What happens when the virtual world gets ahead of reality. (Thanks, KJ)

Amazon announced today that it is acquiring Audible.com, the best known digital audiobook company around. The resources of Amazon behind Audible? That’s great news for consumers. And for Amazon itself, what a way to build up digital content. As Brad Linder over on Download Squad points out, we’re seeing an Apple vs. Amazon arms race. With Audible.com and its growing selection of DRM-free music, Amazon is certainly building an impressive stockpile.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the WiMAX ruckus of late, it’s worth taking a moment to get up to date on a few of the highlights. In a nutshell, WiMAX is a wireless technology designed to provide faster broadband speeds for mobile devices of all kinds. Lots of folks are referring to it as a third broadband pipe, separate from today’s wireline networks and from existing cellular broadband networks like EVDO.

As a consumer, I would love to see WiMAX successfully implemented, not only because I want a fast, portable Internet connection, but also because the WiMAX model is far different from today’s mobile broadband set-up. If Sprint gets its network deployed (more on that in a moment), consumers would be able to buy any WiMAX-certified device on the open market and plug in to Sprint’s service. Sprint has even said consumers wouldn’t have to sign a contract, but could buy service for a week or even a day.

There is a very interesting post over at GigaOM about what this new model could mean for the broadband paradigm. With the economics of WiMAX-like networks so different from 3G networks, companies could actually subsidize the connection fee in the cost of a subscription service. A consumer could buy a WiMAX-certified media player at retail, for example, and then get a “free” broadband connection when signing up for some sort of content subscription.

Of course, all of these speculations are dependent on actually getting a WiMAX network up and running. Globally it’s happening in several places, but here in the US the road has been a little rocky. Given Sprint’s financial woes, there’s been a lot of skepticism as to whether the company can support a nationwide network roll-out. We may have turned a corner yesterday, however, with the news that Sprint and and Clearwire are once again in talks about working together to make a US WiMAX network a reality.

Stay tuned. We should see some interesting developments, one way or another, in 2008.

Disclosure: I work for Motorola, which has been a significant proponent of WiMAX technology.

When Apple announced the MacBook Air I had an immediate reaction to the absence of an Ethernet port. It went something like this, “What, no Ethernet port?”

It’s not that I need an Ethernet port often, but when I do, it’s critical. Take CES. I was in the press room with a limited window of time and a video that needed uploading. I wasn’t going to mess with a wireless connection that had been flaky the last time I’d tried it. I went straight for a wireline, got my 42 megabits megabytes uploaded and went on my merry way.

Other folks have pointed out that some venues only have wired connections, like a lot of hotels. Sure you can get a $29 USB adapter for an added Ethernet port, but you’d probably also have to spring for a USB hub, as the one USB port on the MacBook Air is precious real estate. Isn’t the whole point of the MacBook Air that it’s supposed to be highly portable? It wouldn’t feel very portable to me if I had to sling along a bunch of add-on hardware. (Engadget also notes that a 3G USB modem won’t fit in the one USB port - space is too cramped - without an extension cable.)

As I got crankier and crankier thinking about this, I remembered that my husband’s old MacBook used to have an S-video port. It was very handy. No need for a media extender (though I still want that SlingCatcher, Dave); we could plug it right into the TV and watch downloaded shows. It would be even more convenient now with so much streaming content available from the likes of ABC, Hulu and Netflix.

Yet Apple took away the S-video port. And very few other laptops seem to have one. What’s the deal? What do computer makers have against giving me some decent ports? Yes I know there are trade-offs, but for a few good ports, I’d be willing to make them. Take away everything useful and a computer’s just no fun.

Anybody else notice how much bad company news there’s been post-CES? Digeo killed its planned retail products and laid off half its staff. Sprint is eliminating 4,000 jobs. Yahoo hasn’t announced specific numbers, but the word is that “1,500-2,500 jobs may be eliminated in the next two weeks.” (There’s an interesting post on GigaOM on how Yahoo can still turn itself around.) Heck, even Comcast is battling right now. (Though, despite the stock, I believe the company is in pretty darn good position.) A key investor is calling for Brian Roberts’ head.

So what’s the takeaway? We should all remember next year at CES 2009 that all the happy talk can be just a smokescreen for what’s going on behind the scenes. After all, who’s going to let out their bad news at the biggest show of the year? Apparently everyone would rather wait for later in January.

While most of the video exhibits at CES focused on big-screen TVs, DVD format wars and place-shifting, there was another video trend on the floor: video surveillance. Check out this demonstration from Forensic Visions. It shows a wireless set-up for monitoring several different mobile cameras at once. The camera in this video is hidden in a purse. Visions of Big Brother come to mind, but my friendly demonstrator point out that the technology is also good for things like child depositions. Easier to talk in front of a camera disguised as a purse or a hat than a large unfriendly lens. Or at least that’s the idea…

Two notes: First, the video from my Flip was much higher quality, but YouTube seems to have compressed and degraded it. Second, the video display from the purse camera shows a fair bit of signal noise. It’s likely due to interference from all of the other devices in operation at the Sands convention center.

By now it’s clear that I have something of an obsession with Retrevo as a buying guide for consumer electronics, so it was good luck when I ran into CEO Vipin Jain just inside the door at the CES ShowStoppers event. He had Retrevo up for display and was quick to show me some of the latest improvements.

First, the site has added laptops, digital audio players and cell phones to its CE category guides. I consider laptops and cell phones to be both major purchases and categories where there are often an unwieldy number of options available. I like them as Retrevo additions. Second, the Retrevo value map I wrote about before is now more interactive. Quick pop-up information is available any time you mouse over a point plotted on the map. This makes it easier to determine which products are worth investigating further.

The new Retrevo features are iterative improvements, but welcome nonetheless. And having now met Vipin Jain in person, it’s just an added bonus to know that the man behind the company is good people. As a few people have pointed out, the best part about a show like CES is the people you meet.

Broadband = Good. Broadband means better communication, education, information, business, entertainment, social networking, etc. etc. (It also means jobs for me and Dave :)) So it only makes sense that broadband should at least get a mention or two in the presidential election campaigning. The Speed Matters organization (affiliated with the AFL-CIO) has collected information on what Americans want and what the candidates are saying on the topic of broadband. If you find you need a break from CES, take a look at Speed Matters’ recent report on the Digital Divide (PDF link) and the organization’s video montage of candidate speeches (bottom right on the page).

RE: the graphic above - What, no mention of the importance of the Internet for catching the latest episode of 30 Rock?