Last winter when I went to the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, I saw a technology that seemed impressive, but didn’t seem necessarily useful.

It was the Sling Box, and it basically lets you watch movies on your TiVo from anywhere in the world if you’re connected to the Internet. Back then I saw the technology I thought that it was executed very well and look pretty cool, but I couldn’t envision the practical use.

Sometimes you just have to let a technology sink in within your brain and give yourself time to envision a use for it. That’s kind of way it is for me with the Sling Box. More and more of my mobile computing is un-tethering myself or my office and for my home and I’m starting to see the uses of potentially having a connection to movies or news recordings on my TiVo.

In part this is probably due to the fact that I do a lot of work with news and media need to stay in touch with things. It definitely has something to do with the fact that I have a WiFi office on a fishing dock and also because I use an air card quite a bit these days as well.

Back in January I couldn’t envision watching TV for my computer very often. But now it seems like every time I turn around I think of a new use for such technology and it makes they consider or reconsider other technologies that I have rolled my eyes at in the past because I wasn’t quite wise enough to figure out a good use for it.

I haven’t purchased a Sling Box yet, so I’m not going to be putting it to the test probably before the summers out, but I have seen that the prices are coming down rapidly. If you take a look at the Sling Box on buy.com its featured in their weekly sale, you can see that the price is coming in under $200 now down from almost double that price not so long ago.

And consumer-electronics terms, that is a good sign that the product is popular with people and that they were buying enough of the product so that the overall cost of manufacturing can come down and the subsequent cost of sales of the product can come down as well.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see this product offered as part of a basic cable lineup package sometime next summer. Dish network already offers its as an accessory, but is not a standard item yet maybe someday and maybe then I’ll pick it up.

If I haven’t purchased at all ready.

This week I picked up a Verizon Wireless USB Air Card.  Its a little thing about the size of two ipod Nano’s stacked on top of each other and it has a retractable antenna for those occasions when an extra 2 inches matters.

I picked up the card on Saturday in preparation for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Super Bowl of consumer electronics and maybe tech in general.  Now, there are parts of the show that are covered with WiFi, but it never fails that something makes the WiFi go screwy when I need it the most, so I’m using this in part to get things done with NO excuses. 

My first impressions are positive overall, even though when I tried to connect at the airport after going through security, it took about 8 (plugins/tries) and about 5 minutes before XP would recognized/find new hardware.  Once that tedious Microsoft problem was out of the way, I was off to the  races and writing, working and enjoying the productivity.

The thing cost $0 after a $50 rebate and will cost $59.99 per month on my gynormous wireless plan, which will almost put me at a $300 per month wireless bill. 

Now it is almost twice as cheap to pay the early cancellation fee as it is to continue with Verizon!

In addition to being a wireless card, its also a memory card with a micro sd card built in.

After attending CES for several years, you would think that I would have a better handle on the planning side of this event.  I have exhibited and attended as a sales person and even attended as a journalist.  I have managed the setup and design of booths and contracts with the CEA, but every year I always seem to neglect my travel arrangements.

This year is no different and as I approach Christmas I still have a plan for where I’m going, when I’m going, or which hotels in Vegas or even to be on the top of my list this year.

I have no problems in setting up meetings and ensuring that I have a productive stay at CES, but I just can’t seem to bring out the inner travel agent in myself.  I typically book most of my stuff through Expedia, or these days and even sometimes go directly to the hotels themselves to book a room.

But I never feel like I got the best deal, and all of the other arrangements are much easier and a much more natural fit for my personality. 

We can do a lot of things on the Internet these days, but I suspect that some of us despite all of the ala carte do-it-yourself type of options that are out there, you might be better off in the hands of capable professionals that specialize in the aspects of life that we have severe weaknesses.  For me, that’s booking travel arrangements and phone menus. 

If you’re going to CES this year, please drop me a line and I’d love to come to meet up with you somewhere at the show.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Microsoft submitted a filing to the Federal Communications Commission. The filing suggests that the company might add some version of phone service to its ‘hand-held media players’ known as the Zune.

Microsoft will submit a prototype to the agency. The Zune already has WiFi capability and a new Phone + Zune combo Ph + une = Phune could provide a device to compete on some levels with the iPhone. It might also be an opening salvo in Microsoft’s never ending race to continually play catch up with other companies that have tested the waters first.

The filing indicates that the new device will utilize OFDM, which is a routing technology capable of moving TV and voice calls between devices. Maybe Zune will abandon the Phune concept all together and focus on the potential to virally transmit Microsoft Soapbox videos on its Zune.

That would at least spare everyone another silly sounding gadget name.

Technorati tags: Zune, Microsoft, Microsoft Phune, fcc, bad gadget names like Zune iPhone and Phune

Investors did not pull any punches as they bounced out of Motorola stock on Friday.  As of 2:23PM ET the stock had dropped to $18.86, a fall of $1.69 or 8.22%.

That’s about 21 cents over the 52 week low for the stock.  Investors are not happy with this latest news or the lack of it.  In this day and age, its one thing for a corporation to phone in disappointing numbers.  However, in this situation it was more troubling as the disappointing numbers not only seemed to surprise Motorola, but even befuddle them.

It would appear that they were not on top of the situation and didn’t see this coming and that is a bigger mistake than actually missing.  Businesses will go through natural cycles and consumers will change their habits.  These are all normal items for consideration.

In this day and age with information systems that are supposed to be plugged in and tuned to every aspect of a company, Motorola should have had their finger on the pulse much sooner.  At least they might have know when to pull out the defibrillators, but as it stood it appeared that they didn’t know just how sick or healthy their patient might be and the stock was rapidly discounted for that uncertainty.

KKR to buy Flextronics unit for $900 mln??Reuters.com: “An affiliate of U.S. private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. has agreed to buy the software development unit of Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) for about $900 million, making it the biggest leveraged buyout in India.”