News, Rumors, and Trends

It’s unclear how many listen to President George W. Bush’s weekly radio addresses. I suppose reporters tune in, because I occasionally catch an excerpt on NPR, but I’ve never heard of anyone setting up their own podcast feed from WhiteHouse.gov for the weekly words of wisdom. Will that change when President-Elect Barak Obama takes over?

I ran across two very interesting and diminutive products at CES Unveiled earlier this week. While the technology is compelling, I suspect the implementation will have to improve and the challenge these products solve will have to be clarified before we’d see any sort of mainstream or mass market adoption. Generating positive attention and finding commercial success are two entirely different matters.

Microsoft is polling members of the Green Button community to find potential beta testers for Windows 7 Media Center. You can learn something from a poll like this and as I read through the questions, I noticed an emphasis on satellite TV - which further confirms the DirecTV support coming in Windows 7. Here are the instructions for completing the survey and putting your name in the hat to be a beta tester: