Reuters reports that Verizon Wireless will launch a wireless music download service later this month. It intends to charge $1.99 a song for downloads direct to cell phones and 99 cents a song if the the song is first downloaded to a personal computer. This differentiated pricing model follows competitor Sprint Nextel’s launch of a music download service last year that charges about $2.50 per song.

More details from Reuters.com…

Gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo are covering the first round of HD video players being announced at CES. Sony has announced their first Blu-ray player, with 50GB of storage capacity. Pioneer’s Blu-ray player will be coming in May.

On the competing HD DVD side, during Bill Gates’ keynote, Microsoft announced its Xbox 360 will also be able to play HD movies through an external HD DVD add-on. And Toshiba’s HD DVD players have been announced to ship in March. Outside of the major HD disc formats, KiSS Technologies has a networked DVD player that is capable of high definition playback using video encoding formats including MPEG-4, DiVX HD and WMV HD.

Reuters journalist Sue Zeidler reports on the battle for control of next-generation DVDs and the resulting pricing strategies of the product manufacturers.

Who needs one lens to take a digital picture when you can use two?

That’s what Eastman Kodak Co. says with the Easyshare V570, a pocket sized, 5-megapixel camera that will be available later in January for about $400.

The second lens helps novices take wide angle shots such as scenic landsapes, or shoot wide angle TV-quality video, with built-in stabilization technology to help prevent jerky shots… in a one-inch thin camera.

Bill Gates sat with Fred Katayama to further explain the Vista operating system. He downplayed the threat from Google, saying Microsoft faced a host of rivals ranging from IBM to Apple to Sony to Nokia in its bid to control the next generation of software.

For its part, Google is reportedly planning to allow users to buy videos from content partners in an upgrade to its video-search service. A report in the The Wall Street Journal Thursday says Google expects to announce the service and partnerships with CBS Corp. and the National Basketball Association at CES on Friday.

Related: Full transcript and video clips of Bill Gates’ CES 2006 keynote

“This next year for us is probably even bigger (than 2005). This is the year that stuff like Office 12 and other things will come out and MediaCenter will become mainstream,” Gates said in a speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In Gates’ vision, users files, photos, e-mails and the like will be stored on the Internet, making access to the information possible from all net-connected devices.

“We will have 80 pct of households connected by broadband by the end of this decade in the United States,” up from around 60 percent now.

Introducing a glimpse of Windows Vista, he commented that, “We will ship this by the end of the year,” and handed over to a Microsoft product manager who demoed some of the features including:

• A “Sidebar” program, similar to what Google and Yahoo already offer as Web downloads.
• Powerful graphics for better gaming
• A visual photo gallery which seamless views still and video
• Music search

The presentation was then handed over to Van Tofler of MTV’s new venture Urge. He said Urge covers MTV, VH1 and CMT and also 100s of Internet radio stations. Subscribers will be able to customize the service, he said. Finishing up he said “Take note — we are trying something new here.”

The service will also include editorial blogging built in to music channels.

To show off some of the specific features of the Urge service, Justin Timberlake, whose next album will be featured on Urge, appeared on stage briefly and joked that this is “artistry and technology”

 More Reuters coverage of Gates’ speech…

Game publishers are betting that faster games in full color will drive more cell phone users to download games. Fred Katayama reports from CES in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Perhaps there finally is a cure for repetitive stress injury, the disabling condition that afflicts many computer keyboard and mouse users.

EMA Innovation LLC is showcasing its Nethrone digital entertainment center, which includes not only a desktop computer but an exercise machine.

The Nethrone, which looks like a stylish cross between a doctor’s examination seat and an exercise machine, has a chrome and aluminum frame, a keyboard, mouse and joystick for gaming. It also serves as a writing platform and a support for a flat screen computer monitor.

Unlike most office chairs the adjustable reclining seat also vibrates. It will go on sale world-wide in March for $2,495 with a one year warranty.

Netgear Inc. and Skype, the Web-based calling company which is a unit of eBay Inc., plan to introduce the first wireless mobile telephone for Skype users.

The Netgear Wi-Fi phone is designed to work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless Internet access point — at home, in an office, cafe, public hotspot or in cities where wireless access may be available citywide, the companies said.

By contrast, existing Skype phones, including cordless models, must be connected to a computer. 

A variety of telephone makers including Cisco’s Linksys, are seeking to cash in on the Web-based calling craze popularized by Skype, first in Europe and Asia, and increasingly in the United States.

Users can make free domestic and international calls and hold conference calls with other Skype users. Calls to regular phones incur a small fee.

“Customers can now call anyone on Skype, anywhere in the world for free without using a PC anytime they are connected to Wi-Fi,” said Patrick Lo, Netgear’s chairman and chief executive said in a statement issued ahead of a press conference at CES.

More information on Netgear’s Skype Wi-Fi phone, including pricing and availability, is planned for the first quarter of 2006, the companies said.

Palm Inc. on Wednesday said it has started sales of its Treo mobile phone powered by Microsoft Corp. software. The device could help Palm compete against Research In Motion’s Blackberry for corporate customers. 

Palm’s Treo 700w device, introduced at CES, will run on Verizon Wireless’s high speed data network, using Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system. 

The phone and digital assistant connects to the Internet and handles e-mail. It includes a built-in 1.3 megabyte camera that offers better pictures than current Treo models. The Treo 700w is priced at about $400, depending on related service agreements.

Palm, which pioneered the handheld computing market, has faced stiff competition from Microsoft and Canada’s Research In Motion, maker of Blackberry wireless e-mail devices, which have become wildly popular among business professionals.

The new Treo could potentially open up a much bigger corporate market for Palm, thanks to Microsoft’s central role in the desktop computer software and back-office e-mail markets. 

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Britain’s Vodafone Group Plc.

The Reader allows users to store and read digital books. REUTERS/Rick Wilking 04/01/2006