Only- Electronics

IT Unready for New Rules on Electronic Evidence. “As Dec. 1 deadline looms, survey finds some ignorant of new requirements….

We’re supposed to be excited that our mobile phones are getting to be more and more like mobile TVs, thanks to developments like Verizon Wireless’s just-announced deal to bring YouTube videos to its V Cast service.

Over this year, one of the biggest obstacles to buying a high-definition TV crumbled into dust. Even if you’re looking for a big, flat-panel plasma or a liquid-crystal display screen, you no longer have to spend more than the cost of a good laptop computer.

For years, you couldn’t go wrong by letting one number drive your digital-camera shopping: the megapixels, or millions of picture elements, that the camera could record in an image.

Computers are made and marketed as all-purpose machines, but for a lot of people they have a rather limited job description: Web browsing, e-mail, MP3s, digital photos, the occasional letter . . .

Why is it that shopping for a technology gift can seem harder than picking out a college or finding a house to buy? I blame the numbers and the acronyms.

Last Tech Podcast for two weeks, so get your fix this week. What if we could make energy in the same way that the sun does? It’s called nuclear fusion. Can it be done? How’s this one: edible cotton. Comedians Kasper Hauser has some holiday tech gift ideas. Can the Internet ease media censorship in China? And what climate change means for growing wine in France.

The new Zune digital-media player may be an all-Microsoft production, but it feels like it came from two companies.

Another week, another Tech Podcast. On the podcast this week, a story about people waiting in line for days to buy Sony’s new Playstation. Decoding the DNA of Neanderthals, and what this can tell us about us. What to do with the dead in India? Adapting to climate change in Kenya. And booming Internet businesses in Guinea. And the results are in for Alex G’s impersonation.

We don’t have jet packs, flying cars or food pills, but the videophone has finally come home — no thanks to the phone company.