LG brings it to this year's CES with the Renoir. It's a phone packed with a serious camera. The specs are the real deal, not just a cam-afterthought like on most phones: 8 megapixel image sensor, Schneider-Kreuznach optics, xenon flash (a flash! woot!), 120fps video recording, image stabilization, auto-focus, and many shooting modes that can pick up smiles, eye-blinks, and can even rid your pictures of blemishes so you'll always look your best. No more worries about looking "day after." And there's more - the Renoir has a large 3-inch touchscreen for all your camera controls, from exposure levels, timers, and shooting modes. Unlike most cameraphones, the makers of the Renoir took notice of nice user details such as shot-to-shot time and shutter lag, so there's no downtime between grabbing those impromptu moments. There is also a slo-mo shooting mode that takes 5 pictures a second, for those really interesting shots. oh yeah, it's a phone too, and we all know how great LG phones are, so that's all gravy. No word yet on price, release date or carrier, but it's a dream phone and it's got a great name.

The buzz is well deserved. Touted as the biggest mobile announcement at CES, Palm officially announces their new phone today. They were very tight-lipped about development up until now, with very very minor product leak, but we were able to find the scoop early, and were waiting with baited breath for the announcement.

Here are the deets: The announcement started with ex-Apple cum Palm Executive Chairman Jon Rubenstein. How did he come to Palm? In Mexico, of course. Palm CEO Ed Colligan wanted to restore innovation to Palm, and flew down to Mexico to meet Jon and it worked. Jon left the beaches of Mexico for Palm. "I'm a product guy," says Rubenstein. "Palm's DNA is mobile. The company is positioned to create the best mobile devices in the world...instead of having a bunch of mobile devices, take all that infomation, put it in one place, and let them interact using the right platform that's forward looking and powerful enough to handle all the complex information"

Bring on Ed Colligan. He wants to consolidate all our internet places in one: "Our lives live in a lot of different places on the internet." This is true. His thinking is to aggregate all those places into one working mobile device, "Default thinking isn't to hook up to your desktop PC, it's to connect to the cloud." I likes it. So what does this mean? Finally, a new OS for the Palm, called WebOS. It's built with developers in mind using standard web authoring tools: HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Know these? Then you can develop apps for Palm's WebOS. Ok, here's what we are all waiting for. The new phone is called the Palm Pre (pronounced like "free") and it is cute. Smaller than an iphone, it is a little like the HTC Touch. It's a little thicker, due to the slide out QWERTY keyboard.

The Hard Stuff

• Hardware specs:
• 4.5 oz in weight
• EvDO rev a
• Bluetooth stereo
• 802.11 b/g wifi capable
• Ti's latest OMAP 3430 processor
• 8GB storage
• GPS
• 3.1 in. multi-touch screen all the way to center button so you can flick and gesture all the way to the bottom of the screen
• 320x480 resolution
• ambient light sensor
• 3 megapixel camera with LED flash
• speaker
• accelerometer
• micro USB
• card storage slot
• 2.5mm jack
• removable battery

basically, super fast, super sensitive, and super storage-y.

The Soft Stuff

WinOS, the new Palm Operating System works on a Synergistic idea, and the interface is like shuffling around a deck of cards. Flick, drag and gesture from app to app without having to worry about your data. Whatever you flick away, it's autosaved. No import - just log into your accounts and all your contacts are pulled from your services without duplicates. Each contact's pictures are stacked behind each other under a single entry. So if you have LizMoney in your Outlook, Gmail, and Facebook, even AIM, it will pull all that info, stack it up, and consolidate it all under a single LizMoney entry. Synergy will also search for contacts across all address books automatically, and can follow the contact through their email information all the way to their IM handle. So with one tap or click, you can send a message via any of those services. And, it has Exchange OTA Sync. woo! The calendar compresses empty time blocks. Awesome. See only what you need to see. The browsing. Full view of websites, tilt for landscape viewing, multiple windows can be opened and viewed simultaneously. Bonus- notifications pop up beneath your running app, not overlapping what you are doing. Nice little feature.

When, Where, and How can I get me one?

No price point was mentioned, however, they will be available First Quarter of this year, and the hammer: Exclusivity with Sprint. argh.

Something terribly ironic and hilarious that happened earlier in the keynote on live.gdgt.com:

"11:10am - Sorry everybody, Sprint is, yet again, crapping out on us here."

And the reaction to the Sprint exclusivity via phonescoop.com:

"2:56 PM: No one clapped when it was announced that Sprint was going to be the exclusive carrier."

*crickets*

*tumbleweed blows across room*

So, from what it seems, Palm is back in the game as a serious contender for the iphone and the Google Android OS. Hopefully, the exclusivity with Sprint won't be a permanent thing. Thanks to the live bloggers at phonescoop.com, engadget.com, gdgt.com, cnet.com and for Scobleizer for the subversive video feed!

somehow, i don't think THIS is going to be announced at CES.

but i want it.

We all know how I love me some Uni-Ball Pens. Now they have a totally cute uni-super-ink Robot. I really wish that there was an action figure of him. I love him!

In New Orleans, even the chi is fried:

So, there's been a big wave of phishing and hacking on Twitter in the last 24 hours, and causing mass twit-steria in the twitter universe, frantically prompting everyone to change their passwords. People's passwords were getting hacked, mass phishing links in DMs, and general panic about the sacred space getting infiltrated by the spammers/phishers/nigerians. Among the Twitters that have been hacked, Britney Spears was one of them. Her latest update stated: “HI Yall! Brit Brit here, just wanted to update you all on the size of my vagina. Its about 4 feet wide with razor sharp teeth.” [Screen grab below]. The update has since been removed. Bill O'Reily also seems to have been hacked: CNN's Rick Sanchez is not coming into work today:

Adidas Gazelles are now being reissued. sweet.

Originally seen back in 1968, this version of the Adidas Gazelle II is available in blue and white, with a full suede upper, contrast stripes and of course, the Adidas logo on the tongue and heel.

It's been joked around that I must be reptilian, because I'm ALWAYS cold. Always. And it doesn't even get that cold here in the winters, but when it gets down to the 50s, I'm ready to hibernate and not leave the house, b/c I can't put on enough layers to stay warm, and robes never come small enough for me, plus the ties are all high waisted, and they always fall open and i just get all cold again. Enter the Snuggie. I'm sure you've seen the commercials, an in case you haven't, Here's this wonderful piece of commerciality. It's basically a blanket with sleeves, so you can go around looking like a monk. Sexy factor is close to nil, but I think I can work it. My other option is to get my Duckey friend to build me a human sized hot rock. Like what pet reptiles lounge around on. Perhaps I should convert my living room into a huge terrarium. That's much cuter than walking around monk-like in a blanket with sleeves.