though. Us low-enders remain a fiercely proud lot on oh-so-many levels. In fact, I can honestly say that I live by some of the Mr. Piper's other immortal words from They Live: "I've come here to chew bubblegum, and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."

THE TAXMAN COMETH: Big response from south of the Equator to last week's column on Brazilian low-end electronics. Turns out I was onto something, in terms of explaining why TV sets aren't suitably cheap in Salvador de Bahia. The nation's sales taxes, I've been informers, are totally out of control—one correspondent said that they can add up to 40 percent to the street price of a product. Super ouch.

Additionally, protectionist laws preclude the importation of TVs. The native brands are instead manufactured in the Amazonian city of Manaus, which is a special economic zone in the middle of frickin' nowhere. Meanwhile, boomboxes and other small pieces of audio equipment are cheaper because so many of them are smuggled across the border from Paraguay. Let's hear it for black-market competition, the truest friend the low-end consumer will ever know.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Layin' Away

Michael Hudson's Merchants of Misery is one of the unheralded classics of populist economics. A forceful polemic against the industry of pawn shops, rent-to-own stores, and payday loan outlets that cluster around downtrodden neighborhoods like flies on poop, Hudson's book describes exactly how The Man goes about sucking every last penny out of the poor. All those places that advertise with the slogan "No credit, no problem!"? Black holes for cash.

No matter how thin your wallet is, of course, it's tough to shake the yen for material goods. And nowadays, the item atop most wish lists is a computer—to further Junior's studies, to download music, or to surf for buxom, underaged MySpace profilees. There are plenty of low-end options—a passable eMachines setup can be had for, what, $300 or so? But that assumes that the buyer has decent credit. For those who don't, and are thus primed for the likes of Pawn America, there are a few businesses that specialize in selling PCs on layaway. Perhaps the most well-known—or infamous—of these ventures is Financing Alternatives Inc. of Chesapeake, Virginia. After the jump, the skinny on how FAI manages to sell low-end PCs for staggeringly high-end prices. PLUS: You criticize, we listen—and reward, to boot!

On the surface, at least, the FAI business plan is really straight out of Merchants of Misery: target customers with horrendous credit, then charge 'em up the ying-yang with a weekly payment plan. Take this "small business desktop," which is advertised as running a Celeron D processor and housing an 80-gig hard drive. The lowest advertised total price on this, at $35.99 per week for a year, comes out to $1,871.48. Meanwhile, Dell's closest parallel, the decidedly low-end Dimension B110, now runs $299 (albeit sans printer). So, just because you have ghastly credit, you're being forced to pay a minimum of $1,500 or so extra. Ouch.

Note, however, the hedging in FAI's language. Not only are the weekly prices quoted their absolute lowest—perhaps for those with at least some modicum of credit?—but they also emphasize in several of their product descriptions that "actual system may vary from image." In other words, you may not getting the cheapo Dell that they're depicting, but rather a homebrew unit that they've assembled out of random parts.

That's certainly one of the big complaints against FAI, a frequent target for consumer griping. The Better Business Bureau has processed 389 grievances against FAI in the past 36 months, the vast majority of them from folks who wanted their money back after either not receiving a computer, or receiving one so abysmally crappy that they'd rather do without. The real goods, however, are at RipOffReport.com, where a host of disgruntled FAI customers let fly about the company's penchant for taking advantage of the credit poor. Seems like FAI automatically debits money from your checking account—for which it charges you $9.99 per debit—for three months, at which point you might get your low-end computer. Might.

Though they depict cheap Dells on their website, FAI often builds their own systems. According to one RipOffReport.com correspondent, who identifies himself as a current employee of FAI, the company uses the cheapest components available on their homebrew models, often stuffing archaic EDO RAM or non-AGP video cards into the PCs. Obviously, this stuff ain't so simpatico with today's software; pity the kid who tries playing the new Half-Life title on his FAI box.

Lastly, the contractual language that FAI makes you agree to makes it mighty tough to get recompense. You've gotta go through binding arbitration via the National Arbitration Forum, which is such a royal pain that most folks just give up and take the loss. Brilliant, albeit slightly evil.

After seeing a FAI commercial on daytime TV—never miss my Judge Judy, man—I gave the toll-free number a call and tried to get some direct answers. What model number Dell would I be getting, I asked? Lots of hemming and hawing is what I got, a response that basically amounted to, "You'll get what you get." She seemed far more interested in getting my bank-account routing number ASAP.

Look, I understand how tough it must be if your credit's shot—you still want to provide the very best for your family, and Dell Financial Services just won't lend a hand. But there's something pretty odious about rigging the game to this extent, just so you can wring a few extra bucks out of those who occupy the economy's bottom rung. Or am I being too harsh on FAI? If you've had an experience with this company, either good or bad, please let me know.

In the tradition of Jerry Springer, a final thought: Is there an opportunity in the low-end PC marketplace for a less predatory sort of layaway plan? Anytime you're dealing with folks who won't pass the easiest credit test, you're gonna have problems. But as entry-level PCs come down to the $200 mark and below, seems like the risks will be ameliorated somewhat. Society works, after all, because folks are basically honest. And, heck, if you have their bank-account details, can't you use that a cudgel in case things go awry?

HANDS ON: Numerous—okay, three—complaints about last week's column, in which I judged some low-end Coby and jWIN TVs without actually testing the units. The barrier wasn't laziness, I assure you, but rather budget—Low End Theory doesn't have one.

Or rather, didn't have one. We do now, a whopping $50 per test. And we're throwing open the low-end lab to you, dear readers. What should I spend my first Grant on? An assortment of clock radios? A couple of wannabe Discmen? An assortment of Uniden cordless phones? Cast your vote, and I'll get on obtaining the merch and doing the benchmarking right quick. And at the end of the day, you'll get some Low End Theory recognition, as well as an entry in our annual sweepstakes to get some of the products I'll be testing. Could there be a finer inducement than the prospect of a faux Watchman?

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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If you've read any past "Tuning Forks," you know I feel nothing but contempt for the current cable company monopoly over who provides my service. With two companies' lines running behind my house, the idea I only have one to choose from annoys me no end.

On top of that, cable prices have been climbing at an absurdly high rate—over the past ten years, rates have leaped almost 70 percent—so the lack of competition is even more galling. Why aren't more people bitching? For one thing, there's the so-called triple play, whereby providers can offer cable TV, Internet service and phone service. If you're told the bundle costs X, you're less inclined to look at what your individual cable bill costs. But since I haven't gone with VoIP yet, I know full well how much I'm shelling out for my mediocre cable service.

In any case, this week, Congress, at the behest of the phone companies, decided to get into the middle of this mess. I'm not a big fan of this type of intervention—I believe generally, Congressional intervention only makes things worse. But when it comes to the cable monopoly, it may be the only option. So it got my attention last week when the House told telecom providers that unlike cable companies, they wouldn't have to approach every town to seek permission to offer next-generation television services, like IPTV.

This particular bill was sponsored by Texas Congressman Joe Barton (R) who, interestingly enough, gets a sizable chunk of money from both cable providers and phone companies. (I wonder how Comcast is feeling right now about the $27,000 opensecrets.org says it contributed to Barton last year?) Barton's bill goes on to the Senate, now, where it is likely to pass in some form or another. This was originally attached to the net neutrality amendment, which would have prevented ISPs from charging more to high-bandwidth users who download things like video. But Congress didn't see the need to protect consumers, and tossed net neutrality in favor of ramming the franchise exemption through.

Barton claims his bill will do three primary things:

1. Provide more choices and more control for consumers.
2. Clear roadblocks on the information superhighway.
3. Create jobs and strengthen the economy.

The first two are enviable objectives, but the last one sounds like political BS.

Barton adds, regulations that govern cable stifle competition and prop up prices and that American consumers are used to being able to look for the best deal. Fair enough, but I personally think it's because once a cable company lays lines to your home, it has exclusive access to your business. If you want to open up competition, force cable companies to open their lines to other cable companies. They did it with the phone companies, for crying out loud, and look what happened to long-distance rates.

Later this week, the Senate is supposed to take up a compromise proposed by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R). Apparently, Stevens' bill preserves consumers' ability to surf anywhere on the Net, but doesn't ban ISPs from charging for specific content that companies like Microsoft and Google are seeking. IOW, online video fans beware.

One of the other issues surrounding this bill is that cable companies believe telcos will cherry pick their towns, offering IPTV service only to areas with higher incomes. It's illegal, but not hard to believe, even though the Telcos deny it's their intent. To top it off, Congress plans to put that regulatory wonder, the FCC, in charge of making sure the phone companies don't. Can't you just imagine Telco Legree rubbing his hands together at the prospect of an agency as inept as the FCC regulating the phone company steamroller? It's like asking a Little League commissioner to oversee drug testing for Major Leaguers—he'd be out of his league. Oh, wait...

What this boils down to is cable companies and telcos fighting to force their own agenda on consumers while telling us it's for our own good. Meanwhile, Congress, ever obliging and the one-time guardian of the people, is really only interested in placating industry lobbyists and corporate interests. As to what's going to happen down the road, suffice it to say that it's all likely to work out in the end...for them.

Brian L. Clark is a reporter and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Money, Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

Coby vs. jWIN: The Reckoning

The Coke and Pepsi of the low-end electronics universe, Coby and jWIN have become simply unavoidable as of late. Both have aggressively wheedled their way into myriad drugstores, discount warehouses, and shady depots that peddle both tube socks and faux Discmen. Lord knows that half the gadget shops in and around New York's Garment District would lose half their inventories should these two titans of cheap ever cease to exist.

So ubiquitous are these two skinflint faves that no one's bothered to ask the elephant-in-the-room question: Which one's better? Try as I might, I could find no head-to-head comparisons of equally spec'd Coby and jWIN products—tech journos, it seems, regard the brands in much the same way that Marie Antoinette regarded unkempt peasants. But Low End Theory feels no compunctions about dirtying its hands with cheap merchandise—heck, that's our whole reason for existing, is it not?

Therefore, after the jump, we're gonna offer up the scoop on three low-end deathmatches. Will it be Coby or jWIN that experiences the thrill of victory? Only those with the temerity to click the "MORE" link will know for sure.

As a quick prelude, let me head off potential objections from Coby and jWIN employees/fans by granting this: Both brands have been doing their darndest to make forays into pricier electronics. On the rare occasions that one of the companies' executives pops up in the trade press, it's usually to brag about the phat-yet-inexpensive LCD TVs they're rocking nowadays. And, hey, I can understand that—everyone wants to be seen as cutting edge rather than dowdy. But the fact remains that the low-end meccas of the world—starting with my beloved Gem Gem Gem Value Store on 125th Street—don't sell LCD TVs. They make their gadget cream off alarm clocks and cordless phones, and they sure do love them some Coby and jWIN.

Besides, this column is, and always will be, about products that us short-armed-but-deep-pocketed types can afford without feeling the pangs of buyer's remorse. So I kept the focus tight on gizmos that can be had for less than the price of a set of shock-inducing RC tanks. I feel your cheapness, yo:

Alarm Clocks I selected two projection clocks, the Coby CR-A78 versus the jWIN JL-705. The Coby certainly wins on price, selling for an average of $6 less than its opponent. The specs are almost identical, and the design is really a matter of taste—Coby's designers (okay, the dudes who work at their contract factory somewhere in Guangdong) seem to favor cleaner lines and less ornamentation, while jWIN is all about the blue and shiny metallic dials. It's a close call, but I'm going to hand this one to Coby, based mostly on the compactness of the projection unit—the jWIN clock is too eerily reminiscent of one of those droids who gets tortured on Jabba the Hutt's barge in Return of the Jedi. (Note: Please, no hate mail. Yes, I know that RotJ sucked, and that the Ewoks deserve a special place in Hell.)

MP3 Players A face-off between two 256 MB Flash players here—Coby's MP-C841 against the jWIN JX-MP130FM. The former unit can be had for a good $20 less if you snoop around online, but the jWIN clearly wins out on features this time around, starting with the addition of an FM tuner. The jWIN also has line-in recording and USB 2.0 compatibility; the Coby may have the latter, but the spec sheet sure doesn't mention it. Hands down a winner for jWIN, despite the steeper price tag. Even in the low-end realm, sometimes it's worth the extra scratch to ensure that you won't end up kicking yourself for being such a miserable miser.

Portable B&W TVs Ai'ight, the tiebreaker: the Coby CX-TV1 goes up against its nemesis, the jWIN JV-TV1010. The Coby averages about $5 cheaper to start, though you're also losing half-an-inch of screen size—let's call it a draw on that score, then. The specs are basically identical, right down to the three power-source options; heck, their web folks even used matching simulated pictures featuring fake football players. The controls, meanwhile, as so similar to make me suspect these TVs rolled off the same exact Far East assembly line. It comes down, then, to maneuverability, and the jWIN noses ahead in this regard. It appears to have the capacity for a little up-and-down swivel, and it's also got slightly more manageable dimensions—a godsend if you're taking this out on the lake. I'm thus gonna call this a point for jWIN, though the contest could scarcely be closer, and I admit that I wasn't able to get test units into the lab for hands-on experimentation. Anyone own both these TVs? If so, drop me a line and lemme know if I misjudged this.

So,when all's said and done, jWIN wins this one by the barest of margins. I think the basic rule of thumb is that Coby generally wins on price, but that jWIN's designers add just enough zazz to justify their products' higher costs. Then again, if I went back and looked at another three head-to-heads, I might come up with entirely different results. Of course, no one likes wishy-washy journalism of that nature, now, do they? I will, then, shout this decisively from the rooftops: jWIN is emperor of the low-end universe.

Let that be a challenge unto you, Coby. Not to mention Sungale, Anergé, or whoever else dreams of donning the championship belt and earning my everlasting love. You know you want it.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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TV sure ain't what it used to be. The emergence of TiVo, the popularity of iTunes video, the growth of YouTube, mobile video and the IPTV invasion are just a few examples of how the TV Universe is in flux. And don't think the network folks haven't noticed. Just look at how they're scrambling to make content available to virtually anyone who'll have it. Even gray-haired CBS has put shows online at the iTunes Store, joining such hits as the "Super Monkey Robot Team" and Jim Cramer's "Mad Money." If only iTunes would add "Deadwood." Alas...

With all due respect to TiVo's Guru Guides, I don't need someone to make recommendations for what I ought to watch—I already know what I want and when I want it. What I need is something that actually goes out, retrieves and consolidates that programming in one place, no matter what the source may be. Besides, do I really give a crap what Courtney Cox-Arquette is watching? I mean, I know the "experts" at many of these magazines anyway. If I want a recommendation, I'll call and ask.

As I opined last month, what I really want is a network that caters to my own tastes—a so-called "personal TV network." Knowing there's so much content available on television and the Internet, I want a consolidator to go out and draw it all together so I can record and watch it whenever I want, in spite of snarky "Yawn..." comments made by some disaffected readers.

Well this week I got a call from a Burlingame, California, company called MeeVee that aims to do just that. MeeVee is a service that provides search and discovery technology it claims offers "television viewers and video content enthusiasts...a smarter, easier way to navigate the growing universe of television programming and video content." The company received an "Official Honoree" designation at this year's Webby Awards and seems to be on the right track. "TV isn't just what you watch at a certain time anymore," President Michael Raneri told me last week as he made his way back to San Francisco from a meeting with Microsoft. "Now it extends beyond TV to what you watch on a PC, your phone or any other small device."

According to Raneri, MeeVee aims to allow users to define the content they're looking content via categories, keywords and other attributes. "You can literally create your own personal channel," he adds. MeeVee also provides an international list of streaming channels. Unlike the U.S., a great deal of television around the world is state owned. MeeVee plans to metatag all that content and make it available to viewers interested in a particular subject matter. For example, Raneri says, you may be interested in sailing but have no idea about video available on the myriad websites out there. MeeVee will gather all that programming and help you access it.

The company is currently working with cable companies looking to make video available via their portals. More interesting, however, is that MeeVee is developing a peer-to-peer player that allows users to download shows in the background and stream DVD-quality video from a hard drive.

"Cable no longer has a lock on how people get content," says Raneri. "And if you can take the masses by the hand and introduce them to this new world, you'll have a very loyal user."

Perhaps even those that currently yawn at the idea.

Brian L. Clark is a reporter and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Money, Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

Cheapo Handset Bill of Rights

Us veterans of the food-service industry know that a restaurant's best-selling bottle of wine is almost invariably the second cheapest on the list. The common assumption among diners is that the lowest priced vino is probably fit for little more than disinfecting pustular sores, and so they might as well spend the extra $4 and get something at least halfway drinkable. Plus, let's face it, no one wants their date/client/grandma to think, "Gee, this guy makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like Daddy Warbucks."

The same sort of psychology seems to be at work among pressed-for-cash cellphone buyers. In response to last week's column on ultra-cheap handsets, a reader pointed me toward some anecdotal evidence—okay, okay, a speech by a Qualcomm exec—insisting that discount-conscious handset buyers actually prefer phones one or two notches up from the biggest bargains. The cheapest handsets, it seems are perceived as too feature-poor and unreliable to be worth the scratch—the digital versions of that $18 bottle of fetid Chianti that your local Italian joint is eager to push on unsuspecting cheapskates.

In some ways, the ultra-cheap handsets are getting a bad rap based on this tic of consumer psychology. But then again, when you strip away every reasonable feature in the name of low, low price, you're eventually gonna make the product undesirable to even entry-level buyers. With that in mind, I gave a good, long think to some perks that every buyer of a sub-$35 handset should be entitled to, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, or species. If you're reading, oh lords of Nokia and Motorola, take note and start treating my short-armed, deep-pocketed brothers right. PLUS: The first handset to break the 1,000 rupee barrier?

Before I rattle off the list, a quick note on what's not going to be on cheapo handsets anytime soon: cameras, color screens, and clamshell tops. I'm particularly enamored of the last design detail, but in the name of low-end bliss, I can do without. I do, however, look forward to the day when someone figures out how to add a one-megapixel cam to a cellphone without jacking up the overall price by 30 percent. Any companies out there working on this, or am I just a nut and a crazy dreamer?

These must-have features are in no particular order; please e-mail me with suggestions for others, and I'll try to run 'em next week:

Save Preset Text The "canned" text bites that come equipped on most low-end phones are maddeningly useless. I remember that on my ol' Samsung A300, the only one I ever ended up using was "Thank you," and even that was a rarity. (Particularly annoying was "Be there in 15 minutes"—what if I only needed 10 minutes?) My suggestion, then, is for there to be a way to type out and store some stock catchphrases of your own design. For example, why on Earth shouldn't I be able to add "Whatchu up 2?" Doesn't seem to be a memory problem, as the A300 (as well as most other basic handsets) allow you to store many of lines of text in the Notepad. A simple software fix should suffice to allow this, right?

Stopwatch Why this isn't a standard feature on every phone, I have no clue. In fact, I've never seen it on any phone I've ever owned, which makes me conclude that few handsets are designed by Germans residing in large cities. I mean, what pleasure could possibly be more Teutonic than measuring exactly how many seconds it takes you to walk a certain number of blocks, or ride the subway from one neighborhood to another. The clock may give you a rough estimate but, believe you me, there's a big difference between a 40-minute subway ride and one that lasts 45 seconds more. (For the record: I am part German and hopelessly anal retentive about maximizing efficiency.—in other words, I kid because I am.)

One-Touch Redial What's standard on cordless phone should be standard on cheap handsets. Given the problem with fade-outs, it makes sense to expedite the redial process. But most of us still have to sift through the Calls list to find out most recently dialed or received number, and then press the Send key. Yes, I realize that I'm talking about saving folks a grand total of about seven minutes per year. But you'll thank me on your deathbed, when you'd trade it all for just another seven minutes of precious life. (Like I said, I'm part German, and thus given over to bouts of morbidity. Apologies.)

Preset Games One of my biggest disappointments with the Razr has been the lack of preset games. I know that they're trying to hook you on subscriptions to Bejeweled and whatnot, but how much fonder I'd be of Motorola if they'd simply thrown Push Push on there.

SIM Card This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't. Why on Earth would a smart company like Samsung sell me a handset that backs up via USB to my PC, but then that information can't be transferred to my new Razr? I guess that's just their way of trying to keep the little guy hooked on Samsung products—the old compatibility trick. I say a pox on 'em, and SIM cards for all—how expensive a feature can that be, given that the bottom-o'-the-line Nokia 1100 is SIMed out?

Ceaseless Alarm Clocks I once missed a train because my handset's alarm only rang for 60 seconds, then quit. I say screw the battery life issues and make those suckers ring 'til its owner either hits snooze or the off button.

Like I said before, this is only a partial list, and I'd love to hear from the peanut gallery. And while you're at it, if you've got any info on good places to eat/drink in Utica, New York, I'd be much obliged—I'm heading there tomorrow for book research, and dread having to settle for Taco Bell. Many thanks.

LAST HANDSETS BIT, PROMISE: Last week, I appealed for cheapo handset info from around-the-globe. Correspondents from India to Mexico responded, and the verdict was pretty much the same—Kyocera, not Motorola, is leading the charge toward sub-$30 handsets. An Indian low-end fan, for example, wrote in with word that the Kyocera Prisma is now being offered in his land for a mere 999 ruppees—quite likely the first handset to crack the magical 1,000 rupee barrier. And down Mexico way, a Kyocera Blade can be had for 399 pesos, a price that includes 100 pesos worth of talk time.

So let's hear it for our friends at Kyocera. And, honest to God, you won't hear another peep out of me about handsets for at least the next 14 days. Unless I totally get writer's block next Thursday, which is always a possibility. (Thanks, Salvador and Aditya)

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Each week, I'm "blessed" with numerous research reports, all touting some newly-discovered nugget of information bound to have an impact on the long-term market for hardware or technology services. Generally speaking, these things are nothing more than educated speculation. But every once in a while, one comes to my inbox that feels as though it's trying to create a market that just isn't there. Take, for instance, one I received this week from well-known research firm Parks Associates. The headline was straightforward: "Sales of Home Media Servers at 50 Million Units by 2010."

Apparently, they know something about this market that I don't.

The report concludes that "demand for media backup, competition among video providers and wider accessibility of IP content are driving deployment." Aside from the fact this statement makes it seem like these things are already selling like hotcakes, that last sentence actually got me thinking they might at least be on the right track.

"Consumers will benefit from the capabilities and features provided by home media servers, which will enhance their home media experiences and offer safeguarding and storage for their digital content," according to Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst. "Many industry players—including technology vendors, equipment manufacturers and service providers—will benefit from the development and distribution of centralized storage platforms to the home."

You know, I get the whole, "I want to have everything in one place and distribute it everywhere" mentality. But the idea of trying to transfer my somewhat substantial iTunes library to another machine (again), and then going through the process of authorizing the machine and de-authorizing another machine—yes, I've reached my five PC limit—is more than I can bear. And I'm certainly not going to waste precious time ripping my DVD collection to a new machine. That said, there is something to the idea of having a central storage place for new video and film content coming available via the Internet.

So where is this magical media box going to come from? After all, someone still has to make the hardware and create an interface users are comfortable with. So right off the bat, that all but eliminates Sony. Not that the consumer electronics giant won't try. In fact, I attended the event where they introduced the Vaio XL-1 Series. When I asked why they decided to go with Media Center, the simple answer was that they tried their own OS (remember Giga Pocket) and the world yawned. Alas, the reality is Sony may be great at making electronic devices, but it sucks at software. And the company knows it. So rather than work with someone outside to develop a groundbreaking and intuitive OS people would be comfortable with, they caved and went with the clunky interface and limited capabilities of Windows Media Center.

To be fair, that also eliminates the vast majority of PC manufacturers that can't get beyond Windows as an all-purpose tool, whether you're at the office or at your leisure. And therein lies the problem. I say again, the general public just doesn't want Redmond's drop-down menus and reboots mucking up their viewing experience. If you've ever used a digital entertainment device running Windows Media Center, you know what I mean.

It's interesting to speculate on what Apple will do, but I'm not sure Apple gives a crap about building media servers so much as it does making scads of money selling content at the iTunes store. The company doesn't easily cave to fads, either. I remember talking to Apple in 2000 about when it was going to release its own Internet appliance. Apple's response: The iMac was the ultimate Internet appliance. Turns out they were right and the analysts were wrong. (Confession: At Money, we actually thought Gateway had a better long-term strategy.)

In any case, iTunes offers music and video and, given the recent marriage of Pixar and Disney, is likely to sell feature films down the road. One would think if anyone were going to figure out a way to deliver first-run content—the kind people might actually want to store—to the masses, it would be this group, with Jobs at the helm. But again, that leads to the device to store this stuff. Apple seemed to be heading to a solution with the release of the Mac Mini and the development of Front Row, but that program's capabilities are even more limited than WMC. And frankly, I'm tired of waiting for Jobs to give his Cupertino Kids permission to just build one. Which leads me back to the original question: Who is going to make this media server Parks is so hot on?

Well, if I were an enterprising young consumer electronics executive, I'd be greasing the wheels in Cupertino about developing an iTunes-like interface to license for my brand new device. Apple may be notoriously difficult to deal with. But really, what other option is there? Vista? Not on my TV.

Brian L. Clark is a reporter and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Money, Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

A Handset in Every Pot

There are innumerable perks to being a citizen of a First World nation: ready access to potable water, the established rule of law, affordable Skinemax. But our relative affluence also means that the Nokias and Motorolas of the world figure that we're perfectly content to pay upwards of $150 for a fresh mobile handset. Don't they realize that we've got better things on which to spend our hard-earned dosh? As if I wasn't cheap enough already, now I've got to save up for the new Mork and Mindy Nikes that are coming out.

So I'm probably not alone in envying our brothers and sisters in India, China, or countries with similarly up-and-coming economic profiles. That's because the mobile handset vendors are falling all over themselves to provide these folks with handsets that retail for less than the cost of the Roasted Tilapia in a Bag dinner entrée from Red Lobster. They're not there yet, pricewise, but they're getting close thanks to some nifty chipset advances—not to mention a little gambling about the future consumerist proclivities of the developing world's nascent middle class. After the jump, a peek at the handsets that handset makers are hoping will be all the rage in Trivandrum or Fuzhou this year, as well as some minor ruminations on what this means for us low-end aficionados.

The business-side strategy of hawking lower cost handsets is pretty easy to divine: even with smaller margins on each unit, the volume of potential customers is simply staggering. This is actually an old chestnut; I'm currently re-reading Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China, in which he recounts the chop-licking of Western manufacturers as Chinese markets opened up during the 1920s. Things didn't quite work out on that go-around, of course, but all signs point to the situation being different today. (Famous last words, I realize, but go with me on this one.)

The GSM Association is certainly hip to these emerging markets, pushing its members to slide the wholesale prices of their cheapest handsets to under $30. But that's just a starting point: last summer Germany's Infineon announced a chipset that should cut the retail price on stripped-down phones to below $20. Texas Instruments and Philips are boasting similar designs, though neither expects sub-$20 handsets to be available until 2008 at least.

For now, then, the emerging markets must settle for bottom-of-the-barrel designs that hover around the $40 mark at best. Though Nokia seems to be making the most noise about serving the underserved—it has, for example, close to 60 percent of the Indian market—Motorola actually seems to be blazing the better trail in this regard. The C113A, for example, was arguably the world's first sub-$40 GSM handset. In fact, the company's entire C11x line is priced to move; both the C111 and C115, for example, retail for 36,000 Rwandan francs (c. $65) in Kigali, via South Africa's MTN (which handles networks in several sub-Saharan countries).

France's Alcatel is also in the low-cost sweepstakes with its OT 153, which reminds me of the Nokia 1100 minus the zazz. I expected it to be a pretty plain Jane entry, but it's actually somewhat feature rich. At the very least it has SIM-card memory, something that was actually lacking in a Samsung handset foisted upon my by Verizon Wireless some two-and-a-half years ago.

At this pace, there's really no reason why low-cost handsets shouldn't get appreciably cheaper by year's end, to say nothing of 2007. If the vendors are serious about their commitment to emerging-market consumers—something they claim is based on sound capitalist urges, rather than a yen to look like good, caring folk—then the economies of scale should kick in pretty quickly. The chipset problems already seem to have largely been ironed out, and the firmware shouldn't be too tough a hurdle; I'm by no means an expert, but it's tough to imagine there not being a sub-1,000 rupees handset available to Indian consumers by, say, this time next year.

Yet there are a couple of potential issues that bear notice. One is the somewhat schizophrenic nature of Nokia's stated strategy, which I'm sure goes for every other cellphone maker out there. Our beloved Finns have been making a big push in developed world to turn the humble handset into a veritable laptop—that was, I think, the whole point of that ad campaign featuring that chattering blonde with the bejunked trunk. (Sorry, had to whip out one of my favorite phrases once more.) It goes without saying that, barring a sudden tripling of the average income in China or India, the high-end devices remain a much more lucrative field—those margins are something to behold. So will the vendors really see through the $15 handset, knowing that it's gonna be a lot harder to recoup their investment? Stockholders demand results, and results are more easily obtained by pushing those 9300s.

As a man so cheap I refuse to pay the extra 20 cents for Goya's Dark Red Kidney Beans (the regular kidneys are just fine at $.79), I'm also wondering whether us blokes in the, uh, emerged markets will benefit at all from the developments in the ultra low-cost space. Many of my American brethren may be sorta screwed because of GSM's slow penetration over here, but those issues aside, I sure would like to see the likes of a $15 handset on these shores. If nothing else, they would make it a lot easier on working-class families to supply their kids with phones (on the assumption that roughly 50 percent of handsets given to pre-teens end up getting broken within the first three months). Perhaps more importantly, they'd also make it easier for the dollar-store outlets to offer free phones with activation; right now, for example, the 99-cent store around the corner from my apartment is still charging you, like, $49 for a push-to-talk phone. That's ridiculously steep for a store whose top-selling product is Marcal toilet paper.

Let me end with a humble request: I realize that I didn't do a very good job of tracking down the cheapest emerging-market phones. Hey, I'm trapped here in Harlem—if Gizmodo could've paid for a reporting trip to India, Lord knows I woulda taken 'em up on it. But I'm gonna rely on you, dear readers, to alert me to any great handsets worth mentioning in the ultra low-cost segment. Is there an LG or Samsung sub-$40 unit that I missed? Gimme a shout, and you could end up with enough good karma to last you well into the next life.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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I've been doing a lot of bitching lately—remember, I bitch because I care—so this week I thought I'd look at something that I'm actually kind of excited about: The use of LEDs as a backlighting source for HDTVs.

Samsung introduced what they called the first ever LED light-sourced DLP rear projection HDTV sets at this years' Consumer Electronics Show, claiming the lack of a color wheel provides smoother, more stable colors; a faster, 7-second turn-on time and a 20,000 hour plus lamp life with no picture degradation. As a result, you don't have to worry about spending $300 or $500 to change the bulb when they've exceeded their usual 3,000- to 6,000-hour lifespan. LEDs in rear-projection sets offer additional benefits, as well, including less noise (no color wheel means easier cooling), no mercury and lower voltage, which means less cost to operate.

All of the aforementioned claims are echoed by David Naranjo, an analyst at research firm DisplaySearch. "LED's definitely offer advantages over UHP [ultra high powered] bulbs," says Naranjo. But he also cautions that while LEDs offer many benefits, "the current configurations of TVs on the market are not optimized for LED use." The end result, he adds, is that projection sets lit by LEDs are likely to be priced between $500 and $700 more than a comparable 1080p DLP set that uses a UHP lamp.

In fact, the real price differential appears to be somewhat higher. For example, a Samsung HL-S5679W, the 56-inch set the Korean electronics giant introduced at this year's CES, is listed at $4,000. That's about $1000 more than a more traditional 1080p DLP set.

Ouch.

The HL-S5679W was supposed to be available in April, but it appears as though it hasn't hit stores yet. Except for the option to "pre-order" at a couple online outlets, I couldn't find anyone that had it in stock.

The price is even steeper when you look at LCDs backlit with LEDs. While the benefits to LCD sets are said to include a larger color gamut, dynamic white control and a reduction in motion artifacts, the cost of those benefits is significant. In fact, Sony's been using LED backlighting in some of its extraordinarily expensive Qualia televisions for the last year or so. And if you have $8,000 and the stomach for it, you can buy the Kdx46Q005, a 46-inch LED backlit 1080p LCD HDTV right now.

Alas, it appears the high cost for LED backlighting on LCD TVs is unlikely to drop for the next year or two, according to Naranjo. "As far as LEDs for LCD backlights," he says, "several companies are working on improving the cost benefit curve." The good news is that a host of companies, including Osram Opto Semiconductor in Germany and Coretronic in Taiwan are ramping up to enter the market to make LED backlights for televisions, so it shouldn't be long until market pressure helps to lower the price.

All of this is to say it appears to me that LED backlighting is the next big thing in HDTV. And it's something I believe is actually worth getting excited about. I mean, what else can manufacturers do? Increase resolution to 2160p? Now, if they can only get the price down to that magical $1,000 for a 42-inch set, count me in. At least, until the next great innovation comes along.

Brian L. Clark is a reporter and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Money, Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

To Serve and Protect

As a somewhat spoiled only child, I got a lot of sweet Christmas gifts in my day: a VIC-20, the first Stetsasonic album, Soundwave. But the topper was the handheld police scanner that my dad scooped up at Radio Shack in the late 1980s. Paid for on a layaway plan (a fact which pops still brings up to this day), that beloved scanner afforded me many, many joyful hours of eavesdropping on cellphone convos, trucker banter and, most importantly, police chatter.

I guess that's when I started thinking about becoming a cop—oh, how I yearned to run around the streets of pre-Ramparts Los Angeles, chunky utility belt strapped around my waist à la Batman. It was a dream deferred, then denied as I chose a life of the mind over a life of wanton Taserings.

But a Geekish-American can still fantasize, yes? And then flesh out the fantasy with some low-end gadgets that can turn any civilian into a poseur policeman. After the jump, three techie toys that'll help you play make believe, yet cost less (combined!) than my favorite Xmas gift from the days of yore. PLUS: The low-end champ of one-gig drives?

You gotta trick out your car cop-style to start, and that means investing in this nifty four-in-one, $29.99 siren combo. The hype sheet language really says it all: "Don't settle for one boring blast when you can have 4 loud at your fingertips." I guess the stumbling block here is that your local PD may have cars that feature a different "police wailer" sound, and so you might seem out of place. When in doubt, simply activate the "euro ambulance siren"; that should confuse everyone sufficiently to make them pull over to the shoulder, wondering how and when they ended up in Zagreb while en route to the local 7-11.

Low End Theory does not advocate the use of firearms, primarily because they're too darn expensive for cheap folks like us. But what would a cop be without some means of subduing the bad guys? Stun guns are the affordable means of doing so, and cheap models are legion at any store run by a real-world version of one-armed Herman from The Simpsons. But the geek in me just can't resist spending a few extra quid on the Palco Cellphone Stun Gun, which looks like a Motorola handset circa 1991. Hunting-and-fishing megastore has it on sale for $69.99, but if you poke around you should be able to locate a unit for closer to $50. Again, the hype sheet lingo is evocative enough to deserve a full quotation: "This causes an attacker to drop while the brain tries to remember how to move the arms and legs." Perhaps the attacker is merely trying to process why you, his tormenter, hasn't yet upgraded to one of Verizon's cheap Razrs.

The toughest get of this trio was a police scanner; used ones abound on eBay, largely via PD surplus sales, but new units are still mighty expensive—a lot pricier than CB radios, for sure. The solution is to do an end-run around the market and opt for one of Uniden's scanners designed for the NASCAR set, specifically the BC72XLT-1RHS. It's designed to let race fans eavesdrop on the back-and-forth between pit and driver, but if you search around you can doubtless find some cop chatter, too. (At least that's what promised on the hype sheet; anyone know if they're stretching the truth here?) The nicest feature here is Uniden's trademarked Close Call, which automatically latches onto nearby radio signals should you so desire. So if there's a crime scene located down your block, this might be the best way of finding out what's going on. (Note: I've found that asking a cop, "Hey, what happened?" tends not to work; the stock response is, "Sir, move away from the yellow tape.")

With a little diligence, you can scoop up all three of the aforementioned items for around $130 to $170—far less than the $228.79 that my dad ended up paying for my scanner when all was said and done. (Yes, he quotes that exact figure.) The caveat—and you knew this was coming—is that your local PD may not appreciate your aspirations to copdom. In fact, should you spend a day roaming around your town with siren wailing, zapping random passerby who seem to be committing misdemeanors, I can pretty much guarantee that you'll end up in jail. If/when that happens, please e-mail with the subject heading "I've Been Arrested". While I'm far too broke to provide bail money, I might be able to show up at your trial as a character witness.

LOWER THAN LOW: In last week's column, I marveled over a $31 one-gig flash drive that's being hawked more-or-less factory direct by a Shenzhen manufacturer. I guess I'm not really too up on low-end USB drive pricing, though, as a couple of readers pointed out drives that were closer to the $20 mark. The best seems to be this RiDATA unit, available on Newegg.com for $22.89. As we move ever closer to the ultimate low-end dream: one gig for one dollar. (Thanks, Gyg)

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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God bless the porn industry. Yeah, I said it, but before some of you get your panties in a bunch, know this: If you want a technology driver, you need only look to the porn industry to see where video is headed.

Porn just seems to gravitate to new technology. It was the porn industry that helped decide the winner in the VHS/Beta wars 25 years ago. The porn industry helped make CD-ROMs ubiquitous and created the basis for online payment systems so prevalent today. And as a big-time electronics company executive told me a couple months ago, it will be the porn industry that decides the ultimate victor in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wars. So it's not surprising the industry decided to pioneer in the area of digital downloads.

Today (May 22, 2006) Vivid Entertainment is supposed to begin offering $19.95 downloads that can be burned onto a DVD. "Leave it to the porn industry once again to take the lead on this stuff," Michael Greeson, founder of Plano, TX research firm, The Diffusion Group, told the AP. Not surprisingly, he added, "The rest of Hollywood stands back and lets the pornography industry work out all the bugs." That should be small comfort to folks who already believe Hollywood is way behind the curve when it comes to digital downloads. But hey, at least they have an example.

The truth is, this gets to the heart of the longstanding distrust between Hollywood and technology companies. The high-definition, big-screen TV phenomenon is wreaking havoc with Hollywood these days; more people are waiting for movies to be released as DVDs—both legal and illegal—so they can watch them on their giant televisions. The film industry tried to address that issue with the semi-simultaneous release of Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble," which hit theaters on January 27th and came out as a DVD four days later. Clearly, they know the direction the industry is headed. Now if they'd just take a page out of the music industry's book by providing a download service that offers first-run flicks. Even if it doesn't allow me to burn DVDs, I'd still pay $25 to download and watch a first-run movie. After all, once I factor in a babysitter and the cost of the crappy food in the theater, it's going to cost me $100, easy.

To be fair the studios do have to deal with the fact that they now look to make more money from DVDs than they do from ticket sales. So it's unlikely a retail operation like Wal-Mart or Blockbuster would look too kindly on being cut out of the food chain. Then again, if Hollywood was really smart, it might stop actually fighting technology and work with those retailers to develop a secure method for digital distribution that keeps pirates at bay. After all, who really wants to trudge to the store to buy or rent a DVD when all they have to do is download a film and watch it on their TV?

Some entertainment companies actually do get it. Revelations Entertainment, for example, is working with Intel to help bring the latter's vision of digital entertainment to reality. The task, says Morgan Freeman, one of Revelations' principles, is "to make film easier to buy than to pirate."

For that reason, I'm rooting for the porn industry. After all, with a nod to "Avenue Q" (hilarious, btw, if you haven't seen it), the Internet is perfect for porn.

Brian L. Clark is a writer and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Inc., Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

Anergé is Eternal Delight

Scant brainpower is required to realize that there's a strong correlation between a product's price and the number of middlemen involved in getting it to market. The more hands a doohickey passes through, the more expensive it tends to be—a major reason, I figure, as to why a gallon of gas costs 60 cents in Dhahran, but $3.45 up at the Esso station on 145th Street.

The bottom line is that it's always better to minimize the number of folks involved in the transaction, preferably by buying direct from the manufacturer. Alas, when it comes to low-end gadgets, most factories don't want to hear from you unless you're willing to ante up for 10,000 units, minimum. You just want one measly flash drive? Then head down to Chinatown with the rest of the consumerite masses.

But does it really need to play out like that? I thinketh not, and neither do the minds behind the Anergé brand, a straight-outta-Shenzhen line of thumb drives, MP3 players, and assorted other electronics flotsam. Rather than peddle to Wally's Discount Emporium or your local cell hut, this shadowy company is selling its wares factory direct—and maybe, just maybe, signaling the advent of a low-end revolution while they're at it. After the jump, the scoop on some seriously cheap goods, as well as some seriously Engrish-fied marketing copy.

I first came across Anergé while researching another column idea, on the stunning decline in prices for keychain USB drives. Froogle got me to this little number, a one-gig model for just $31.95. That sounded hella cheap to me, at around three cents per meg of memory—did I wake up in 2009? Or did I miss some sort of sea change in our collective understanding of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling?

I'd never heard of the Anergé brand that this drive was being marketed under, so I did the requisite Google check. Nothing, save for some product listings and a page for a Japanese apartment complex. Then I trolled the nation's corporate records, looking for at least a "doing business as" entry. Again, nothing. Gizmodo archives? Zip. And if it hasn't been mentioned on this fair site, well, does it really exist?

Turns out that Anergé products are sold exclusively via two affiliated sites, Campus111.com and USA111.com. Why the triple ones? As the former site so helpfully instructs, it's because their "goal is to make Your Satisfaction Assured 111%! No.1 Price, No.1 Quality, No.1 Service! Student Prices for Everyone, Everyday!!!"

The plethora of ones tipped me off pretty quickly that we were dealing with an author who's native language is probably Chinese—the fascination with numerology is a distinctively Chinese interest, as my pal Jennifer 8. Lee can well attest. And, indeed, if you read a little further, you'll see that, despite having a post-office box in Columbus, Campus111 and USA111 are really subsidiaries of a factory located in Shenzhen's Nanshan District. USA111, it turns out, is legally incorporated in Ohio, thanks to the legal assistance of this guy. But make no mistake, all the action is going down at the Fangda Building many thousands of miles away.

The deal here seems to be that the Shenzhen factory is pressing out low-end copies of existing designs, then stamping them with one of several, um, unique brands: Anergé, I-Spirit, and Smarts. The factory's MP3 players, for example, bear an eerie resemblance to an iRiver unit that I reviewed for Wired a few years ago. The major difference, of course, is price, and the ones listed at Campus111 really can't be beat—$39.95 for a 512MB MP3 player, $59.95 for a four-megapixel digital camcorder.

Part of their secret is obviously a willingness to dupe slightly outmoded designs—a classic low-end strategy. But you've got to think that the factory-direct element plays into their cost-cutting, too—the only place the product goes between Shenzhen and your doorstep is probably a warehouse in Columbus, owned and operated by the same businessmen. That means a smaller retail markup, especially since they're obviously competing exclusively on price. And, boy, God bless them for it.

The gadgets may not be exactly cutting edge, but this business model strikes me as somewhat futuristic. The Guangdong factories now realize that, if they're targeting the low-end market, there's not reason they can't bypass the discount stores and take the whole kitty for themselves. Campus111/USA111 knows that there's enough Internet competence out there to support a low-end e-commerce venture—in other words, even us cheap-ass types now see the wisdom in forking over for a sub-$20 DSL hookup, and looking for bargain online. And they've solved the problem of presentation—that is, designing sites that are professional enough to avoid skeeving anyone out about the safety of their credit-card info. (The factory also sells on eBay as a Platinum Powerseller, as the Campus111 site makes clear about 4,000 times.)

All that said, you'd think these guys would be raking it in enough to hire a somewhat more fluent English speaker to handle their copy. I can understand that they want to keep this a Chinese affair, but come on, check out a job fair at Ohio State and hire some poor English major who's wondering what to do with his/her life. If anything's gonna skeeve out a potential buyer, it's Engrish lines like: "WOW! ANERGE USB 2.0 FLASH MEMORY DRIVE. Your Close Secretary!" Or, my personal favorite, "Let's share happiness together!"

Um, let's not. Just send me some low-end gadgets, okay? And while you're at it, throw in one of those $1.95 copies of The Way of the Dragon that you're also selling. Doh jeh.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Do We Need Another Wireless Standard?

One of the most interesting things about covering tech is you're constantly bombarded with propaganda touting the "next great" technological breakthrough. For example, these days I'm thinking the next great thing is WiMAX, or 802.16. WiMAX is, essentially, WiFi on steroids. The idea behind it is to extend the range of broadband wireless connectivity not by hundreds of feet, but by miles—2 to 7 miles, depending on terrain, as opposed to WiFi's theoretical 300 feet. WiMAX products will likely hit the market later this year, with Intel building connectivity into mobile chipsets in 2007.

Now you might wonder what that has to do with a column about all things television. Well, Intel recently announced it was partnering with a Swedish company called NDS to develop a trial system that provides TV and video systems via WiMAX. According to NDS, the technology would allow WiMAX service providers to bundle TV and video-on-demand with broadband offerings and would use NDS's secure VideoGuard technology to provide paid access.

This isn't the first time Intel has dabbled in wireless entertainment, by the way. At last year's Sundance Festival, Intel partnered with Alvarion and Mountain Wireless to stream a feature-length movie to a theater nearly two miles away. According to attendees, the "resulting image quality was indistinguishable from customary commercial theater showings." Also important, Intel claims that this was no special setup but rather, a "straightforward installation of market-available hardware." In other words, the WiMAX products they used to conduct this experiment are already available.

WiMAX is exciting because it allows providers another avenue to distribute content to subscribers. This week, there were rumblings in the analyst community that Microsoft should look into acquiring Time Warner. Whether that happens or not is irrelevant. Just imagine Microsoft (or Earthlink or AOL) as your wireless Internet service provider offering subscribers the option to stream all of Time Warner's content, including CNN, HBO, or Cinemax via a WiMAX wireless connection. And then think about being able to watch that content on your TV, which happens to be a connected to your home network.

Now carry it a step further. Imagine that with 802.16e, or Mobile WiMAX, you'll be able to receive Sirius or XM satellite television. And this is where my previous idea for a personal TV network comes in to play. If I'm driving down the road on a Sunday afternoon and my beloved Eagles are available via that network, I'll be able to tune to the game on the TV in the back of my SUV. Of course, I'd listen to it in the front seat, but my fanatical oldest son (a chip off the old block) would be able to give me his own play-by-play description of what's happening on the field. Not a sports fan? Then think about live broadband traffic updates where you'd request info for the Garden State Parkway and your network tells you to get off at exit 157 because of the logjam at exit 159.

No one's suggesting any of this is going to happen in the next year, but again, that's the fun of writing a technology blog. Speculation is free and, generally speaking, doesn't scare the crap out of shareholders.

Brian L. Clark is a writer and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Inc., Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.

Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run

Much as I hate to admit it, I'm not much of a gambler. I'll stake the occasional $20 on the NFL playoffs or a friend's tolerance for chugging a bottle of soy sauce, but that's about the extent of it. Vegas and AC just don't do it for me, nor do Powerball, office pools, or Russian roulette. I'll keep my money in my pocket and my brains encased in my skull, thank you very much.

But when it comes to low-end hardware, I suddenly throw fiscal caution to the wind. In the name of a cut-rate price, I'll risk buying any number of esoteric brands from fly-by-night operators. My bet is that, nine times out of ten, the gadgetry will work as advertised, and I can revel in the knowledge that I've beaten the Man at his own game.

But when that tenth time rolls 'round and the low-end dice come up snake eyes, boy, do I feel like an utter waste of humanity. I've been dealing with just that unique brand of depression for the past several days, as I recover from having a nice chunk of flesh being bitten out of my ass by a low-end CD burner. The agonizing tale of low-end wagering gone horribly wrong after the jump, as well as a quick calculation that (I hope) proves that my apparent foolhardiness will pay for itself in the end.

First, the seven-second backgrounder: the internal CD-RW drive on my trusty Sony Vaio GR-390 conked out a few weeks back, and buying a replacement doesn't make sense—the legacy part is $200, and I'll probably be ditching this box in the next year or so. The laptop has a Firewire port, so I figured I'd sniff around in search of an external driver-cum-burner. My requirements are pretty modest—just backup some data, and burn the occasional mix CD—and therefore I could aim low pricewise.

How low? There were plenty of 48x options for around the $40 mark, and hindsight being 20/20, that's probably the direction I should've gone. But then I stumbled across this little number from xPCGear.com, and was instantly charmed by the 52x write speed and the DVD-ROM capabilities. Yes, it cost a little more than I was planning for, at a "whopping" $69.99, but it seemed like quite the deal compared to comparably spec'ed products. And, hey, it was being pitched as a Sony, so compatibility wouldn't be a problem, right?

Now, I know what you're thinking—why on earth didn't I vet the parts numbers, to check for any forum complaints or poor reviews? My only defense (and it's a weak one) is that I've been experiencing a very fortuitous run of hardware luck lately; I haven't had to return any lemons since approximately 2002, when Overstock.com sent me a totally kaput PDA. Call it hubris, but I surmised that the gods of low-end electronics must love and admire me, and would never seek to punish me with a faulty purchase.

My overweening pride—the real key to this whole minor tragedy—doesn't stop there. When the burner arrived, I noticed that it was a homebrew job, rather than something straight from the Sony factory. Okay, no problem—I fired it up right away and it played an audio CD just fine. But I didn't try to burn a disc—yes, imbecilic, I concur. I set the unit aside for a few days, and in the interim, the packaging got tossed.

You totally see where this is going, don't you? I finally tried to burn a disc the day before I left for Washington D.C.—from where these words are being pounded out—and was stunned to learn that my $69.99 low-end treasure was barely worth its weight in corn nibblets. Not only did it fail to make a CD, it actually deformatted no fewer than five test discs. So now I'm down about $72.49, and none too happy about it.

A little Googling helped me diagnose the likeliest problem: the dastasrdly PL3507 Firewire chipset, which necessitates constant firmware updates (and even then it's sorta chancy). I tried updating my Vaio's firmware, though, and no luck; in the true low-end spirit, the burner came with no instructions for how to obtain support, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out which firmware updates to install, and which to avoid like week-old fish.

If I still had the original packaging, all of this would hurt my wallet a bit less—I'd lose the restocking fee, sure, as well as an hour or two reboxing, dealing with xPCGear's customer support in the pursuit of an authorization number, and standing on line at the post office. But now I'm going to lose the whole kaboodle, seeing as how I just don't have the stomach to call up xPCGear and raise a stink about it. From now on, this supposed burner will serve as a sometimes DVD player, as well as an occasional paperweight and/or doorstop.

And you know what? The sun will come up tomorrow, and I will awake, albeit $72.49 poorer. But I'll make it back on my future low-end gambles, at least according to this quick back-of-the-envelope calculation I made: If I only get burned on 15 to 20 percent of my risky hardware purchases, and the successful purchases save me an average of 40 percent, then I still come out ahead, right? (No, seriously, am I right? I totally got pancaked by Calc AB, so I'm not the world's trustiest source on math problems.)

The lesson to be learned here, I guess, is not to assume the eternal benevolence of the Low-End Gods, and to never risk more than $100 on one of these purchases. Live by those words, and you should come out far enough ahead in the long run to someday send your firstborn child to the finest university...in South Carolina.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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I remember when I was a kid, my old man and I would sit on the back porch in Central Pennsylvania and listen to AM radio broadcasts of Phillies games. I won't tell you how long ago that was, but the fact we weren't able to watch them on cable TV should give you some idea. In any case, I've been doing a fair amount of bitching lately, so I thought I'd write this week about something I actually enjoy. It's MLB.tv, a subscription service that allows baseball fans to watch video streams of Major League games around the country. I've been enjoying the service since the site launched in 2003.

Essentially, MLB.tv allows you to pay $79.95 to watch virtually any game you want, so long as there's no conflict with a local or network broadcast. I bring this up because this week, I broke out that previously useless doorstop—the digital entertainment device that runs Windows Media Center—and used it to receive the stream on my TV. Not my brand new HDTV (which I still don't have, btw), but rather, on my 27-inch Toshiba CRT.

As I sat there watching Friday night's game, it occurred to me this was the real potential of the merger between PCs and entertainment devices. With the emergence of sites like YouTube, and networks like ABC and Comedy Central making shows or show segments available online, the ability to actually watch what you want to watch—whether it's on cable or the Internet—is the real killer app. To put it succinctly, I'd no longer be at the mercy of my cable TV service.

When I can receive all the content I want (including customized news) via the Internet and watch it on my TV, my cable subscription becomes redundant. And that massive investment in IPTV the phone companies are making these days? Don't think they're not chewing their nails wondering if someone like YouTube could become the first "customized TV network" to broadcast solely via the Internet. Given the networks' push to get online—shows like "Lost" and clips from "My Name Is Earl" are now available at ABC.com and NBC.com—I'd say they're thinking about it, too. Meanwhile, the Tiffany Network started Innertube, which it calls an online entertainment portal that offers both network and exclusive, Web-only video releases.

Then there's iTunes. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see Apple work with the folks at TiVo to create a subscription service that allows me to record any show I want, either via broadcast or the Internet, to watch any time I please. I rather like the idea of having my own personalized network to consolidate all of the content my cable company can't offer. I can even see the video iPod as the key to unlock video that only plays when the device is seated in a Mac Mini's built-in dock.

Until then, however, I will continue to enjoy services like MLB.tv with my oldest son, watching games on the TV in my basement or catching them on my laptop, sitting on our back porch in New Jersey.

Brian L. Clark is a reporter and consultant on all things digital, runs the The Tech Enthusiast's Network, and writes for Money, Men's Health, and Laptop. Read more Tuning Fork here.