Electronic Equipment

Best Buy Co. is testing a free program that will offer people a convenient way to ensure that millions of obsolescent televisions, old computers and other unwanted gadgets don't poison the nation's dumps. The trial covers 117 Best Buy stores in eight states that will collect a wide variety of electronic detritus at no charge, even if the Richfield, Minn.-based retailer didn't originally sell the merchandise. The pilot stores are in Northern California, Minneapolis, Baltimore, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Have you chosen your new hands- free headset yet? Armed with a photovoltaic cell, the new Iqua Sun is the world's first solar-powered model, which means Angelenos, beach bums, baseball players and gardeners will rarely have to recharge. -- Elizabeth Khuri -- Iqua BHS 603 Sun Bluetooth headset, $89.99, at Fry's Electronics and www.iqua.com

Sony Corp. finally launched its long-awaited video download service for the PlayStation 3 video game console. The company started selling and renting movies and TV shows through its PlayStation Network late Tuesday. MGM, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Turner Entertainment and of course Sony Pictures are making titles available. PlayStation 3 owners will be able to buy TV shows for $1.99 and up. They can also rent movies for $2.99 to $5.99 and buy them for $9.99 to $14.99.

Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home. The consortium announced Wednesday is an important development in the race to create the definitive way to replace tangles of video cables, but doesn't end it -- Sony and Samsung also support a competing technology. In the new consortium, Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Eight iPhone owners have joined an elite clan: Their gadget is running a program that cost nearly $1,000. When the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price -- and signed the two-year AT&T contract -- owned a status symbol. A year later, we have the iPhone 3G, Apple Inc.'s speedier, sleeker and, most important, less expensive smart phone, which introduced a section for downloading third-party applications.

After losing out in the battle to define the high-definition successor to the DVD, Toshiba Corp. has turned its attention to the next best thing: the DVD player. Today, the Japanese electronics company is releasing a DVD player that it says does more than previous models to improve the look of standard-definition DVDs on high-definition TVs. The XD-E500 will sell for a suggested price of $149.

The first of the so-called Google phones is controlled using a method that's finally gaining momentum in mobile computing: swiping a finger across the screen. The touch sensors in T-Mobile's G1 phone, which hits the market Oct. 23, are made by Synaptics Inc., a little-known but influential Silicon Valley company co-founded in 1986 by a Caltech professor. For the two decades since, Synaptics has championed the use of the finger as a navigation tool for computers.

The high-tech industry's near-term health depends on how badly you need that iPod or flat-panel television. After catering to corporations in its early days, the industry has grown increasingly reliant on consumers. Even during economic slowdowns when businesses tightened their belts, Americans kept buying bigger TVs, sleeker cellphones and faster computers.

Move over, Motorola. Apple Inc.'s iPhone has shaved away your lead in the mobile phone market, passing the Razr to become the top handset bought by U.S. adult consumers in the third quarter of 2008, according to research firm NPD Group. The Razr had held on to the lead spot for 12 quarters. Consumers are buying more iPhones than Razrs because there is a "watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality," said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis.

Despite official claims that state government is becoming more environmentally friendly, the Department of Justice, Highway Patrol, Caltrans and other agencies have been improperly disposing of electronic devices, creating a potential hazardous waste problem at landfills, state auditors said Tuesday. The audit said the actions were contrary to state regulations. "Because e-waste can contain toxic metals such as lead and mercury, these state agencies may have contributed to environmental contamination that can pose a threat to public health and safety," the audit concluded.