"We're hopeful that that will be made available so that Wi-Fi can explode in terms of its usage, even out into some of these less dense areas where distance has been a big problem for Wi-Fi."

Microsoft along with Google, Dell, HP, Intel and Philips, have been lobbying the FCC to permit white-space devices, which they have been continuously submitting for testing. Broadcasters and others fear static and other kinds of interference.

Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, argues for the regulated model:

"Broadband penetration could be drastically improved through a fixed, licensed service without interference to TV reception. Unfortunately, Microsoft continues to push for an unlicensed technology that simply does not work...TV viewers should not be inundated by the inevitable interference caused by such faulty devices."

Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, addressed the situation in a more desperate tone:

White space activity today is sort of our last hope to get some good spectrum.

The first is Disney's vision of now back in 1957, the second, its re-vision of the House of the Future with Lifeware, HP and Microsoft, which is debuting this May in Tomorrowland. We've more or less seen it every year at CES , and it's not really all that fantastical or jaw-dropping. I didn't feel teleported to some technological paradise that I couldn't wait to blast through years of icky time to get to, anyway.

Give me wall-sized super HDTVs, plastic toilet paper and genuinely exciting, if tacky and the over the top, futuretastic baubles over intelligent lights and DRM'd furniture from Microsoft any day. (Now, or in the future.) [AP]

All you do is wave the cellphone-sized device over the text you want translating. It just takes a couple of passes before the Voiscan starts relaying the info in whichever language you choose. The gadget is expected to be aimed at travellers and the visually impaired when it is released sometime next year. [The Raw Feed and TECH CHRONICLES]

Two different prototypes were submitted for the test, both from the Coalition. (I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, judging from the gallery below, Dell had more sway than HP.) The testing didn't focus so much on how well the devices could transmit and receive broadband signal, although Prototype A could do both. The real focus was how well they could "listen" before they "spoke."

The danger is that licensed high-powered devices and unlicensed low-powered devices operating on a crowded frequency band need to know how to be polite and share the space. Prototype A, the more complete package, was pretty miserable at this, failing to recognize active NTSC signal 20% of the time, and strong digital TV signal over half the time. Even when there was no signal present, 15% of the time Prototype A said that there was.

Prototype B, the slimmer box shown below, had an updated receiver but could not transmit. It was able to score a little higher on the tests but also failed. The other test was to determine interference with wireless microphones that use the same frequency band. The FCC determined that both prototypes failed this as well. Prototype A was "generally unable to sense wireless microphones," Prototype B's performance was "mixed."

The Coalition isn't exactly throwing in the towel, according to the UPI:

The White Spaces Coalition said in a statement it was encouraged "that FCC engineers did not find fault with our operating parameters and remain confident unlicensed television spectrum can be used without interference."

No, it's not just computers anymore folks. Look for good old Hewlett Packard to attack from all sides at CES this year, introducing 9 HD TVs (including LCD, microdisplay and plasma models), 4 consumer notebooks, a digital entertainment PC and 7 compact digital cameras. Wow. Now that's a well-rounded company.

The big "first" being touted, however, is the 37-inch HP Advanced Digital Media LCD TV that allows you to view video, music, movies and photos stored on PCs throughout your home. Includes services that let you view slideshows on Snapfish or listen to Real Networks Rhapsody music service. Also linked in is CinemaNow and MovieLink, which lets you watch over 4000 HD movies and videos.
The Notebooks include the Pavilion dv1000 Series Entertainment Notebook PC and HP Pavilion dv8000 Series Notebook PC. The dv1000 series includes a built-in webcam and an updated version of HP QuickPlay for multimedia.
The 7 digital cameras are all small and sleek and include larger LCDs, on-camera button for ordering and sharing photos through Snapfish and what HP claims is the industry's first wireless camera dock. Also look for the HP Design Gallery, that lets you add all kinds of weird things to your images (like borders, artistic effects and color tints) without a PC.

Lastly, the HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7300 Series PC (um, now that's a mouthful) includes optional wireless keyboard, mouse and remote to control content from up to 10 feet away as well as optional integrated Wifi connectivity. More specifics as we get them.

HP Rolls Out Most Comprehensive Line of Digital Entertainment Products and Services in Its History [HP]

Hewlett-Packard will supply George Lucas' film and game companies with enough PCs, workstations, and data storage to power the Death Star according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Most of the new hardware will go into Lucas' swanky new Presidio headquarters in San Francisco; some will go to a satellite office in Singapore. The rest goes towards long-delayed upgrades to the Millennium Falcon and R2-D2. Lucasfilm, HP in deal on games 1,000 workstations, data storage part of 3-year contract [San Francisco Chronicle] ...

As the Intel Developer Forum enters Day 2 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, newspapers give their take on day one's big announcement: Intel's next-gen dual core chip. The San Jose Mercury tells us "the importance of these new chips to Intel can't be underestimated", while the NY Times focuses on the new chip's power-saving potential. Apple execs got a tour of Intel's convention conclave afterwards and, as the Times describes, looked like "visitors to a foreign country." Intel introduces new chip design [San Jose Mercury]... USA Today gives a pretty big shout-out to digital radio, A.K.A. HD radio. The free (for now) format suffers from Jan Brady syndrome—everyone by now knows about premium satellite radio thanks to the marketing might of XM and Sirius, but virtually no mainstream consumer has heard of free HD radio. The article tries to set things straight by providing a comprehensive guide to what it is, what you need to do to get it, and what its future prospects are.Digital radio emerges into the future [USA Today]... Toshiba president/CEO Atsutoshi Nishida says that despite paparazzi pics showing the two formats frolicking on a beach in Thailand, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray are definitely not hooking up with each other. Toshiba President: Two DVD Formats Staying [Chicago Tribune]... Walt Mossberg and his assistant, Katie Boehret take HP's new photo printer for a spin. What's new about the Photosmart 8250 is that it sucks from the teat of six low-priced individual ink cartridges instead of a single expensive one. The dynamic duo concluded that the new printer is faster than the one it replaces, the 8150, but quality ("very good, but unexceptional") remains the same. Testing Out a Speedy New Home Photo Printer [Wall St. Journal]