hands-on

Barnes & Noble's Nook: The hands-on review

When Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook, the first Android-powered e-book reader, a lot of people were excited, because it appeared to offer some key competitive advantages over Amazon's Kindle e-reader.

First and foremost, while the Nook features the same 6-inch E-ink screen (600x800 pixels; 16 shades of gray) as the Kindle, it includes a separate, capacitive, color touch screen (144 x 480 pixels) that allows you to navigate content and use a virtual keyboard for typing searches and annotations. Furthermore, on top of its free AT&T 3G wireless connection, the Nook packs in Wi-Fi connectivity and … Read more

Dropping in with ODST: Hands-on impressions

Halo has been the defining franchise series for Microsoft across two generations of consoles. After Halo 3 was released last year, it appeared the first-person epic had finally seen its last installment. Then developer Bungie hinted at a spinoff title, Halo 3: ODST.

While ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2 and 3, the campaign does not feature Master Chief. Instead, you'll assume the role of a rookie Orbital Drop Shock Trooper who is separated from the rest of his crew. With the help of a citywide artificial intelligence known as The Superintendent, you'll find out just what has happened to them.

We have had the final retail build of ODST for some time now, and here are our impressions:… Read more

The good and bad of Google Latitude on iPhone

Last week Google released a Web app version of Latitude, its geolocation-based social tracking service. At Apple's request, Google made it a Web app instead of a native app that required installation. This isn't an entirely bad thing as I found out after extended use this weekend. There's a lot to like, and some that's not so great. Here's the breakdown:

The good: Simple service to use. If you've got it set to automatically refresh your location you just have to fire it up from a bookmark, or home screen shortcut and you're … Read more

NHL 10 improves on an already winning formula

Ask any diehard hockey fan out there and he'll tell you that last year's NHL 09 was close to being the best hockey game ever made. After countless critical acclaim and 19 sports-game-of-the-year awards over the past two years, the EA Canada team is back with NHL 10.

Along with Chicago Blackhawks young superstar Patrick Kane as this year's featured cover athlete, the game promises plenty of improvements, from board play to first-person fighting.

We sat down and played a full three periods in Stanley Cup Final fashion, Penguins versus Red Wings, to find out what's new in NHL 10.… Read more

Kindle DX reviewed: Is bigger better?

You now have a choice between two different Kindle models, and the big question is whether you should spend the extra dough on the larger DX or opt for a Kindle 2. In our humble assessment, the majority of buyers will--and probably should--favor the smaller device, the Kindle 2. Why? Well, we have some concerns over the DX being more of a two-handed e-reader; yes, you can hold it in one hand for a short time, but you really need to keep both hands on the device to support its weight for a while. Meanwhile, the Kindle 2 is easier … Read more

Kindle DX: Hands-on impressions

Even before the Kindle 2 launched, there was talk of an even newer, larger Amazon digital reader that would be geared more toward reading textbooks and periodicals. We all assumed it would be bigger, but it was unclear exactly what form it would take. Well, now that it's finally arrived, what is a little surprising is how much the Kindle DX--bigger face aside--is a dead ringer for its little sibling.

In profile, the two devices appear equally svelte: the 0.38-inch-deep DX is just a tad thicker than the 0.36-inch Kindle 2. Obviously, the big difference here is the Kindle DX's 9.7-inch e-ink display, which technically offers 2.5 times more screen real estate than the Kindle's 6-inch display. That extra screen comes at a price, both figuratively and literally, as the DX weighs almost twice as much (18.9 ounces) as the Kindle 2 and costs $130 more, at $489.

That said, while the DX is significantly larger and heavier, when you pick it up, it doesn't feel too burdensome to carry or hold. However, it clearly isn't as portable as the Kindle 2; its larger footprint requires a larger bag or briefcase for stowaway purposes. Most women's handbags, for instance, just won't be big enough to contain the thing.… Read more

Wolfram Alpha shows data in a way Google can't

Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine. But does Wolfram Research's "computational knowledge engine," set to debut publicly later this month, live up to its hype as a Web site that Google needs to be afraid of?

Wolfram Alpha creator Stephen Wolfram on Tuesday gave a demo of the service to a crowd of online reporters. Few have access to the private test version of the service itself, but we got access Monday night. We found it compelling, if limited.

We're eager to see this site develop. It does things with online information that Google does not. Here are our impressions of the current version of Wolfram Alpha.

Who's it for?

CNET reporter Stephen Shankland: Today at least, Wolfram Alpha is for the tech crowd--the kind of people who want to dig into the data. It's a great exploration tool to find out whether somebody who's 5 feet 5 inches and 160 pounds is overweight, the chemical properties of boron, and whether you're going to get a full moon during the evening of September 4 in Buenos Aires when you want to propose to your fiancee.

It'll tell you the family, genus, species, and caloric value of an apple, and it'll forecast Apple's stock price, but it won't give you apple pie recipes. It'll tell you the box office take of the first "Star Trek" movie, but it won't tell you the theater where you can see the newest "Star Trek" movie.

But a technical audience is still big. This could unlock a lot of data that students, research assistants, lawyers, marketing managers, financial analysts, and scientists might not have readily available. And those folks are important, too--just the kind of influential folks people with Web sites like to reach.

CNET Editor Rafe Needleman: I wouldn't dream of pointing my parents at this. It's too picky about syntax and not intuitive to get into. When I saw Stephen Wolfram give a demo of the system I was blown away. He ran through dozens of demos from weather to genetics to calculus to finance, each resulting in beautiful and informative results. But when I tried the service I'd say maybe only 10 or 20 percent of my queries actually worked.

Shankland: On the other hand, my dad has a Ph.D. and I most definitely will point him at it. He bought Wolfram Research's all-purpose computation software, Mathematica, though, so for him Wolfram Alpha is like preaching to the choir.

Needleman: My dad has a Ph.D., too, but in philosophy. There is no Wolfram Alpha for that.

Shankland: Yet. Alpha handles numeric data well, but loosey-goosey stuff like art or philosophy is tough. But maybe in some glorious future Alpha will be able to chart the trains of thought from the Enlightenment to the present.

Is it easy to use?

Needleman: You need a clear mind to take advantage of this service. Again, it's picky about syntax, and in the pre-release version we tried, if you got a query wrong--if it didn't return what you were looking for--it wouldn't offer you much in the way of help to refine the query. I kept trying to figure out how to correlate weather with earthquakes in San Francisco. I can get the data for weather. I can get it for earthquakes. So I know that Alpha has the information. But I can't figure out how to show them together.

What the system does know is beautifully presented. Type in the name of a city, for example, and it will give you some fun stats on a clean and clear Web page. But from that sort of page you'll probably want to start exploring the data available: Maybe you want to know about population growth, economic information, or weather trends. Alpha doesn't give you hints as to what's available, nor a good way to drill into data. You have to take stabs at re-typing your query. I tried a variety of queries like "test scores san francisco schools" and "population of portland by year" and got, respectively, no result and a pointless result (533,429 person years: what is that?). The system that interprets Wolfram Alpha queries needs a little bit of help. It may be improved by the time the system is opened to the public, later this month, but I think that this will be the product's Achilles heel. … Read more

Hunch: The decision maker you were waiting for?

Hunch helps you make decisions. For quandaries ranging from "Where should I live?" to "Which blog should I read?" the system plays a question-and-answer game with you, to home in on an answer.

To improve your results, you can also teach the system about yourself by taking a quiz that asks questions like "Would you rather lead or be led?" and "Which 'Sesame Street' character appeals to you?" As you answer these questions, Hunch's algorithm is cataloging your answers and learning more about you.

I started using Hunch after taking the … Read more

Exclusive First Take: SheevaPlug computer makes unique NAS solution

I blogged about Marvell's SheevaPlug computer awhile ago, and Monday I got to do some exclusive hands-on testing with the first prototype of the machine.

This is a very simple and ultracompact computer that has 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB of flash memory storage, and 512MB DRAM under the hood. The only peripheral connections it supports are a USB 2.0 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The prototype comes with a 8GB ScanDisk thumb drive as its external storage, which makes it a very unique network-attached storage (NAS) solution.