Strange New World: Picks of the Week

Oct. 4, 2007 — -- It's been a week for deals, deals and well ... deals here in the "Strange New World." Phone maker Nokia will cough up big bucks for Navteq, the -- get this -- map-making company that provides what's-where information to the likes of Google and Garmin. Also, Apple had yet another big deal up its sleeve, launching its iTunes music service to coordinate automatically with what's playing at your local Starbucks. And on a more mundane deal plane, it looks like this holiday season will be a good one for picking up great tech on the cheap.

Here are our picks for the top tech stories of the week:

Nokia Maps of the World

Cell phone maker Nokia just announced it will buy mapmaker Navteq for a whopping $8.1 billion. Yes, that's billion, with a "B." Nokia may be one of the biggest cell phone makers on the planet, but the company is clearly feeling the limits of just making phones.

Despite the iPhone buzz, the reality is that the mobile phone industry is quickly getting less and less innovative. (Don't believe the hype over Verizon's answer to the iPhone, by the by. Their Voyager travels nowhere.) After all, how many all-in-one computers, mp3 players, Web browsers and cameras do you need? Mobile phones are getting a decidedly mature-market vibe.

Meanwhile, navigation is at the leading edge of personal tech. Nav is now almost standard equipment in many new cars, and it is finding its way into phones, the Web and robotics. Like Fox grabbing the NFL from CBS back in 1994 and changing the way football was covered, Nokia's map grab puts itself at the cutting edge of the navigation market and in the driver's seat to innovation. Look for the company to not only do some very cool things with maps. Our hunch is we'll see way-slick Nokia-branded GPS devices on the market soon.

After all, it makes sense: Mr. Average Joe gadget shopper is just getting to know nav players like Tom Tom, Garmin and Magellan. But "Nokia Nav" or similar brand? That's almost a no-brainer.

Gimme a Venti, Celine Dion

Apple has launched its iTunes content service wirelessly at Starbucks in about 600 of the ubiquitous coffee shops in New York and Seattle, with the service promising to be available in most major cities by 2008. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of buying music while you mainline caffeine, here's a quick primer: If you have an iPod connected to a computer -- or a Web-enabled iPhone -- hop on your trusty Web browser while overpaying for coffee at a participating Starbucks. There, you will find a list of what's playing right then and now at that very store. From there it's the same iTunes experience you know: Purchase the tune, download it wirelessly and voila, you own the music you just heard.

Apart from simply being a neat innovation, there is a major back story lurking for the content industry here: If it turns out that a retail environment like Starbucks is the perfect place to sell new music to new listeners, then any retail environment will very quickly become a virtual content bizarre.

If iTunes at retail clicks with consumers -- and we think it will -- expect music download-to-buy services to spring up everywhere from Target, to the Gap and all the rest. Soon where you shop for everything will be where you shop for music.

The Cheapskate's Holiday Gift Guide

Here's the deal on our last deal of the week: We've got some way-frugal suggestions for high-tech gifts that will impress. These three gadgets jumped out at us for not only being kind on the wallet, but cool enough to impress crazy Uncle Lester and make him forget all about that "Jam of the Month Club" membership you gave him last year.

First up, the Toshiba SD-6000 is a progressive scan DVD player that supports 720p, 1080i and 1080p. It has an HDMI output, supports DivX, has 192 kHz 24-bit audio -- and costs just $85. That's a high-end DVD player for less than the cost of two PSP games.

If your intended already has a DVD player, perhaps the Harman Kardon HK3385 stereo receiver is more your speed. This is a sweet amp with an AM/FM tuner, four video inputs, built-in iPod connectivity, and the always-top-tier HK sound. And it will cost you a very reasonable $199.

Finally, the Acoustic Research AR4131 blackVault power speaker is not only a slick-looking iPod shelf or tabletop sound system, but it comes with a tube amp. This is one heck of a sound system for about $130.

Buy good old Uncle Lester all three of these, and he'll have a full set of top-shelf audio for less than $500.

Jonathan Blum and Dan Evans co-host "Strange New World," a weekly syndicated radio show. Blum hosts the blog Blumsday.com and Evans is a features editor at PC Magazine.