Dell CEO and namesake Michael Dell lent credence to Compal’s statement yesterday when he said, in response to HP’s 2133 Mini-Note PC, “We will introduce a similar laptop.” Don’t hold him to a June release, however. “Stay tuned,” he said. “We will have some interesting products coming in that space over the next two quarters.”

You didn’t expect Dell to sit idly by while Asus, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard went flitting about town with their trendy low-cost, low-power minilaptops, did you? Paris Hilton isn’t the only celebrity to tote a Chihuahua, after all. According to Taiwanese manufacturer Compal Electronics, Dell will soon enter the minilaptop fray. The company is lining up 200,000 to 300,000 units per month for Dell, according to Compal, which it says could start shipping as early as June.

Product details aren’t known at this point, but a summer release might mean Dell’s minilaptop will pack an Intel Atom processor, which is expected to start appearing in products this summer. (Our biggest complaint with the otherwise excellent HP Mini-Note is its poky Via C7-M processor.) Engadget reports that Dell’s minilaptop will feature an 8.9-inch screen and will go for less than $499.

Why is this man smiling? Because everyone loves cheap and tiny laptops.

MySpace’s new executive lineup gives it solid entertainment street cred: Van Natta was joined by former MTV digital exec Jason Hirschhorn and former AOLer Michael Jones. Late last year, another MTV digital-media executive, Courtney Holt, joined MySpace as the head of its new MySpace Music division.

Owen Van Natta, CEO of the News Corp.-owned social site, said in a release: “Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company. I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product.”

Van Natta, the former chief operating officer at Facebook, was hired as CEO of MySpace late in April after a short stint at the head of start-up Project Playlist. Former CEO Chris DeWolfe had stepped down earlier that month, reportedly at the behest of Jonathan Miller, the new digital czar at News Corp. Executive shakeups at MySpace had been happening sporadically for nearly a year at that point.

A source with knowledge of the situation said that senior management was spared Tuesday’s cuts.

“Today the domestic restructure is the only info we can share,” a MySpace representative said in a phone call Tuesday.

Last update at 11:56 a.m. PT.

Holt told CNET News in March that MySpace Music’s traffic was “huge.” But record label executives–who are partners in the MySpace Music joint venture–reported dissatisfaction with the revenue it was generating.

MySpace said that the layoffs are evenly distributed across all U.S. divisions of the company. Since MySpace also operates a number of offices overseas, it’s not yet clear how they were affected (if at all), and representatives declined comment as to whether international offices would be affected down the road. CNET News has heard rumors that there may be consolidation in some of MySpace’s European offices, something that the company did late last year when it merged its Amsterdam and Berlin offices.

Launching MySpace Music, which focuses on free streaming music supported by advertising, was a return to the company’s roots: once a hub for indie band promotion and community, MySpace had grown massive before Facebook began to catch up to it in international and then U.S. traffic. Partnerships with the likes of Google and a prominent endorsement of the OpenSocial developer initiative didn’t help it regain traction as a networking destination.

Amid economic woes, stagnant growth, and a management shakeup, onetime social-networking pioneer MySpace has announced that it has cut its head count by slightly under 30 percent in what the company calls a “return to start-up culture.” Well, that’s a nice way to put it.

2. Hiring plans
Microsoft has already said it is “rethinking” its staffing plans in the wake of the economy. Word is that some departments have been told to put the brakes on hiring, while Microsoft has said there is not a companywide freeze, and indeed, it is still adding lots of jobs in some areas, particularly its online services area. Still, it’s been a couple of weeks since Microsoft offered its assessment and it may go into more details.

5. The earnings themselves, as well as guidance

This is usually the least interesting part for the tech crowd, especially since Microsoft’s earnings tend to be so predictable. That said, it will be interesting to see what the company turns in.

With Microsoft earnings due after the market closes Thursday, here’s my top five list of things to watch for:

4. PDC

Microsoft’s big developer conference is next week and perhaps the company might let out a few more product details on the call. Steve Ballmer has been dropping hints for about a month now, but he’s not usually the one speaking on the conference calls, so this one might be a long shot.

3. Sales/contracts pipeline

Microsoft gets a good chunk of its sales from multi-year sales agreements with big businesses. I’m curious to see how it is seeing renewals in that area and whether companies are holding off signing new contracts.

The alleged thieves made off with about $2 million between October 2007 until March of this year. Officials believe they remotely broke into the back-end computers that approve cash withdrawals and grabbed the PINs as they were being transmitted from the ATMs to the transaction processing computers, which increasingly use Windows, the report says.

Three people face charges in federal court in New York for allegedly breaking into Citibank’s ATM network inside 7-Eleven stores and stealing PIN codes, according to court filings reported on by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Wired News was the first to report on the ATM network breach.

One of these will set you back $120, $180, or $230, depending on what level of features you want. The two high-end models can accept all major memory cards and USB drives. They also play MPEG and MP3 files.

(Via Gizmodo)

Digital photo frames are really just expensive gift ideas for people you don’t know how to buy for.

(Credit:
Gizmodo)

Samsung was officially the first to offer up a home-theater-in-a-box system with Blu-ray (although Panasonic was right behind), but as you might expect, we found the $1,500 system a little overpriced for what it offered. Samsung has now announced a follow-up budget Blu-ray HTIB, the HT-BD2E, and at nearly half the price ($800), it has the potential to be a far more appealing product. Let’s check out the key features, or at least what we know so far.

If you’re willing to spend a little extra, Samsung is also offering a $1,000 HT-BD2S, which–aside from two extra speakers (7.1 versus 5.1) and a powered subwoofer–is essentially identical to the BD2E model described here. But at that price, we’re much more inclined to put together our own system. We’ll be trying to get a review sample of the HT-BD2E as soon as possible, but until then we’ll remain cautiously optimistic that the system may represent a good value for those looking to get into Blu-ray.

Unlike the $1,500 Samsung HT-BD2, it’s actually pretty difficult to put together a DIY home theater system with the same functionality for $800. If you put together Onkyo’s upcoming HT-S6100 system with a Sony PlayStation 3, you’re already looking at $1,100–although you’d get a lot out of that extra $300.

We’ve confirmed with Samsung that the included Blu-ray player will be a Profile 1.0 player, which means it won’t be able to access any of the Profile 1.1 or Profile 2.0 features available on some newer Blu-ray Discs. You may also notice that there’s no support for the highest-resolution DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack format, but on a system like this, you probably wouldn’t notice the difference anyways.

The following product is available:

On Sale Now: $279.95 - $799.99
View the latest prices for Samsung HT-BD2E

5.1 channel system, 800 watts total power
Four satellite speakers, one center speaker and a passive subwoofer
HDMI output for Blu-ray, and 1080p upconversion for DVDs
Two optical digital audio inputs
Ethernet port for firmware updates only
Onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD High Resolution
Available in August with a list price of $800

Pentax has announced the release of the Pentax SMC DA 17-70mm f4 AL SDM lens for Pentax digital SLR cameras. First shown at PMA 2008, the 17-70mm lens has a constant aperture of f4 through the entire zoom range, with a working focal length of 26-107mm. It has Pentax’s SDM system with built-in supersonic motor for quiet and responsive autofocusing when used on a compatible Pentax DSLR. The lens is compatible with the K20D, K200D, K100D Super, and K10D (with firmware 1.30 or later). When used on other Pentax bodies the focus is automatically switched to manual. Featuring Pentax’s Quick-shift Focus System that enables you to switch from auto to manual focus with a turn of the focus ring. It has a minimum focusing distance of 11 inches and weighs in at 17.1 ounces with a length of 3.7 inches. It will be available in July at around $600.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I’ll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South’s most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I’m doing on Twitter.

The video–which, sadly, is incomplete due to a technical malfunction–was shot using Qik’s streaming-video service. This is designed to allow users to shoot and stream live video from a Nokia smartphone. However, since it requires a 3G connection, it buffers the video when it’s not connected. And when my phone crashed, it took about two minutes of video it hadn’t yet downloaded with it.

But not Nash. He’s in a full-body motion-capture suit. That’s because he’s here to for a mo-cap filming session for 2K Sports’ forthcoming hockey video game, NHL 2K9.

I’ll run a full story on this later today, and a full gallery, most likely tomorrow. But I wanted to offer up a little taste of what’s going on here, courtesy of a couple of photos and a short video.

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

NHL Hockey star Rick Nash skates on synthetic ice during a motion-capture filming session for the forthcoming 2K Sports hockey game NHL 2K9.

So stay tuned for more on this story, and enjoy this little taste in the meantime.

NOVATO, Calif.–I’m sitting outside a nondescript warehouse space in this Marin County town, and sitting right behind me is Rick Nash, an NHL all-star with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

All of us are chowing down on barbecue, and every single one of us is wearing comfortable clothes: jeans, T-shirts, and the like.

Still, what’s there should give you enough color to get a sense of what’s going on.

A motion-capture technician looks at his computer screen in the foreground, while NHL star Rick Nash, whose image is on the screen, skates by in the background.

At the Web 2.0 Expo last week, I had a long conversation with Tolles, who runs Topix.com, about the fragmentation of media and where technology is taking it. If you’re not familiar with Topix, get to know it.

Topix is on to a big idea, and so if Tolles or any other start-up can shake up the media landscape, more power to them. Too many important stories are passing by without notice.

(Credit:
Topix.com)

Most people in New York and San Francisco many not be using Topix, but Tolles has a bigger audience in mind: most of the folks between the coasts, who are increasingly underserved by corporate media.

I’m generalizing here, but it’s safe to say that vapid television coverage that’s less and less relevant to their lives has become the norm, rather than the exception, everywhere in this country–especially outside the big urban population centers.

Chris Tolles

This is how Tolles put it to me: “As we’re seeing all the time, newspapers, which once were local monopolies, are watching that one-time windfall go off to money heaven. When newspapers go on the Internet, they make 10 percent of what they used to make. I’m giving Molotov cocktails to the mob. If the sheriff is a bad guy in a small time, what you want is some guy who just got shafted to go online while he’s still hot and say this jerk sheriff, etc. etc. You want a platform for opinions that can speak truth to power for the individual.”

Tolles operates on the sound assumption that the media outlets with the most engaged audiences will thrive. Nowadays, about 60 percent of the content on his site consists of original user content. Reader opinion gets featured prominently next to regular news feeds. In addition, Topix uses a network of volunteer editors (around 4,400) who package and post news tailored to their localities.

Does anyone seriously doubt that we’re at a point where the need to talk back to the talking heads is super-important? The orgy of idiocy surrounding the Jeremiah Wright coverage is a perfect case in point. I thought I was inured to the banality that informs the punditry of Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the blabatocracy. Not even close. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the electronic media had collectively adopted the new corporate slogan: “All Jeremiah Wright, All the Time.”

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

If my hunch is right, Chris Tolles has a better shot at representing the future of media than does Chris Matthews and his ilk. And that would be so fine by me–and probably lots of you, as well.

(Credit:
Trinity United Church of Christ)

Let me see if I’ve got this right. Oil’s hovering near an all-time high, rising prices combined with food shortages are responsible for riots around the world, and we’ve got ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN are literally wasting hours on the existential significance of a Chicago pastor. As we used to say in Brooklyn, give me a frigging break.

My hunch is that most mainstream media would choke at the prospect, but you want the most people participating.

Through this partnership, ComScore will also be working with Adobe Systems, which last week signed an agreement to acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion.

“Since the rise of digital advertising, advertisers and publishers alike have sought ways to reconcile their Web analytics and panel-based measurement data to establish a unified measure of online audiences,” Omniture CEO Josh James said in a statement. “With this relationship, Omniture and ComScore will enable publishers who have rich, highly targeted audience segments to reliably demonstrate their value to advertisers and also help advertisers find these attractive consumer segments.”

Web sites tend to rely on either analytics or audience measurement to determine traffic patterns, which can often lead to conflicting results. By merging the two methods, Omniture and ComScore hope to give customers a more unified and more accurate view.

ComScore’s new Media Metrix 360 system will play a leading role in the service. Launched in June, Media Metrix 360 already uses a hybrid approach, supplementing audience measurement with Web site analytics. The company had been criticized in the past for relying on too small a segment of the online audience to provide accurate data on traffic patterns.

Omniture and ComScore, two Web-tracking powerhouses, are combining forces to launch a new system for measuring online audiences, the companies said Monday.