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.

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.

Vudu made a couple of CES announcements…

Since their $399 movie download STB isn’t quite expensive enough, Vudu has introduced a higher priced model at $999 - offering only increased storage. From a business perspective, I get it - hard drives are cheap and “Vudu XL” margins will be much higher than the base Vudu model. However, from a marketing standpoint, I’m not sure this sends the right message. Especially with Netflix announcing unlimited movie downloads today, Apple expected to introduce movie rentals tomorrow (including Apple TV playback), and Comcast’s Project Infinity which should quadruple their VOD offerings this year. The need for a larger hard drive also emphasizes a limitation in Vudu’s licensing terms… Purchased (as opposed to rented) movies cannot be deleted and re-downloaded at a later date (as Amazon Unbox allows).

Having said that, the Vudu interface and selection are still better than most. As is the physical design. Vudu also announced they’d be offering more HD content - 70 titles by the end of the month. With a 4Mbps connection, playback will be instantaneous. I haven’t always been pleased with Comcast TV service and technicians, but my Internet connectivity has been outstanding - so I’ll report back later this month on Vudu’s HD offerings.

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.

Although cell phones – excuse me mobile devices – are not my beat, by virtue of the fact that I work with the company, I did get a heads-up on Motorola’s new handsets before the press conference tonight. Two important introductions are the new ROKR E8 and the new Motorola Z10.

The ROKR adds an interesting interface twist. With the press of a button you can switch the touch-screen menu from displaying phone options to displaying music player options. I haven’t quite gotten into the touch-screen thing yet, but I do like the idea of toggling easily between menus rather than having to drill down for the features I want. Also, the ROKR includes Haptics technology (vibration when you touch a button on the screen), which does give touch-screens a nice feel. (I tested Haptics out on another Motorola phone last year.) The Motorola tag line: “It’s about touch and response.”

The Motorola Z10 is much like the Z8 except that it adds on-board editing features from ArcSoft. Sweet. I love video on the go, but my raw footage is often a bit twitchy. I like the idea of being able to tweak without uploading to a computer first. Of course I can’t imagine doing any major editing on a phone (though apparently you can take up to 24 hours of video and upload directly to YouTube), but minor stuff I can imagine working quite well. The Motorola tag line (I’m paraphrasing now): “You’re not just a cameraman; you’re a producer.”

The flood of CES email has been overwhelming the last couple of days with product announcements, media pitches, and pleas for booth visits and interviews. However, my favorite pitch of the lot didn’t come to my inbox, but my mailbox. A long, flat envelope arrived with the words, “Photos - Do Not Bend” on the front. When I opened it up, a family photo stared back at me on top of half a dozen other prints. Not my family, mind you- though I did spend a moment trying to place the models as long-lost cousins on my mother’s side. No, this was a photo of a pretend family with a note slipped underneath. The note said, “OOPS! Not Your Photos?” Then it advised me to stop by the Noritsu booth at CES to pick up a free print of any digital photo of my own - 8×10 or 10×36 panorama - and learn more about the company’s retail inkjet photo printer. Cute.

I’m unfortunately still skeptical of photo printers - more because of the cost of photo paper than the quality of the printing. However, if I can get myself over to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, I’ll definitely stop by Noritsu. And pick up my free print. (more…)

I’ve lost track of how many times ReplayTV has switched hands. And today they’ve ended up under DirecTV’s wing for who knows what purpose. Replay had abandoned the hardware DVR market, though they still have subscribers, and they’ve been making a play for the PC software DVR market. A small fish in a small pond.

So far, this is all we know:

Japan’s D&M Holdings Inc said on Thursday it had sold its ReplayTV business, which develops software for digital video recorders, to DirecTV of the United States for an undisclosed sum.

Perhaps DTV will put out a release and clue us in to their intentions. Until then, we’ll just have to speculate… I suppose it’s possible they could (think about) using the ReplayTV interface on their satellite DVRs, re-enter the stand-alone hardware business, or (most likely) just hang onto Replay’s patent portfolio for a rainy day (when/if their do-not-sue deal with TiVo expires in 2010). Or to prevent that rainy day. (more…)