Stepping up to the Red Octane Ignition dance pad hooked up to the Dance Dance Revolution game on an Xbox at the entrance to Best Buy's San Francisco store, I'm drawn into a pleasure palace of electronic entertainment. In the center aisle, rows of CDs fan back to the left, facing identical rows of DVDs on the right.
Ticket prices at the box office may be at an all-time high, but the cost of admission for good home theater continues to plummet. Case in point: the three home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems gathered here. While enthusiasts might find one of these nice for a bedroom or summer home, they're just the ticket for those getting in the game.
Let's face it: compared with lust-inducing gear like big-screen plasma TVs, feature-filled digital surround receivers, and 7.1-channel speaker systems, power accessories are about as sexy as dentistry. But if your house should ever get hit with a huge voltage surge, you might find having a tooth or two pulled a lot less painful than replacing your gear.
All the biggest news about the latest trends and products used to come out of the Consumer Electronics Show - no more. Intimate compared with the vastness of CES, the CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) Expo gives companies a chance to push some products into the spotlight that might get lost in CES's Vegas glare.
BECK. You haven't completely ex-perienced Guero (Interscope; Music ••••, DVD-Audio Mix ••••, Extras ••••) until you've seen and heard this two-disc Deluxe Edition. Packaged like a hardcover book, it's filled with pictures, lyrics, and whimsical drawings.
Computers are everywhere, from our desktops to our phones to our planes, trains, and automobiles. If we look at movies like I, Robot (strictly from a conceptual standpoint, not a why-did-Hollywood-ever-make-this standpoint), there is a possible bleak future ahead of us. I prefer to look at Star Wars, where machines help, even if they can be annoying know-it-alls. Granted it's not our galaxy, but it is a lot more fun to watch than I, Robot (no disrespect to the Fresh Prince).
What better way is there to improve your home theater experience than the addition of a PC? But what should you look for when setting out to buy one?
Want to get connected, be entertained, or maybe just find a good route and stay on course? Check out some of the coolest new gadgets for the car from the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
<B>iPod Continues To Take Over The World</B>
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Apple's earnings for the holiday quarter of 2005 beat Wall Street's expectations as the iPod continued to work miracles by tripling (and then some) the number of players sold in 2004's holiday season. According to Apple's Steve Jobs, 14.5 million iPods were sold on the fourth quarter of 2005, compared to 4.5 million in the same period of 2004. Overall sales for Apple in Q4 of '05 were up 63% from the previous year, to $5.7 billion and for the first time sales from Apple's retail stores topped $1 billion for a quarter.
