Gadgetory

hello I'm Tom Merritt editor from cnet.com and welcome to road warrior where we take a look at the hottest gadgets for life on the go coming up a lightweight alienware laptop a sneak peek at windows vista and something called HD radio but first the in motion I am 500 travel speakers for the ipod nano this thing is extremely thin see how thin that is look at that it's 0.67 inches thick not quite razor thin but definitely thin enough to sort of stick in your backpack or no show off to your friends like this stay guest then the IM 500 also comes with an auxiliary port so you can plug in other music players as well next up a portable gaming laptop from alienware the area 51 m 5 550 like a lot of the other alienware as we've seen this one also has a really lovely display with a glossy finish that helps colors pop this one is actually 15.4 inches which is just about on the border line in terms of portability otherwise alienware keeps it really simple there are just a few application quick launch keys above the keyboard as well as two square speakers on either side you can also turn off the track pad mouse to keep it from being accidentally bumped while you're wildly gesticulating during your PowerPoint presentation that's what you need this laptop for PowerPoint we've been playing around with the release candidate one for Windows Vista Robert vamos he tells us about the different options for networking in the forthcoming OS the choices are home which should be the most secure work which means that you have a network administrator and probably need some file sharing and public which would be an internet cafe or public Wi-Fi this is the least secure of the three Vista will also have an IM suppression function for when you project your desktop up onto a big screen no more embarrassing questions popping up from your spouse during your big presentation did you buy the be no like I told you honey finally Brian Cooley explains how HD radio works using the new BMW m6 as an example you go into the FM or the am areas you're going to see some stations show up with that HD logo right alongside them that means you're tuned to the same frequency you would normally use to get that station but the car is detecting it's got an HD digital signal on the same frequency it makes am sound like FM it makes FM sound like satellite radio Brian did warn that when you're in a mountainous area for instance the radio will constantly flip back and forth between HD radio and then normal radio and back again kind of annoying that's it for this edition of road warrior I'm Tom Merritt check back next time for more gadgets that keep you armed and dangerously productive