Microsoft has delayed the public release of its Windows 7 beta download due to an overwhelming demand that its servers couldn't handle.

Windows 7 Beta Delay

Today, 1080p is the top of the line for HDTVs, but it certainly isn't as high as high-definition can go. Toshiba's new super-resolution Cell TV features four times the resolution as typical 1080p sets.

Casio, Polaroid, Panasonic, and Sony are putting camcorders and cameras into focus here at CES. We spotted a bevy of new models that do everything from go under water, print photos, and one tiny burst-mode Casio camera that can shoot at 30 frames-per-second.

Here's a netbook with a twist: Emtec's 10-inch Gdium Liberty has no hard drive. Instead, it will ship with a bootable USB storage stick (dubbed the G-Key) that runs Mandriva G-Linux and has over 50 open-source applications pre-installed: including OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and Spam Assassin.

The novel concept would allow it to be shared amongst users (say, a family) who's individual G-Key's store their own files and preferences. G-Key capacities will initially be 8, 16 and 32GB when the Liberty goes on sale around April, starting at about $400. While a 64GB G-Key is also on the cards, the Liberty's built-in SDHC card reader and three USB 2.0 ports also help with storage expansion.

President-elect Barack Obama has joined the growing chorus of those calling for the digital television switch to be pushed back from its February 17 deadline. Yesterday, John Podesta, the co-chair of Obama's transition team, sent a letter to key Congressional members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the House Energy & Commerce Committee saying there was insufficient support to assist consumers with the switch. Of the major networks, both NBC and ABC said they support Obama's call for a delay and CBS is open to the idea, according to reports.

The early buzz is favorable for the Palm Pre, the vendor's new smart phone that is earning praise from reviewers who've had a chance to play with it. The device, which combines a touch screen with a slide-out QWERY keyboard, was introduced yesterday at CES 2009 in Las Vegas. The Pre features Palm's much-anticipated Web OS operating system, and will be available on the Sprint 3G network in the first half of 2009.

Engadget applauded the "grace and simplicity" of the Pre's interface, which it says "outclasses most of its competition on a number of levels, and actually may be quite a bit more revolutionary than the iPhone." No small praise there.

Burger King has had some pretty outlandish ad campaigns--most recently with the "Whopper Virgins" TV ads--but a new marketing scheme that utilizes Facebook is possibly its strangest yet. Burger King is asking people to drop ten friends on Facebook to receive a free whopper.

Digeo's Moxi set-top DVRs have been sold for years through cable providers, but Digeo says this is the year the devices will appear in stores. Actually, the company told me the same thing last year at CES, but the device never became available direct to consumers. I'll choose to believe them this time, though.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Asus took the wraps off a number of new products, such as a touchscreen netbook with a swivel hinge, a redesigned Eee PC keyboard, and a 12-inch netbook with a 512 GB solid-state hard drive. All of these are product you'll be able to buy in the not-too-distant future.

Bicycles at a consumer electronics show? You bet. But Schwinn's Tailwind is no ordinary cycle: It's a hybrid bicycle, which can be ridden the old-fashioned way, powered by its petals, or in motor-assist mode. So if you live in a hill-ridden city like San Francisco, you can get an extra boost getting up those arduous inclines.

The Slingbox isn't the only product that will allow you to "place shift" and "time shift" your video. A lesser-known company called Monsoon also has a device called HAVA that lets you watch your local cable feed on any screen in your house, or on a broadband-connected PC or mobile device halfway around the world.

Like the Slingbox, the HAVA box connects to your TV cable lines, and lets you plug an Ethernet cable into the back of the device. The HAVA box grabs the cable programming and shoots it out over the Internet. Here at CES, Monsoon announced that they taking this video place-shifting thing a step further by adding a social element to it. Not only can you watch your own cable anywhere and anytime, but you can now tune in to what your HAVA-using friends around the world are watching, too, with a new service, called Monsoon SociableTV.

Less than a month after announcing that version 1.0 of its Chrome Web browser is no longer a beta, Google has released an alpha version of Chrome 2.0. Available through Google's Chrome Developer Channel, the updated browser brings many notable improvements over Chrome 1.0.