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Nvidia has Ion netbooks

That tiny circuit board is a Pico-ITX motherboard with an Intel Atom processor and an Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU. It's a reference design featuring Nvidia's new Ion platform created for netbooks and small-form-factor (SFF) PCs. The problem with current netbooks is that almost all of them ship with Intel integrated graphics which makes them not so great for gaming. The GeForce 9400M isn't a powerhouse compared to discrete desktop graphics cards, but it's better than Intel's integrated stuff and good enough for games like World of Warcraft and Spore.

We saw several SFF Ion boxes on display at CES demonstrating the platform's high-definition video playback performance. Nvidia estimates that Ion-enabled netbook and SFF systems will retail for around $400 but no major system manufacturers have announced Ion-based systems yet. Perhaps Intel has something to do with that.

Razer shows off Mamba and Carcharias

It took seven years but Razer finally has a wireless gaming mouse: the Razer Mamba. Razer founder Robert Krakoff told us that the company started planning for a wireless mouse as early as 2001, but "would only do it if the wireless one could perform as well as a wired one." Krakoff credits the firmware design team for figuring out how to do wireless with minimal latency. The Mamba offers a 1,000Hz polling rate in both 2.4GHz wireless and wired modes (you can plug in the cord when it's time to recharge). The Mamba looks similar to Razer's popular DeathAdder model, but it has a few ergonomic improvements and an upgraded 5600DPI laser engine. Other features include onboard memory for profile saves, Teflon feet, and a traditional charging dock for players that refuse to touch cords.

The retail box resembles a trophy stand that has the Mamba sitting in the center of the package. Please forgive the fingerprints on the case--conference attendees had all morning to fondle the box before we got the chance to take a picture. The mouse will be available next month for $129.

Razer also had its newly announced Carcharias headset on display at its CES booth. The Carcharias features the circum-aural earpiece design that we love because the earpieces sit over the ears instead of pressing down on them. The built-in microphone uses noise filtering to ensure that your teammates hear nothing except your sweet voice when you're barking out orders. The headset will be available later this month for $79.

Mad Catz Street Fighter IV FightSticks are awesome

We just met with Mad Catz's Alex Verrey here in our San Francisco offices to get hands-on with the Mad Catz Street Fighter IV product line-up and to find out what makes them special.

First off, forget everything that you might remember about the cheap Mad Catz accessories from the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube days. All of Mad Catz's new Street Fighter IV controllers have tremendous build quality and feel terrific in hand. The company worked with Capcom and expert players to make sure that the sticks meet the standards of serious Street Fighter enthusiasts. Mad Catz also had to get the approval of Capcom Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono on aesthetics and controls, and he wasn't afraid to send the joysticks back for more work if the button layout wasn't correct or if the controls didn't feel right.

Playing with the Mad Catz Street Fighter IV FightStick Tournament Edition is as close to the arcade experience as you're going to get. The stick uses the exact same Sanwa joystick and buttons found in the actual Street Fighter IV arcade cabinets in Japan. You used to have to build your own stick or get someone in a fighting game forum to make one for you if you wanted a controller that used genuine arcade parts. The FightStick is also very easy to mod in case you wanted to change out the artwork or even swap in an American-style joystick and convex buttons.

Experienced players will appreciate several features on the stick. The designers placed the start and select buttons on the front part of the box well out of the way of the joystick and buttons to prevent any inadvertent mid-game pauses. The controller also has a lock switch that disables the turbo and, depending on platform, the Xbox Guide or PlayStation Home buttons. A lot of players like to bring their sticks with them when visiting friends or traveling to competitions so the Tournament Edition stick has a small compartment for cable storage.

The Tournament Edition stick will be available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the US on Feb. 17 for $149. The sticks aren't cross-console compatible but they will both work with the PC. Pre-orders have already sold out for the initial 3,000 unit launch allocation, but another shipment will arrive in late February according to Alex.

Mad Catz will also ship a regular Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick for players looking for a more affordable joystick. The standard stick is smaller than the Tournament Edition and doesn't feature Sanwa hardware, but the joystick and buttons still feel great and you can't argue with the price. The PS3 version will retail for $69 and the Xbox 360 will sell for slightly more, $79, due to higher console licensing fees. The standard stick is as easy to mod as the Tournament Edition, so modders might want to pick up this model as a starter kit.

Ricardo sat down with Capcom's Seth Killian at CES last week to find out about the new Street Fighter IV sticks Mad Catz put together with the help of Capcom. Check out the video in case you missed it.

Open, Schmopen: Wireless Networks Are Still Closed

Wireless carriers in the United States have spent a lot of effort recently pointing out their desire to open their networks to any device. That's great, writes technology analyst Jack Gold, but reality dictates that openness is a long way away.

Over the past year, there's been a lot of lip service in the mobile-phone industry about making our wireless networks "open." The idea, consumer and open network access advocates have argued, is that open networks would let consumers buy any mobile device from any source and run it on any network. This is especially important in the U.S., where handsets work on a particular network -- CDMA from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) or GSM from AT&T (NYSE: T) . Under most circumstances, your device remains closely controlled by your carrier of choice.

But in recent months, carriers including Verizon Wireless and AT&T have announced their intention to make "openness" a part of their strategy going forward. It's a great idea in theory.

Yet the question remains whether we are achieving, or even moving toward, open wireless access. Are the carriers just creating a PR campaign, spinning their brand of openness for the benefit of consumers and regulators? Well, for right now at least, the claim of achieving openness is dubious at best.

The industry has a long way to go before it's anywhere near open. Carriers still heavily control their networks and don't appear to be willing to give up that control anytime soon. A device manufacturer can't just launch a new wireless product without carrier approval and extensive testing.

A Drag on Innovation

While carriers say this limits any risk of network problems from badly designed products, it also significantly limits the ability of wireless vendors to innovate and offer compelling new products and services. The test and approval cycle is long, and it has to be performed for each individual carrier -- not just for each of the two major network types. Imagine if vendors of PC hardware and software had to test and get approval for each brand and model of PC! That would drastically curtail innovation in the computing market. But this is exactly the current situation in wireless. The end result for the mobile market is that the launch cycle for devices is long -- possibly a year or more. And each device needs to remain in the market for a relatively long period as well to enable its makers to recover the added expenses. That in turn extends product life spans and upgrade/refresh cycles. This is not the way efficient competitive markets should work.

Another roadblock to openness is handsets and their operating systems. The major "open" phone OS is Android, backed by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) . Nokia's (NYSE: NOK) Symbian is due to become open in the next year or two. Both of these offer open source platforms that allow lots of potential for customization and creativity. But in reality, such devices represent a very small share of the current market. The first Android-powered phone, HTC's G1, did not exactly set the world on fire.

Indeed, the recent trend in handset popularity has been away from openness. Case in point: the very popular iPhone from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) . The iPhone is a very proprietary environment, as are Research In Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry Storm and the myriad Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows Mobile-powered devices. In fact, many of the carriers require "modifications" to devices that will only work on their networks, making the device vendors produce custom devices for each carrier. So much for "openness."

Consumer Access to Apps Is Limited

The final obstacle to achieving openness is the applications running on these devices. Because of the success of the iPhone, the BlackBerry, and other proprietary platforms, application vendors still have the burden of designing apps for at least three primary platforms and possibly five or six if they want to cover the entire marketplace. This is an impossible burden for the many relatively small vendors of innovative applications. Because of this, the handset world is far from commodity-oriented like the PC market is. As much as many profess to dislike the Microsoft hegemony, the fact that 90 percent to 95 percent of the world's PCs run its operating systems makes Windows very attractive for software vendors

Will such a monopoly ever exist in the phone market? I don't see any major consolidation happening for the next few years. So inequality for apps will persist across the various handset platforms. Many of the app vendors will have to choose which platform to support as they probably can't cope with supporting all the popular platforms at once. So they'll concentrate on the most popular platforms, including the iPhone and Storm, and leave the rest behind.

The result of this "unopen openness" is confusion for many consumers, and even for some business users. The fact is, most consumers do not pick a phone for its OS; they pick it for its features and "coolness" factor. Business users, on the other hand, pick a platform, rather than a specific phone. They make a long-term commitment just as they do in many other technology choices. But the lack of openness certainly means the market will remain dispersed over many device and platform choices. And consumers will end up with access to only those apps they can get for their chosen device, and may not get something "hot" that is available on another device [e.g., Apple iPhone apps don't work on the BlackBerry Storm or HTC G1].

Openness and Revenues Will Go Together

So can we ever get to openness? Yes. But it will take a while. Market forces are pushing the carriers toward more openness. [Who would have thought even three or four years ago that we would ever have carriers endorse the concept of open networks?] It's likely that the best chance we have for truly open networks will come in the next three to five years as the next generation of 4G networks [LTE, WiMAX] are widely deployed. The advent of new device types [not just smartphones, but also Mobile Internet Devices and netbooks] will require a reevaluation of carrier testing and certification processes as well. Carriers will eventually be forced to abandon their current "open but highly controlled" philosophy.

More pressure will come as more data-capable devices are deployed and more data-based revenues are generated on carrier networks. Let's face it: Carriers and equipment vendors are capitalists, and more openness will equate to more revenues. That will drive openness far more effectively than corporate pronouncements and even regulatory intervention. Openness will come -- but not without some hesitancy and barriers along the way.

The Making of an Open Source Developer Hero

Cisco is holding a contest for Linux developers as a way to familiarize them with its Network as a Platform concept. The goal is to generate applications to run on Cisco's Application Extension Platform and to create a Linux developer network.

Every industry has a hero who paves the way with innovation. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is looking for developer heroes for the open source software industry and hopes to find three as winners of its Think Inside the Box Developer Contest.

The contest, which started in October, encourages developers to produce applications that run on Cisco's new Linux Application Extension Platform (AXP). Cisco wants to encourage programmers to conceive apps that will enhance the usefulness of its routers that tie corporate networks together.

"Our goal is to promote innovation. There is a need to open up for ideas we couldn't think of on our own. We are now concentrating on an approach to open router space over the next year," Sashi Kiran, senior manager of Network Systems for Cisco Systems, told LinuxInsider.

Channeling Business

For the last 12 months, much of the focus at Cisco has been on the branch operations within companies. Customers were focusing on two things, database efficiency and how to grow their businesses in a Web 2.0 world, said Kiran.

"We saw double digit growth from the branches -- but IT staff growth is not keeping pace with the branch growth," he explained.

Rather than taking on all business communications challenges as it did for the last four years, Cisco is focusing on branch optimization and on lowering the cost of operations, he said.

Contest Goals

To that end, Cisco established a set of goals for its AXP platform introduced last April, but it needs an infusion of platform apps to make that happen.

The contest objectives are threefold. One is to create applications that foster the Network as a Platform. The second goal is to reach new constituents. The third aim is to promote innovation.

These new Cisco AXP innovations focus on overcoming IT complexity, collaborating with Web 2.0 programs and growing a green business. The plans also call for leveraging the evolving relationship between the CEO and CIO , as well as monetizing IT and realizing it as a strategic asset.

"We want to bridge the gap between the network space and open source," Kiran said.

Defining AXP

The Cisco AXP is an open, Linux-based hardware module for its ISR and Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) platforms for customers and third-party application developers. The platform comes with a downloadable software development kit (SDK). The AXP hardware is a Linux serverblade that plugs into the Cisco routers.

The Cisco platform offers tighter integration between the network and business applications. It is delivered via network modules and Advanced Integration Modules (AIMs) on the Cisco ISR. Multiple applications can be supported on a single AXP module concurrently, optimizing the footprint in branch offices.

This approach enables Cisco to open its Integrated Services Router and enhances the capabilities of the Cisco ISR by enabling a tighter integration between the branch network, IT and application infrastructure.

The Cisco AXP further lowers TCO by providing an open Linux-based platform to develop and host custom and third-party applications directly on the Cisco ISR. The use of ISR, WAAS and Cisco's AXP forms the basis of Cisco's concept of Network as a Platform.

Contest Particulars

Participants in the contest had 90 days to complete Phase I. This involved preparing and submitting an application proposal on Cisco's template. Phase II provided finalists with another 90 days to develop their applications via remote access to Cisco labs on Cisco ISR with AXP.

The contest is open to all participants from age 18 and older. Cisco hopes to attract researchers and university students as well, according to Kiran. The contest is aimed at application developers.

"Many developers are not familiar with the Network as a Platform. We hope to interest Linux programmers and network engineers," said Kiran.

Another byproduct of the contest is for Cisco to engage the Linux community in a learning process about the company, he added.

Prize Money

Although the official deadline for submitting completed applications is Jan. 12, Cisco has extended that deadline to allow foreign language applicants time to translate their coding, etc. The new deadline is Feb. 27.

Cisco will announce the winners in May. The company will apply weighted judging criteria for the proposal phase and the development phase.

Three winners will share a US$100,000 prize pool. The first place winner will receive $50,000. The second place winner will get $30,000, and the third place winner will win $20,000. Winners may be either individual contestants or teams.

Getting Social

Initially, Cisco received considerable input from its business partners. The company decided to scale the information to a wider audience, Kiran explained.

Cisco used various social media to spread the word about the contest. The company is learning the process as it goes forward, he said.

"This is a paradigm shift for us in some ways," said Kiran. "We are reaching out to our customers in some ways to ease their pain points. This is our first such outreach."