In his words:

"The answer, in the peer-reviewed study of the online habits of girls aged 8 to 12, finds that those who say they spend considerable amounts of time using multimedia describe themselves in ways that suggest they are less happy and less socially comfortable than peers who say they spend less time on screens."

I owe my livelihood to technology and I love the raw capability it offers us as a tool, but I fear it a bit more than most people do. It's a tool, but it's not quite a hammer, because a hammer doesn't seduce you into sitting around lonely in your underwear for 6 hours at a stretch clicking on youtube videos and refreshing Twitter. I fear technology because I fear that bad feeling I get after a three day XBox binge I go through every year around the holidays. I fear technology not because I think it's evil, but because it's too easy to start clicking and never stop, even if the stream of data starts to go from meaningful to useless after the top 5%.

I am fascinated by this study because everything I have been doing in the last year professionally and personally has been to reduce the overage of technology and noise in my life and it has increased my happiness by many fold.

Happiness is the most important metric in personal tech. If it improves lives, it is important. I've always suspected that sitting around on the internet was a sort of rot, but I had no proof until I read this piece on the Stanford study. I just don't know why this research isn't getting as much attention from reporters as new iPads, CEO changes, earnings reports, acquisitions, and other bullshit that only affects the greedy. People think I'm crazy for complaining about tech news and how stupid and boring the mass media internet has become, but I think they're wrong. And I think most are writing about the wrong things.

It's the perfect time, with this abundance of pages to read and videos to watch, to consider Clay Johnson's book, The Information Diet. In his words, the book is about "How the new, information-abundant society is suffering consequences from poor information consumption habits" The book also outlines a plan for metering the kinds of content that we consume, as we do with food diets that need to be balanced between junk food and healthier food that initially taste worse but will make us healthier and happier. (For every milkshake, I average out a glass of green kale juice.)

Informationally, we are becoming lard-asses. In the pageview and ratings driven media economy, too much of the content these days is designed to be just like junk food to quickly boost quantifiable viewership. If you make content that is the intellectual equivalent of gummy bears, your site will appear to grow quickly. Advertisers reward size, and growing fast is expected in most places I've seen. Last month I visited Xeni Jardin, my blog-sister from Boing Boing and she said to me, "Only cancer and bullshit websites grow fast." It's happened to TV with reality shows, radio with clear channel, and it's happening to words online. I've never seen a world-class sized publication that was founded in the past decade do world class quality work. It's not because the people running them are dumb–it's because they don't have enough time to think their work through because there's no short term incentive to. There's an excuse there aren't enough resources to go around, but that's bullshit. It just takes a little confidence in the long game.

I had a powerful moment of reflection when applying for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's Journalism fellowship last year. I realized I didn't have as many clips I was proud of. I was spinning my wheels online. I didn't get in. I would say over 5 years, my animal instincts were enhanced to the point where I could guess how many clicks the wolf-whistling mob would provide my website with a high level of confidence, but my intellect was dulled and my patience for books and feature length films was non-existent. I'm fixing that now byslowing down so I can make more time for the things that make me feel good to consume.

The first thing I did was to take back my time. I quit all the online content that was id-provoking and knee jerk. I stopped reading the stupid hyped up news stories that are press releases or rants about things that will get fixed in a week. I stopped reading the junk and about the junk that was new, but not good. I stopped reading blogs that write stories like "top 17 photos of awesome clouds by iphone" and "EXCLUSIVE ANGRY BIRDS COMING TO FACEBOOK ON VALENTINES DAY." And corporate news that only affects the 1%. Most days, I feel like most internet writers and editors are engaging in the kind of vapid conversation you find at parties that is neither enlightening or entertaining, and where everyone is shouting and no one is saying anything. I don't have time for this.

They're. Also. Splitting up. Their sentences. Into. Individual words. So they can make more. Traffic. They're also calling things stories that are not stories. This is not a story. The Wirecutter leaderboard is not filled with stories. If there's no stake, no conflict, no resolution–if it's not a story you'd tell a date to excite them–it's all marketing. And all we can hope to do is be helpful and pay our bills and then go experience the rest of life. I'm guilty, too. I just keep my commerce quarantined in a really small holding pen with an electric fence. By the way, those amazon book links are laced with affiliate codes.

Tech news has become the kind of party you show up for filled with corporate drones where no one is really having fun, and leave as soon as is socially acceptable to go find good trouble and get weird at the dirtiest bar you can stand on the bad side of town. Sometimes you find other refugees at the far end of the counter. But few have the sense or guts to act differently at the party and get crazy and honest about it at work.

If something important happens, I'll read about it on twitter from one of the smart editors I follow or someone will call me. I won't know about it instantaneously, but I will know about it.

I also stopped reading twitter and facebook regularly, because most of my online acquaintances are nice, but I like to think about these experiences as shallow and yes, also I don't give a shit about 99% of people I interact with online. I've met some great friends online, but once I find them I would prefer to spend that time and energy with the few I would do anything for. Also, clicking the like button 1 billion times will never give you an orgasm or a hug or a high five.

All this has freed up about 3 hours a day for me.

I bought a model boat. I'm going to built it, and paint it. In the time I did that, I could watch 100 batman trailers (BAIIIIINNNN) or post that same batman trailer and rack up 100k clicks on The Wirecutter. I'm not batman-ing. I'm building my boat.

While writing this, I flipped to a random page in a book about technology I want to read but haven't gotten around to yet:

"The naive optimism of the 18th century led some people to believe that technological progress would lead to a kind of utopia in which human beings, freed from the need to work in order to support themselves, would devote themselves to philosophy, to science and to music, literature, and the other fine arts…Instead of using their technological means of production to provide themselves with free time in which to undertake intellectual and artistic work, people today devote themselves to the struggle for status, prestige, and power and to the accumulation of material goods that serve only as toys. In effect, American popular culture has been reduced to mere hedonism, and hedonism of a particular contemptible kind."

The book is called Technological Slavery, and it is written by a man named Ted Kaczynski. And yes, I just quoted him. He was wrong to hurt people, but he wasn't all wrong in all his observations.

Technology lets us do things faster and more efficiently; why would we use that newfound free time to do more and more of the same old thing?  I'm not just talking about smarter consumption of content like Johnson is– I'm also saying, fuck consumption.

In light of the Stanford study I'd take Clay Johnson's argument further–instead replacing junk media with more high end media, try using technology to work and read and watch faster. Then use that time to go explore the world or do whatever makes you happier. Is it hanging out online? If you think this, then you probably have not seen the things I have seen away from my computer. You can argue that different styles of life are better and worse for different kinds of people, but as the Stanford study implies, online worlds are just not as of high resolution as real worlds and experiences. You can argue styles, but you can't argue quality. Quality is quality. Again, Like button < hugs/orgasm/highfives.

Exploring the world away from the digital one is not so important for the sake of finding new ground. Internally, exploration is also about testing and growing the self and to live a life that isn't painted by number. (I think exploration and adventure are essential to the happiness of every person, but I can't presume to present this as anything but my own opinion. Most people are pre-naturally more happy than I am, out the gate.)

Thoreau, when he spent two years on Walden Pond to live simply, wrote,

"Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously course labors of life that its finder fruits cannot be plucked by them…He has no time to be anything but a machine."

Thoreau had to abandon work and friends to live simply, but he was not against it. He just had no choice at the time, given the technology at hand.  I think we–and information workers like programmers, designers and writers especially–are capable right now of living a fantastic life that marries the wild vitality that Thoreau experienced at Walden with the better parts of civilized living. This is a life that  Ted, if he were still in his cabin, could be envious of–if we could only muster the discipline to get away from the noise.

See, for the first time ever, the trade off between living a powerfully exciting life close to nature and adventure and having the basics of civilized, boring life are largely gone. We don't have to abandon civilization and our friends and our work and technology and run off into the woods to live a simple, powerful life.

With my three extra hours a day, I will often go to the beach. Cook a healthy meal. Do a bunch of exercise. Have a drink with friends. Read a book. Write a poem. Mow the lawn. Go skiing while checking my email from the chair lift. Visit a museum. Get into my van at 10pm at night and drive to Joshua Tree by morning without worrying about having an editor to report to. My van has a bed, a stove, a closet, a fridge and and auxiliary battery, 4g modem and my laptop. I can work from the desert, the beach, the mountains, reception withstanding. My life has never been fuller and I've never been more meaningfully connected. I'm not making as much money as I was before with my hyper intense news job, and I might run out of money and need to work at McDonalds one of these days, but for now I'm using Airbnb to pay my mortgage and it's working out just fine. It's a little scary at times, but I'm going to keep going with it. Having a van is not really the point. It's just a symbol and metaphor and tool for having both freedom and security through technology.

All it's cost me are LOLs and LIKES and YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF EXPLOSIONS and news about startups. It's more than a fair trade–it's a no brainer. And I think almost anyone with a job based on information can set up a similar life that is just as enjoyable. It might take a few years, but you can't do it while you're rotting online reading junk content. Get on, make the most meaningful information and connections, and then get offline. Then, live purposefully towards happiness. Because I've never met a person who spent their days and nights online that was happy as I am right now.

Yes, even if they do well, Apple's tablet textbooks won't fix the fact that teachers are underpaid, and kids are way dumber these days because we got to watch Voltron which is all about teamwork and outsmarting your opponent and they have Spongebob. But it is something that could make the world a better place.

Also, it's appropriate that the Genesis of Apple's Textbook program may have come from a student intern at Apple with a dream of cheaper books.

In 2008, Apple had its iContest in its Town Hall building. The iContest is sort of an American Idol for great ideas that gives interns a chance to present their best thoughts to executives. Here, Joseph Peters and some friends outlined the idea of bringing Textbooks to iTunes, before the iPad even existed to the rest of us. They won a set of Macbook Airs for their idea.

I spoke to Joe about his experiences.

***

How did you come up with the idea for Apple to get into Textbooks?

Well the original idea came from my frustration with how much Textbooks were and I did some research about the market which showed that prices were artificially inflated because publishers were losing revenue from the resale of used textbooks.

I originally pitched the idea to some fellow interns, but they all thought it was stupid because they all wanted to talk about the "iCar" or something "bigger". Keep in mind most of these guys were engineers so business models aren't necessarily important to them.

The night before the deadline to submit the idea came and I took a few emails I had with my Dad about this idea and started to write up a summary which became the foundation of the executive summary. I showed it to a few friends who then helped me. Later that night my friends and I took took the executive summary and hashed out a Keynote in Garage 1 in the early morning, the day of the presentation. Probably one of the greatest work related experiences of my life, thus far.

The presentation started in the afternoon and there were to be 10 ideas presented in front of a handful of mid-level executives. We we're scheduled to be the 5 group to present.

The first 5 were awful and the executives would kill every idea in the Q&A. Anyway, we presented and answered the Q&A pretty flawlessly. I mean they said they really liked it and every other presentation received mostly sarcastic remarks.

I remember answering a handful of questions and getting the impression that the exec's were totally on board. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Afterwards I knew that we clearly we're going to win so that last 5 presentations were pretty much screwed. Again, another awesome feeling.

At the end, they announced that we won, they gave us all a MacBook Air and it was great (for interns anyway). I was more excited about the opportunity to talk to more people about the idea. They scheduled a meeting with John Couch, head of Education a few days later. We met John and a few the people on his team in a small board room and we just gave the same pitch as before.

In all, I was glad to have had the opportunity to share my vision.

What questions did the Apple bosses ask?

One was about how some people like real books and I just simply answered that this solutions wasn't a replacement but rather a supplement. At least initially.

Another was about whether people would read on their computer screens. I couldn't talk about the rumored device that'd later become the iPad, but I think I just said that there would be other ways to consumer this content in the future.

Other then those, I can't remember. It wouldn't be right to guess.

Do you think Apple developed their textbook program from your idea?

I want to clarify one thing – I'm not claiming that I invented the idea, just that I may have helped push management down a direction that they were already contemplating. It's very possible that they were thinking about Textbooks well before I did. I just want that to be clear because I certainly don't want people thinking that I'm trying to take all the credit. There's a lot of work that has been done to advance the idea.

You can look at it this way – here's a college aged kid telling you that this is a service he'd like.

***

The slides and document here show the genesis of the idea as Joe's, to the best of our knowledge, but whether or not the idea came originally from Joe is not the most interesting thing to me. I find it fascinating that Apple's upper ranks have a system in place for listening to the ideas of interns. This seems like a smart thing for an enormous company to do when they're trying to keep start-up values. It's a neat little hack to the innovator's dilemma. Also, the idea only cost them a few Macbook Airs.

There are over 100,000 people here to see roughly 20,000 gadgets brought to the light of day in less time than it takes for a rattlesnake to shed its skin.

Without hype, these are the gadgets that will be worth knowing about in 2012. I found about 9, with the help of my friends.

(Below these, I've listed a few dozen that were lauded, but I believe are not very important, interesting, or relevant.)

A HOBO PHONE: The most important phone at CES is the SpareOne, a simple phone that can run off of an AA battery—perfect for stashing as an emergency phone along with a prepaid SIM card.

ART CAMERA: This is the only gadget at the show that melts my heart every time I think about it. Fuji has a new interchangable lens camera called the XPro-1 that follows up their adored X100 street camera, which even regular people lusted after. Why? The X100 looks like a rangefinder/leica, manual controls when you needed them, and took great photos with its fast, fixed lens. X1-Pro camera is the followup that will have changeable lenses and potentially be able to use Leica M mount lenses with an adapter, said Fuji. It will also have an awesome lens collection of three primes: a wide, 50mm equivalent and a modest macro. These are the kinds of fast lenses that can give your photos those romantic out of focus backgrounds that make every place look like Paris. The body alone is $1700, which is DSLR priced. I want this more than anything else I've seen at the show, and I think I might get one over the also amazing Sony NEX-7 Camera, which is technically astounding but has a mediocre lens selection that is not worthy of a $1300 camera. Holding both, though, the NEX-7's OLED viewfinder and build quality is clearly better and astounding like most Sony hardware. If you want to know a LOT about this camera, check out DP Review's awesome preview. And these videos by Fuji Guys.

That's all I care about in cameras at CES. But wow, I care about this camera a LOT.

A DRONE FOR THE REST OF US: The Parrot AR DRONE 2.0 is an update to the ipad-controlled quadcopter toy that makes it a bit more serious and a lot cheaper as a tool for aerial photography. The new one is better at staying in place (it has an air pressure sensor that lets it maintain altitude more steadily) and an HD wireless video camera. When I saw it running, the drone was loitering in place, occasionally flipping over in mid air. It is also cheaper than the last model than at $300. I want one. My dream is to fly one over the beach and film the ocean from above.

BIG TV: When I saw 8K resolution ultra definition TVs from Sharp I realized why that resolution would one day be critical–it tricks your brain into seeing detail as reality (the TV looks like a window) and texture like hair and patterns become much more vivid. But the real action in TVs is, as always, not with the mega high end concept televisions but the Panasonic and Samsung plasma TVs that are the ones people will end up owning.

Samsung's amazing D7000 plasma HDTV was one of the best TVs of last year, and its follow up in the PNE8000, will also be great as a TV. It will have gesture and voice commands, which are a useful way to control the TV when the remote is on safari. Considering how hard it was for Microsoft to master Xbox's Kinect and its voice and motion controls, it could suck.

Samsung is also going to be dropping 2 to 4 sets of 3d glasses in the box of every new 3D tv. These generally cost over $100 each, so this is more than an afterthought–it's serious charity that everyone else will have to follow.

Vizio, the king of cheap TVs, had a rough year in 2011 winning few awards. This year, they've also got a super widescreen HDTV called the cinemawide that is super cool. No, really–it's wide as a hollywood movie at 21:9 (2560 x 1080) instead of the more standard 16:9 and much wider than all other TVs you can buy now in the US. If you're a movie buff, this could make watching films super cool as long as the sets perform well. It's 58-inches. At the very least, it will look amazing in a livingroom. I want.

That's everything you need to know about TVs in the coming year.

THIN COMPUTERS: Everyone's talking about ultrabooks! I don't even know what an Ultrabook technically is, but they all seem to be Macbook Air like, thin and powerful. That is a good thing.

But a real head turner at the show is the Dell XPS 13, which is lighter and smaller than a Macbook Air. It has some cloud connect thingy that lets it check your email and get it ready for you to read, among other tasks, while its in sleep mode so you can get back to work as soon as you open the lid. It has a backlit keyboard, and is aluminum and carbon fiber. Mark from Laptop Mag has a solid hands on here. The kicker? This pup starts at just under $1000. The thing that makes it inferior to the Air is its screen is lower resolution.

Samsung and Lenovo's ultra books were the best from last year, according to some reviewers, and the follow ups are also solid.

But here's the bottom line: Sometimes this year, Intel's faster chipset called Ivy Bridge as well as Windows 8 are coming out. Wait for them to get a PC.

That's all I care about in computers. (If you want to know about computer components, check out Anandtech.com)

WIRELESS SOUND:
I trust Bang & Olufsen to make good, expensive gear, and so I have a good bit of faith the Beolit 12 wireless speaker will be wonderful. Some Jambox wireless speaker competitors have tried and failed to take the throne, but this B&O airplay speaker is high powered at 120 watts, so it kind of opens up a new category out of nowhere: Wireless airplay speakers that can make you deaf.

MATERIAL MATTERS: Gorilla glass, the miracle glass that is strong enough to put on gadget faces like the iphone or even TVs, is now 20% stronger in version 2.0. This means it can be implemented in a thinner manifestation on future gadgets to improve touchscreen responsiveness, weight and thinness. It's amazing to think about Gorilla Glass as a lost technology that Corning couldn't monetize until Steve Jobs pushed them to convert a factory to start making it again, in 6 months. I can't recall exactly, but in Walter Isaacson's bio, I think the tech was decades old.

 Waterproof Everything: A few years ago we saw a company that managed to apply a waterproof coating to the internals of a gadget, using gas. The technology was demoed by dunking working electronics into glasses of water, repeatedly. This year, two companies, Liquipel and HzO, are doing something similar. More importantly, HzO says Samsung and Apple are interested in the tech.

ANNOUNCING THE BEST GADGET OF CES: An expensive fridge by LG that can take a can of beer from warm to cold in 5 minutes. Here's a video by my friend, John Mahoney, for Pop Science. (I hear you can do this in the freezer in 15 minutes. I generally forget about things I leave in the freezer for 14 minutes or more, however. LG also has a steaming/drying closet for refreshing clothing. Weird!)

APPENDIX: LOVED OR UNLOVED STUFF THAT DID NOT CAPTURE MY INTEREST (YOU REALLY COULD JUST PASS ON THIS SECTION AND BE JUST FINE)

Onkyo is doing this thing called Instaprevue, which lets us see thumbnails of the video inputs on a receiver. It's neat and useful, but not worth upgrading a receiver for.

Buffalo is showing off an 802.11AC router. The AC spec is faster than G or N. This won't matter for awhile because the standard needs to settle and N wireless has been keeping up with media streaming pretty ok these days. Plus, your laptop and phone can't take advantage of it, yet.

Netgear has a wireless extender that works with dual band routers.

Intel's refocusing on smartphone processors. This is good news because competition for ARM is good news. Or, it will be once gets into things we can buy.

The Nokia Lumia 900 is the first Windows Phone to come to the US–it's basically the older phone with a bigger screen, on AT&T. I am appreciative but dispassionately unaffected by Android. Windows Phone, on the other hand, makes me crazy. It's got a slick interface and wonderful Nokia hardware. Too bad the apps are atrocious. I am carrying a Windows Phone now, next to my iPhone. And if you know me, that is a crazy thing in and of itself. I reluctantly say Windows does not matter, but I want it to matter a lot.

Eton Solar Speakers. I'm embarrassed I want this, but I do. Probably because I live in a van in the desert sometimes.

Android phones of note are a Droid 4, which is supposedly to be one of the best with a keyboard and a Droid RAZR Maxx that is the RAZR from last year with an extended battery.

Samsung and LG made TVs using OLED technology. Samsung's OLED TVs are supposed to be 40% more color accurate and 1000x more responsive than LCD. Sony has a concept TV where 6 million LEDs light up a TV instead of using traditional methods . LG is showing off a 4k (basically ultra-hd) 84-inch TV, Sony's got a 4K projector, and JVC has a camera to get this content. These future techs are amazing, but wildly expensive. I'd guess 4 times more expensive than a plasma. If you can afford a yacht, maybe one of these sets is right for you in the near future–when there's actually content worthy of it. One day, maybe they'll be more than museum pieces. But not today. Today they are as useful as sand. I won't file any of this stuff as junk, though, because 10 years ago, LCD TVs couldn't touch tube TV prices, either. I'll call it wonderfully irrelevant in an Epcot world of tomorrow way.

Panasonic is Samsung's major competition in TVs and they've followed up their top line VT30 and budget ST30 HDTVs with the VT50 and ST50s. They'll be solid, as are Panasonic's TVs every year. But Samsung's been catching up and is less expensive these days, so who knows what the reviewers will pick. I heard Panasonic is building MySpace into its TVs, which is obviously ridiculous. Don't hold it against them. But this could be the year that Panasonic falls to Samsung. Who knows.

New Makerbot!

I like Sony TVs and commend them for reducing their product lines from 6 to 3. Clarity is wonderful! But based on LCD tech, these TVs are always wildly expensive for the size. Pass.

Tablets–Unlike phones, where Android has made quite a few people happy, I still feel like Android Tablets are generally uninteresting because the app selection is next to nothing. Vizio has one of the best of the show from a pure hardware perspective, while Viewsonic has one of the cheapest.

Samsung has tablets of 3 different sizes under the Galaxy Brand. But the tablets at the show were not interesting to me. I prefer the iPad and Kindle Fire over these, for app selection and media buying infrastructure, at those two prices. Also, as Wilson Rothman from MSNBC said to me, "I am shocked to hear how many are shipping with Honeycomb 3.2, with promised upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich later." (Ice Cream Sandwich is the new version of Android.)

In chatting with Mark from Laptop Mag and Joanna from The Verge, I've come away with admiration for both like the Lenovo U310 and Samsung Series 9 which are strong followups to last year's favorite Ultrabooks. They're both updates to older models from last year, and can't be considered brand new, but these well-tested machines are still worth knowing about.

Fuel cell cellphone charger. Can be used with dirty or clean water, or even urine. Requires pucks which make it a bit less interesting than a solar battery pack as far as sustainability goes, but in a pinch or in an area without much sun, this might be the thing to use.

Oh, some people like the Vizio laptops, but I'll wait and see. Nah, I'll just get a Dell XPS or a Macbook Air.

Canon has a megapowered point and shoot called the GX-1. You can ignore it. It's got a sensor that is bigger than most point and shoots but smaller than the sensors in the best , interchangeable lens cameras that are small, high quality and that I am in love with as an idea and category. The Canon is a non starter at $800 because it has a slow f/2.8 zoom lens and for the money you can get a better camera at the price in a DSLR or interchangeable lens cam.

Garmin realizes it can't beat the smartphone so they're linking their GPS to Android handsets to give it gas, weather and traffic data in their new flagship. (It's called the 3590LMT and it's $400.) They're charging $20 for traffic data and $10 for traffic cameras and $10 for fuel prices and $5 for weather, per year. I still prefer a smartphone and a GPS app. At these prices, you should, too. At least they've got a golf course GPS that will be useful.

Polaroid has a point and shoot that runs android and doesn't print photos. It's bad.

Camcorders–I should know more about this. I don't because I'm into digital cameras that shoot video rather than standalone camcorders. However, they're still important because a good camcorder can shoot quality video that keeps up with a high end DSLR for less than $1000.

Sony has a camcorder with a projector built into it. I can't decide if this is stupid or genius. Let's go with go with "ehhhhhh fine."

Camcorder Info says they're excited to test the Panasonic flagship, the HC-X900M and Panny is claiming "near pro" level performance from this $900 camera. They're also interested in the JVC GZ-GX1 because it follows up a camera that had too many bells and whistles. This one is more simple, and $900.

Pico Projectors–New, better mini projectors. But they are still one or two generations away from being anything but piss poor. The high end ones usually hit at the CEDIA show later in the year.

Car Audio–Pioneer has an update to its App radio that works with Android and has a bigger screen. The concept is useless because it depends on specially written apps to display themselves in a special mode on the screen of the radio. Duh, just use the phone's screen and an iPod cable with a regular car stereo.

Solar powered Kindle cover. It has a reading light and they claim the cover provides three hours of reading for every one hour of sunlight, but at $80, this thing makes no sense. A Kindle needs so little power to operate that you could charge it for a few minutes by USB and have a lot of reading time. And if you're in the desert of some place without power, you should get a general purpose solar panel with battery, like the Orange Joos.

Here's an obscene portable PC gaming machine from Razor. This is weird. But people who used it said it's a solid way to play PC games, if you're into that sort of thing.

Limke is a little dongle that charts your pulse and charts your oxygen levels and compares them to your friends online. Cute app, but if I wanted this kind of information, I'd live in a hospital full time. Heart rate and oxygen levels are symptomatic and it would be more constructive to track walking with something like a fit bit. I'm a little bit over health tracking at the moment. I find it a distraction to actually taking care of your health. Exercise, get a juicer, sleep well.

The Lenovo Yoga is a concept for a laptop that turns into a tablet but it is ultimately flawed because laptops and tablets have different power and battery life profiles. Ignore.

Cable and satellite are screwed. This is probably the most desperate gadget of the show. Dish is making a mega-DVRthat can play video in many rooms and capture every prime time show from every major network with one click. They're also previewing their satellite channel lineup for free for 24 hours–through the internet. All of this seems like a desperate try to stave off the inevitable march towards watching internet streamed TV on tablets while we bathe, cook, lay in bed, and sit on the can. Good for old fashioned mansion-ites who love live television.

The OLPC 3.0 Tablet is a tablet for poor kids designed by rich people. $100. Solar charged. Not junk, per say, but not relevant to most of us. I really appreciate it for its attempt to computerize the rest of the world.

More BS: Haier made a see through TV. Sharp is making 17 different LCD panels that are bigger than 60 inches, but that's useless because LCDs are too expensive at those sizes. Friends at Televisioninfo.com believe it's a way for Sharp to earn business partners by showing their manufacturing might. I buy that. They're also making battery powered TVs up to 60 inches. This is simply dumb.

Lenovo is making a TV with Android built in. It's not built on Google TV, though, which is Google's interface for TVs? This is a clusterfuck. For Lenovo and for Google. Focus!

Also, too many people are making waterproof computers and tablets. Stop it.

Best Milkshake of CES: Captain Crunch Milkshake, from Holsteins.  

META: For Writers At CES

The first thing I notice every year when I settle into a hotel at CES is that no matter how fancy the hotel, the tap water smells like eggs. They say the memory of smell is powerful although elusive and I use the memory of the smell of the tap water to wake me up when my eyes start glossing over at CES.

Eggs.

CES can buckle a strong man's knees. The quantity of data and visceral noise on the show floor causes many junior reporters to whine and go cross-eyed and sometimes catch a cold from all the hubbub, hand shaking, and fondling of dirty gadgets. This is my 10th year visiting the show. I've learned the key is to wash your hands every 120 minutes and to avoid touching your eyes and nose. Also, to take the monorail, not the cab line. Get a trailer to write from if you can.

Another key to being at CES as a writer is to avoid worrying about CES's terrible signal to noise ratio and instead, do something about it. Ignore the bullshit, shoot down the overhyped, and focus on the most interesting. If a writer complains about CES and writes 40 posts about it, it's a little hypocritical, no?

The last key is to enjoy Las Vegas with people you only get to see once a year and get into a healthy amount of trouble. Living a fun life and escaping the news machine will give any reporter the time and perspective to think a bit more about what's real in all the manufactured news, in a manufactured show, in a manufactured town filled with mirage. If a writer can do that, they can avoid being part of the problem and get the space to think and write at the pace of a human, not at the pace of a robot.

Quiet is cool.