HD DVD camp stands by format

Some of the answers were provided by the Sesame Workshop report. Others were provided by a video Buckleitner shared of a 2-year-old playing with the V-Smile, which hooks up to a TV. The toddler ignored the big colorful buttons that controlled the action on the screen (in fact, he ignored the screen altogether), and fixated on the on-off button before crawling away.

Clearly, these companies still have a lot to learn.

-- Alex Pham

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Comcast shows off super-fast modem

Brian L. Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast Corp., dazzled the hard-to-impress tech set in Tuesday morning's keynote speech, during which he demonstrated the breathtaking speed of the coming generation of cable modems.

He says they're capable of downloading a two-hour, high-definition movie (Warner Bros.' "Batman Begins" was used) in four minutes. The same task, Roberts said, would take six hours via a high-speed DSL modem or seven days -- more time than it actually took to make the movie, celebrity guest Ryan Seacrest quipped -- over dial-up.

Roberts' promise to have millions of these modems (that's Docsis 3.0 for you geek-speakers) in homes by the end of the year prompted spontaneous applause from the audience (more than "American Idol" host Seacrest managed to elicit).

Roberts also showed off a new Web offering called Fancast, which allows Comcast subscribers to use their PCs as virtual remote controls.

It recommends TV shows and movies the viewer can watch, on demand, on the home computer. They also can elect to record using the DVR.

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski