It was the Saturday night before the Oscars and my wife and I realized that there were several nominated movies we hadn’t seen yet. It was also a very rainy evening and we were in no mood to drive to a movie theater or even to the local Blockbuster store.

So we used Apple TV to download “In The Valley of Elah,” featuring Tommy Lee Jones who was nominated as best actor in a leading role. On Sunday we watched “The Assassination of Jesse James,” which was nominated for best cinematography. Other Oscar nominees available for rental include “Michael Clayton,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “Ratatouille” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Many of the nominees, including best picture winner “There Will be Blood” were not available.

If this had been the eve of last year’s Academy Awards we would have had to either rent the movies from a video store or watch them on a PC, but this year we got to watch our rented nominated films in our living room on our high definition set thanks to Apple’s newly enhanced Apple TV.

Apple TV is a small box that sits on or near your TV and connects to the Internet via a wireless WiFi network or a wired Ethernet cord. Ever since it was first released in 2007, it’s been able to stream video, music and photographs from a PC or Mac running iTunes, and it also has its own internal hard drive, enabling you to transfer iTunes files from a computer to the box itself, so, once the files have been transferred, it can work even if the computer is turned off or the network connection is down.

The device also lets you download free video and audio podcasts and access YouTube video.

Apple TV was introduced in January 2007, but in its first year on the market it didn’t sell very well. Apple CEO Steve Jobs even referred to it as a “hobby” during an on-stage conversation last May with Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg at the Journal’s annual “All Things Digital” conference. (more…)

I don’t usually cheer the death of a product or a technology but I’m glad to see the demise of HD DVD. After years of contentious battle between two competing high-definition DVD standards, Toshiba, the primary backer of HD DVD, conceded defeat last week. HD DVD is dead. Long live Blu-ray.

It’s not as if Toshiba had much choice. HD DVD was already in a coma. Warner Bros. Studios - the largest purveyor of DVD movies - put a big nail in HD DVD’s coffin in January when it announced it would no longer produce movies in that format but standardize on Blu-ray. That left only Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios in the HD DVD camp. The vast majority of new high-definition movies would come out only in Blu-ray.

Another couple of nails came from Netflix and Wal-Mart, both of whom recently announced they would no longer distribute HD DVD. Blockbuster earlier decided to carry only Blu-ray.

It’s not that I really cared who won. From where I sit (a few feet from a 52-inch high-definition TV), I can’t tell the difference between the two formats. But the mere existence of competing formats made it impossible for me to recommend either type of player.

I’m all for competition, but not when it comes to standards. Imagine if certain books were compatible only with certain reading glasses or if the car you were thinking of buying could be driven only on certain types of roads.

Standards define almost every successful technology. It was safe back in the old days to buy any vinyl album because people knew it would work on any record player. And standards explain why the CD was able to quickly take over - people knew that all CDs worked on all CD players. The initial lack of a single standard stalled the deployment of video recorders back in the ’80s because Sony was pushing its Beta format while most other companies were selling VHS players. Some studios initially issued movies in both VHS and Beta, but ultimately VHS won out, causing Sony to eventually stop making the format. Standards are also important in the computer industry. They’re one reason Microsoft has done so well, although Apple has been able to buck this trend to a degree with computers that run different programs. But software isn’t the same as movies. People buy software and use it until a new version comes out - often two or three years later. When it comes to entertainment products, people buy or rent on a regular basis. You want a steady stream of programs to work with whatever hardware you happen to own.

It can be argued that the departure of HD DVD is a blow to competition. But I think the opposite will be true. With a single standard, it’s now more practical for hardware manufacturers to invest in development of new players and increased production capacity. That should mean more players on the market and, ultimately, better prices. If the prices of standard DVD players are any example, we should see a dramatic price drop within the year. A couple of years ago I bought a standard DVD player for $29 at a drug store.

Before you go out and buy a Blu-ray player, let me share my experience with the one I have. Movies in Blu-ray look and sound great but, truth be told, so do movies recorded on standard DVDs. That’s because most Blu-ray (and HD DVD) players, along with some higher-end standard players, convert the signal from a standard DVD so it looks great on a high-definition TV. It’s not as good as a Blu-ray disc but it’s still quite good.

But when it comes to signals on broadcast, cable or satellite TV, I’m now spoiled and feel I’m having an inferior experience if I have to watch a standard definition show on a high-definition TV.

Eventually none of this will matter because we’ll be downloading our movies via the Internet. There will come a time when buying media on plastic discs seems quaint.

Thanks to Apple TV, Microsoft Media Center extensions, TiVo and other products, that’s already starting to happen. But the full transition from disc to download will take several years and won’t be complete until we get faster broadband service than most American homes currently have. It would also help if the studios adopted less idiotic rules. Most video download rental services today disable the movie 24 hours after you start watching it, which is one reason I still prefer to get my movies on DVD from Netflix. I can watch them at my leisure.

At the risk of sounding like I oppose online commerce and support high taxes, I have to agree with New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who wants out-of-state e-tailers like Amazon.com to collect state sales tax on goods delivered to New York residents. I’d welcome a similar initiative here in California. Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, called the New York proposal “a radical departure from anything that’s being done anywhere in the country,” according to the Associated Press.

Radical or not, its time has come. Yes, such a plan would cost me money - I’m a heavy user of Amazon and other e-tailing sites. But I can’t think of any good reason why customers of online retailers should shop tax-free while people who spend their money locally have to pay sales tax.

Actually, it’s more complicated than that. Online e-tailers that also have a physical presence in a state do have to collect sales tax. If you buy something from Sears.com, Walmart.com or Radio-Shack.com, you will pay California tax even if the item is shipped from an out-of-state warehouse because those companies have stores in California. But because Amazon.com doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar presence in the California, it’s not obligated to collect sales taxes.

It can get even more absurd. While Californians, New Yorkers and residents of most other states don’t have to pay sales tax on purchases from Amazon.com, people who live in Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota or Washington are subject to tax. That’s because Amazon has offices, warehouses or other facilities in those states. But if you buy from one of Amazon’s associate merchants that does have a presence here, you might have to pay taxes after all. It’s starting to remind me of the complicated and ill-fated “snack tax” that required grocery stores to collect taxes on certain size packages of snack foods and not others. By exempting out-of-state Internet retailers from collecting tax, the state is essentially discriminating in their favor over businesses with a local presence who not only collect local and state taxes, but also pay local and state taxes themselves, hire local people who pay all sorts of taxes and also pay rent to local landlords who - in turn - pay property and income taxes that help support our schools and other services.

I love buying things online but I also love how local merchants add to the fabric of our communities. The business climate for independently owned local stores is tough enough. Why should they be forced to charge customers 8 percent more as a punishment for doing business in our communities and contributing to our local economy and job market?

California and New York taxpayers are supposed to pay sales tax on out-of-state Internet purchases, but the burden is on the taxpayer, not the online merchant. In both states, when you fill out your state return, you’re asked to report and pay use tax on out-of-state purchases, but the tax authorities have no effective way to determine how much individuals really spent from out-of-state merchants. Under current law, it’s a tax that’s almost impossible to collect.

I can think of a few arguments in favor of the status quo. Some might say e-commerce is in its infancy and taxing online purchases would put an undue burden on this fragile new industry. An argument could also be made that we also have to pay shipping when we order online, which is like a tax on Internet purchases. But local stores have to pay shipping charges on items that they stock and the cost of shipping to the store is reflected in the retail price. So unless the government wants to offer tax credits for all shipping charges (an absurd idea), then this argument doesn’t hold much water.

And please don’t mistake sales tax for a “tax on the Internet.” Sales tax on Internet purchases has nothing to do with taxing Internet access - something that Congress has consistently banned.

Fair is fair. If the cost of maintaining our schools, police and other vital services requires that we pay sales tax at favorite local stores, than we should also have to pay the same tax if we order from an out-of-state e-tailer.

Immigration is a major topic this election year with much of the discussion focusing on the best way to secure our borders. But amidst all the speechmaking there is another piece to the issue that rarely makes the headlines: the human impact of deportation on individuals and families.

A non-profit human rights organization has just released a new video game called ICED (I Can End Deportation). It’s also a play on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department, the division of Homeland Security that enforces immigration policy.

The game is free and there are versions for both Windows and Macintosh. There is also a version that runs in the Global Kids Island in Teen Second Life, a virtual world accessible only to teens.

When you play the game you get to chose one of five characters so that you can experience what the game developers call “the day-to-day life of immigrant youth.” You can get a sense of what it’s like to be chased by immigration officers and make decisions that can increase or decrease your chances of being detained and possibly deported.

The game is definitely an advocacy tool. Breakthrough has a strong position about what it considers to be abusive policies and behaviors that the organization feels deny legal rights to immigrants, including many who may be in the country legally. One character, for example, is a U.S. veteran who had applied for naturalization while in the military. The character, according to Breakthrough Executive Director Mallika Dutt, is based on a real person named Warren Joseph, a veteran of the Gulf War of 1991.

Listen: Larry Magid explores the issues behind ICED with Mallika Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, the organization that distributes the game.

Dutt said that nearly two million people, both legal and undocumented immigrants, “have been deported without due process since new immigration laws have been in effect.”

The game attempts to educate players about unfair policies as well as the types of judgments they need to make to avoid detention and deportation. There is also information in the game about immigration policy and how to get involved in supporting immigrant rights.

Based on all of the recent controversy about the immigration issue, I’m certain that there are some who would criticize this game because it takes a position that is unpopular among many people who feel that we need to secure our borders, support immigration enforcement personnel and deport illegal immigrants.

However, policy issues aside, it helps to understand that there are human beings whose lives are being affected, many of whom are children and teens who may have never violated U.S. law.

You can download a free copy for Macs or Windows PCs at www.icedgame.com.

By Larry Magid

For the past few weeks I’ve been in search of the perfect digital camera. If such a camera existed it would take incredibly great pictures, be small enough to easily fit into a pocket, would use AA rechargeable batteries, have both an LCD display and an electronic viewfinder for holding up to your eye and would have a large optical zoom lens. And of course it would be really inexpensive.

So far, I’m still looking but I have found a couple of cameras from Canon that meet at least some of my criteria. Of course, Canon isn’t the only vendor with interesting offerings. A couple of weeks ago I reviewed Kodak’s excellent Z812, and I’ll be looking at cameras from other companies later this year.

The two cameras I looked at are the PowerShot A720 IS ($193) and the PowerShot 650 IS ($289). Both have 6x optical zoom lenses. The A720 is eight megapixels and the 650 IS shoots 12.1 megapixels. Eight megapixels is more than enough for most applications.

What attracted me to both cameras is that they satisfy two of my pet peeves by using AA batteries and having an optical viewfinder.

Given a choice, I prefer a camera (or any other device) to use standard batteries. AA rechargeable batteries and rechargers are inexpensive, and it’s easy to carry around extra batteries. In a pinch you can always buy throwaway AA’s, though I don’t recommend that for both financial and environmental reasons.

The optical viewfinder has become an endangered species with digital cameras, but I prefer them for two reasons. First, they don’t wash out in bright sunlight like the LCD display on the back of the camera. Also, I find the camera is more stable if I hold it up against my eye, compared to looking through the LCD at arm’s length, where you’re most likely to get some extra shaking from your outstretched arms.

The downside to the optical viewfinder on these two cameras is that you are not looking at an exact replica of what the lens picks up. There can be a discrepancy between what you see and what the lens sees. Of course, both cameras also have an LCD screen, which does show you what the lens sees. Some digital cameras (like the Kodak Z812) have an electronic viewfinder that you hold up to your eye but instead of an optical view, it’s a small LCD screen that shows you exactly what your picture will look like.

The PowerShot A720 - the lighter, smaller and less expensive of the two, uses two AA batteries, while the 650 uses four batteries. Those extra two batteries not only give you more shots but enable the flash to recycle faster. My biggest complaint about the A720 is that it takes about 10 seconds between flash pictures while the A650 lets you take a flash picture about every three seconds.

Other than that, the A720 is an excellent camera. At about 3.83 by 2.64 by 1.65 inches, it’s far from the smallest or lightest camera on the market, but there is something to be said for a camera that has a certain heft. It feels good in the hand and gives you a bit of stability when you use it. It’s not quite small enough to fit into the pockets of tight jeans, but it fits easily into a jacket pocket or deep trouser pocket.

Both cameras also have image stabilization, which consists of sensors inside the camera that compensate for shaking that can cause your photos to blur. Image stabilization is especially useful with longer-zoom cameras because a zoom can exaggerate any hand movement while you shoot.

Another common theme of both cameras is manual control. Although there is an automatic setting which adjusts the aperture, ISO and shutter speed based on the camera’s analysis of the best settings, you have the ability to override these settings. You can also manually focus, although I find I get best results when I use the cameras’ auto-focus feature by pressing the shutter halfway down when I aim at a subject and pressing it fully after the camera beeps to tell me that it is in focus.

The A650 IS is actually closer to a professional-level camera. It’s bigger (4.41 x 2.67 x 2.21 inches) and heavier (10.6 ounces) than the 720. In fact it’s one of the biggest and heaviest digital cameras in its class. In terms of specifications, it’s actually very close to Canon’s PowerShot G9, which the company classifies as one of its “high-end, advanced” cameras. The only difference I can decipher between the G9 and the A650 is that the G9 is black instead of silver and has a proprietary battery, which is actually a disadvantage. Another advantage of the A650 is that its LCD can tilt and swivel to almost any angle so you can face it forward if you’re including yourself in a picture. If you’re taking a picture from overhead you could angle the LCD toward yourself and see what you’re about to capture. It’s a very cool feature.

The extra size and weight of the camera could be seen as a negative, but I view it as a plus. It has heft, which is something I like if I’m taking serious pictures. Sure, there are times when I prefer an ultra small camera in my shirt pocket, but the A650 is a compromise between such a small camera and a much bigger and bulkier digital SLR. One nice thing about this compared with larger cameras is that the lens fully retracts and is covered when the camera is turned off, which is pretty good for a camera with a 6-to-1 zoom lens.

As for pictures, the A650 is quite good whether photographing people, zooming in on distant shots or using the macro function to get super closeups of flowers.

Larry Magid’s technology column appears Tuesdays in the Daily News. E-mail can be sent to larry@larrymagid.com.

It’s been just over a year since Windows Vista was released to consumers and since then the response has been tepid. Microsoft trumpets it as “the fastest-selling operating system in history, with more than 100 million licenses sold.” But the vast majority of those copies were bundled with new PCs. Most PC makers stopped supplying Windows XP on consumer systems soon after Vista was released. But because of consumer complaints about software and hardware compatibility, slow performance and system unreliability, Dell and other manufacturers retreated and started offering customers a choice of XP or Vista. According to NPD Group analyst Chris Swenson, the vast majority of consumers are nevertheless buying machines with Vista, though enterprise customers still buy more machines with XP than with Vista.

If Microsoft is anywhere near accurate in its claim of 100 million copies out there, Vista is having a lot of impact that, for better or worse, makes it a very important piece of software.

Which leads me to the good news. Microsoft has finalized the code on SP1 - the long awaited first “service pack” for Vista. A service pack is a collection of fixes, many of which are already on millions of PCs because Microsoft pushes out fixes as they release them via its automated Windows Update service. (If you have Vista, type “Windows Update” in the search panel of the Start menu to configure updates.)

Thanks to SP1, Vista may finally be ready for prime time, causing me to wonder whether this past year was nothing but a giant “beta test” posing as released software. The service pack won’t be available to the public until mid-March at the earliest. Then, any Vista user whose machine is configured for automatic updates is supposed to get it automatically. The company sent me an early “RTM” (release to manufacturer) copy for testing. I’ve been running SP1 for only about 24 hours, and I’m not equipped to put it through exhaustive testing. But both my desktop and notebook machines do appear to be a bit more stable, less buggy and - in some situations - a little faster. I don’t notice any speed improvement when it comes to start up and shut down but that depends on the software you’re running. The more you have to load on start up and unload on shut down, the longer it will take. Performance also depends on your hardware setup.

I have noticed that Vista now goes to sleep and wakes up more reliably. Before, it was hit or miss whether the machine would go into a sleep mode as programmed. And, like a bad anesthesiologist, Vista would sometimes put the PC to sleep but fail to wake it up, requiring the user to turn the machine off and back on again, which defeats the purpose. Because of that a lot of people turn sleep mode off, which winds up wasting an enormous amount of electricity. If Microsoft did nothing but fix this one serious problem, it will have done a lot to combat global warming, considering the number of machines that will be running Vista over the next several years.

Microsoft has also made some performance improvements, including with file copy. If you copy a large number of files from, say, a thumb drive to your hard drive, you may notice an improvement. I didn’t get out a stop watch, but Microsoft claims a 25 percent boost in speed when copying 200 5-megabyte photos from one folder to another.

Regardless of when you upgrade to SP1, it’s always a good idea to make sure you have the latest device drivers for your printer, sound card, display adapter and other peripherals. Bad or out-of-date drivers can be major causes of system instability.

My reactions have been bouncing back and forth ever since I heard the news early Friday morning that Microsoft wants to devour Yahoo.

Part of me thought that Microsoft was up to its monopolistic tricks again, trying to buy its way into dominating in an area in which it hadn’t succeeded, despite years and billions of dollars of effort through MSN and Windows Live offerings.

But only seconds later my thoughts turned to Google, which is to the Internet as Microsoft is to the desktop - a dominant player.

Perhaps a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would help level the playing field by offering a formidable opponent to Google? After all, Google’s share of the Internet search market is about double that of Microsoft and Yahoo combined.

This is becoming a David vs. David story, as Google quickly played the Microsoft monopoly card this weekend in the form of a blog post from its chief legal officer, David Drummond. He wrote that “Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions,” including whether Microsoft will “now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?”

In my mind, the posting backfired on Google. Instead of making me dwell on the obvious concern over Microsoft’s historic predatory practices, I started worrying about how much influence Google might try to wield over the affairs of other companies.

When I read on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site that Google CEO Eric Schmidt called Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang to offer Google’s help in Yahoo’s efforts to fight off Microsoft, it became clear that we now have an Internet soap opera with some very powerful forces at work.

But then another thought occurred to me: Perhaps it really doesn’t matter all that much. After all, despite a few new interactive offerings, Yahoo is primarily a “Web 1.0” company, Microsoft is closer to a Web 0.0 company - and Google, though still quite innovative, won’t necessarily be the fountain of tomorrow’s great ideas. Putting it another way, this fight is about the past and the present but not necessarily about the future. (more…)

Back when he was president, Bill Clinton admitted he didn’t know much about the Internet. He was covered, though, because Vice President Al Gore knew a great deal about it. But if you’re running for president in 2008 you had better be Net savvy. That was one finding of a recent survey conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. The poll was released Wednesday during that organization’s “State of the Net” event on Capitol Hill, where I participated as a panel moderator.

The 3,585 adults polled in late January were asked, “Do you think the next president will know as much about the Internet as you?” Nearly 45 percent said “yes - because how important the Internet has become,” while 22 percent predicted the next president wouldn’t be so Net savvy but should be. Only 12 percent said it doesn’t matter if the president has “a good grasp of the Internet.”

One thing is for sure: The Internet has become a major source of voter information about presidential candidates. Nearly 48 percent considered the Net their primary source, compared with 31 percent for TV and 13 percent for radio. “Other” accounted for 8 percent. For some reason the survey failed to list newspapers as an option. (Of course, some of the most comprehensive news Web sites are operated by newspapers and media networks.)

While voters may use the Internet to learn about candidates, they don’t want to use it to pick one. Only 19 percent felt that it would be a “good thing” to be able to vote online, while 67 percent worried it would lead to voter fraud and “undermine our elections.” Technology issues, rightfully, come up in political discussions, though I haven’t heard much from the candidates so far about such issues as network neutrality, Internet privacy, child protection and other Net-related topics.

The survey asked people to rank various scenarios that they would consider to be an invasion of privacy. Eleven percent selected “someone you know posts a picture of you in swimsuit,” while 10.7 percent were concerned about someone posting “a picture of you obviously drunk.” An astounding 49 percent selected “your geo-location was available to others (such as GPS).” (more…)

Unless you plan to be at the University of Phoenix Stadium on Feb. 3, the only way to see the Super Bowl is on TV, which is why a lot of people are going to be buying big-screen TVs between now and then.

Even if you’re not a big football fan, this is a good time to consider getting a flat panel high-definition TV. Prices on screens larger than 40 inches fell nearly 40 percent in 2007, according to analysis firm iSupply.

While prices will continue to decline, the rate of decline should subside a bit this year, according to iSuppy analyst Riddhi Patel.

Another reason to consider buying now is that the technology is finally relatively mature. That’s not to say that sets won’t get better over time - that’s always the case with technology - but they’ve stabilized. For example, you can already get a pretty good price on sets that display 1080p resolution, which is the highest we’re likely to see over the next several years.

1080 means the set has 1,080 lines of vertical resolution while the “p” stands for “progressive”, meaning the entire image is displayed at one time, as opposed to 1080i where the display is interlaced. Some high-definition TVs today display 720p, which actually is still very good compared to a standard definition TV.

While no TV network broadcasts in 1080p (most broadcast in 720p or 1080i), even that interlaced 1080i signal looks great on a 1080p TV. The bottom line is that 1080p is as good as it gets and the price difference between 1080p and 720p is dropping as well.

Aside from resolution, the other questions you need to ask yourself are the size of the set, the display technology and what features and inputs you want.

The size of the set should depend on how far you plan to sit from the TV, which, of course, depends partially on the size of the room. The further away you are, the larger the screen should be. One rule of thumb is that the distance between you and the screen should be between 1.5 and 2.5 times the diagonal size of the screen.

So, if you have a 50 inch screen, you should sit between 75 inches (just over 6 feet) and 125 inches (about 10 feet) from the screen. Of course, you should measure the distance and do the math before you buy the TV. Crutchfield Advisor has a convenient chart that gives you a pretty good idea of the relationship between screen size and viewing distance.

Another big question is the technology. The three major technologies today are LCD, plasma and rear projection TV. Until a couple of years ago, LCD was only for screens 32 inches and below, but as it comes down in price, it’s now popular with screens in the 52 inch and below category. Plasmas are popular in the larger screen sizes (50 inches and above) while rear-screen projection systems tend to dominate the very large screen market - 58 inches and above.

Plasma and LCD have their pros and cons. As a general rule, plasma tends to look better from a wider variety of angles so may be more suitable if you’re sitting off to one side, though recent LCD sets do a pretty good job even if you’re not looking directly at the center of the screen. LCDs do better in bright light conditions, which might be important if you’re watching during the day in a room with big windows. LCDs are also more energy efficient than plasma.

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Listen to Magid interview HDTV Expert Alfred Poor

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