Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » novembre 18, 2011

BetaNews.Com (13 non lus)

CyberLink Video and Photo Creative Collection 1.0 is a bargain

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 8:56pm CET par Mike Williams

Multimedia specialist CyberLink has introduced a new money-saving bundle in its latest media creativity suite, the Video and Photo Creative Collection 1.0.

The suite combines the company’s high-end video editor,PowerDirector 10 Ultra, with its excellent photography workflow package, PhotoDirector 2011.

The lead package here is plainly PowerDirector 10 Ultra. Not only does this deliver all the regular features you’d expect from a modern editor -- powerful import capabilities, lots of effects and options, excellent audio processing tools, direct upload to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, DailyMotion and more -- but it also adds extras like direct AVCHD camcorder import, 64-bit editing, end-to-end 3D editing, full HD preview, and BD, BDXL, AVCHD and 3D disc authoring, amongst other goodies.

PhotoDirector 2011 isn’t exactly short on features, either. It’s a complete photography workflow package to handle everything from importing your images (including many RAW formats), to precisely and quickly editing them, tagging and arranging them in your library, and exporting the results to Flickr, Facebook or YouTube to share them with the world.

What you don’t get here is any form of additional software to unify the two, no front-end menu of anything similar: both program shortcuts will appear in a Video and Photo Creative Collection folder on your Start menu, but that’s about it.

This bundle really is all about the discount, then, but fortunately that’s worth having. Video and Photo Creative Collection 1.0 can be yours for around $99.95, essentially the same as buying PowerDirector 10 Ultra on its own, so you’re getting PhotoDirector 2011 virtually for free. A trial build is available now.
Amazon loses about $3 on each Kindle Fire

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 8:49pm CET par Ed Oswald

Amazon is leaning on its strengths in procurement in order to make the Kindle Fire as cheaply as possible, IHS iSuppli says. The firm has begun its teardown of the device and says that the components inside offer little surprises from the virtual teardown it released in September. Each Fire costs Amazon $201.70 to build, meaning the company loses $2.70 on each device.

Previously, IHS guessed that the Fire had cost $209.63 to build, but that was based on what it new of Amazon's suppliers and not an actual teardown of the device.

The most expensive part of the Kindle Fire is the display and touchscreen, with a $87.00 cost. The PC board is the next biggest expense at $64.45, and includes $22.10 in memory, $14.65 in application procurement costs, $4.50 in wireless equipment costs, and $23.20 in various other peripherals.

"Amazon makes its money not on Kindle hardware, but on the paid content and other products it plans to sell the consumer through the Kindle. This is a similar business model to wireless companies such as AT&T or Verizon", senior teardown director Andrew Rassweiler says. "They sell you a phone that costs them $400 to $600 or more to make for a price of only $200. However, they expect to more than make up for that loss with a two-year service contract".

IHS found that Texas Instruments plays a big part in the innards of the Kindle, contributing the applications processor, power management device and the audio codec. It also uses a new touchscreen control from Ilitek and WLAN module from Jorjin. Both supplier's parts cost significantly less than its competitors, allowing Amazon to produce the Fire cheaper.

The company also said the device ships with only 4Gb of low-power DDR2 DRAM memory. It had originally thought the device had 8Gb of memory, also shaving some cost off its initial estimates.
Your email signature is a valuable marketing tool

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 8:43pm CET par Deborah Galea

In this depressed economy, the corporate marketing budget is usually one of the first things that is cut back. Proving tangible return on investment (ROI) on marketing efforts can sometimes be a challenge. Marketing initiatives with no tangible ROI often end up on the chopping block during a recession.

With email marketing open rates and ROI steadily diminishing, savvy companies are now turning to a readily available, virtually free resource for email marketing exposure. Many are finding that by using their email signatures in a creative way, they can market upcoming events, product news, and build social media followers, often achieving tangible and measurable marketing results.

Some Quick Math

Think about it. The average employee sends out about 30 emails per day. For a company of 50 employees this equates to 1,500 emails a day. By adding a corporate email signature with your company logo, you can get 7,500 views a week of your logo, branding and any marketing message you include in your email. In a year, this amounts to 390,000 views. Depending on your outgoing message volume, this number can be significantly higher.

What Can Email Signatures Do For Your Company?

Want to increase customer loyalty and build social media followers? What better place to start than the customers and suppliers your company already communicates with every day? By adding email signatures that not only include contact information, but also company branding (such as a corporate logo), social media links, QR codes and a marketing message, you can subtly remind customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders about what your company stands for and invite them to actively participate in your community. Quality, consistent email signatures cannot only be leveraged for customer loyalty and company branding, but can also offer measurable ROI by including clear calls to action that can be tracked.

How Can You Add Company-Wide Email Signatures?

There are a number of email signature products available that allow companies to centrally configure an email signature for all their employees, avoiding the need to configure each individual email client. This means that updating an email signature with the latest marketing promotion or company event is a simple matter of updating a single template.

By pulling sender information from your company directory, such as Microsoft Active Directory, the email signature is automatically personalized for each sender. Whether you are using Google Apps, Office 365 or an on-premise mail server such as Microsoft Exchange Server, several solutions exist that either work at the client level (for example, Microsoft Outlook) or at server level, stamping each outgoing email with a signature before it gets sent out.

Why leave this free marketing opportunity untapped? Like handing out a business card at a lunch or meeting, an email signature reiterates your contact information and leaves the recipient with a memorable sense of your company, but with one important difference: an email signature can be frequently updated, include clear calls to action and as such can generate measurable and tangible ROI.

Deborah Galea is the co-founder and chief operating officer of email management developer Red Earth Software. Galea is an expert in the growing field of corporate email management solutions involving eDiscovery as well as the compliance issues impacting almost every vertical industry, including financial services, legal, healthcare, retail and government. She has extensive knowledge of the legal issues relating to corporate email usage and has worked in the Netherlands, the U.K., the United States and Cyprus.
VMWare 4.1 for Mac promises performance fixes

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 7:37pm CET par Nick Peers

VMWare has updated its range of virtualization products for Mac, Windows and Linux. The biggest update is VMWare Fusion 4.1 for Mac, which addresses a number of issues raised by users, including poor performance and the loss of certain features such as being able to automatically load virtual machines on application launch.

Also updated are VMWare Workstation 8.0.1 and the free VMWare Player 4.0.1 tool for Windows and Linux.

The most radical improvements are seen in the new VMWare Fusion 4.1. VMWare says the new update --which is free to all version 4.0 users -- comes from listening hard to its customer base, suggesting reaction to its initial release two months ago hasn’t been as universally popular as it might have liked. Some of the changes may also have resulted from unfavorable comparisons made to Parallels Desktop 7.0, which was released around the same time.

As a result, the new update delivers major changes across the board. First, VMWare Fusion 4.1 now supports native full-screen mode in Lion. A short delay has been added when the user rolls the mouse to the top of the screen so the menu bar doesn’t appear immediately, allowing the user to use the full real estate afforded by full-screen mode without worrying about triggering the menu.

One feature dropped from version 4.0 -- the ability to automatically launch a guest OS when VMWare Fusion is loaded -- has been reinstated after a customer outcry. The setting, the “Start automatically when VMWare Fusion launches” tick box, can be found under Settings > General.

Fusion 4.1 also promises better graphics performance, particularly when running Internet Explorer 9 in guest mode (VMWare promises performance up to six times faster in version 4.1). Graphics performance is also improved in OS X 10.7.2, while Windows 7 guest OSes should now start up quicker than before.

Other changes include improved mouse performance in OS X Lion guests and faster screen resizing when switching to and from Unity and Full Screen modes. The update is rounded off by numerous bug fixes -- see the release notes for full details.

In contrast, both VMWare Workstation 8.0.1 and VMWare Player 4.0.1 receive only minor updates. Both updates deliver better graphics performance and compatibility, plus tweaks to improve the creation and use of shared and remote virtual machines. Ubuntu 11.10 is officially supported as a guest OS, while various issues -- some customer-raised and others related to disk and memory management -- have been addressed.

VMWare Fusion 4.1 is available as a free trial download for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and later. Both VMWare Workstation 8.0.1 (trial) and VMWare Player 4.0.1 (freeware) are available for download for PCs running supported versions of Windows or Linux.
Microsoft expands epic retail war with Apple

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 7:25pm CET par Joe Wilcox
It's grand opening weekend for Microsoft's 14th retail store, and first on the East Coast, at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Va. The company pulled back the curtain yesterday at 9:30 am ET, just down the way from Apple's first-ever retail shop.

I was there when Apple Store opened in May 2001 and regret missing Microsoft Store's debut there. I lived in the Washington, DC area for 23 years before moving to San Diego in October 2007. Tysons Corner is my favorite of the Beltway malls.

Tysons is a good location for Microsoft and demonstrates an aggressive retail strategy. A decade ago, just as Apple opened its first shops, Gateway was in the process of shuttering hundreds of stores. Gateway's retail strategy failed for many reasons, but location tops them. Gateway chose outlying areas to save on real estate costs, and most stores stood isolated. Apple chooses high-traffic malls and urban areas, which cost more but also can generate more sales and, of course, revenues. Likewise, Microsoft picks high-traffic malls.

Microsoft opened the first two stores in Arizona and California in October 2009. The fourth opened here in San Diego in June 2010.

Apple Store provides valuable direct customer feedback that the company can put back into product development. Even with 14 stores, Microsoft sees similar benefits. "It's helping us transition from thinking about our customers to thinking like our customers", COO Kevin Turner says, when announcing store expansion in July. Important: "Direct customer feedback from the stores". Microsoft plans to open 75 stores over the next two to three years. Apple Store tops 330 locations, with continued expansion, mostly internationally, during fiscal 2012. Microsoft has yet to make a big international push.

Apple, Microsoft and Sony operate stores all on the same level at Tysons. Eighteen months ago, I asserted that "Apple and Microsoft stores are the future of technology retailing" -- a shift from large box shops to boutiques. Or perhaps it's a return to the past. Radio Shack helped pioneer tech boutiques decades ago. Cellular carriers have long operated singular, smaller shops. Best Buy Mobile marks the trend. Circuit City and CompUSA are years gone. Sure Best Buy and Fry's remain -- and there will always be Walmart -- but selling much more than gadgets or PCs.

The three company stores -- Apple, Microsoft and Sony -- share similarities relevant to providing products, services and customer service:
- Apple and Microsoft offer in-store training for using hardware, software and services.
- All three provide in-store tech support: Apple Genius Bar, Microsoft Answers and Sony Backstage.
- Apple and Sony sell mostly end-to-end solutions (Sony offers some third-party software -- e.g., Windows on VAIO PCs).
- Product categories are similar: Computing, gaming, home entertainment, mobility, photography and videography, among others.
- Microsoft and Sony provide tools or services for personalizing products, giving them a unique touch, and they're selling points.
But there's something important that sets these company stores apart from other tech shops. Each also sells a distinct lifestyle around their products. The Apple way, Microsoft living and Sony entertainment. Heck, Sony's shops have "style" in the name.

Two days before Christmas last year I contrasted these lifestyles in post "Talking about Microsoft Store", which contrasted the differences between people shopping there and the Apple shop a few doors down in Fashion Valley Mall, San Diego. Apple Store was busier, and the crowd younger, with lots of individuals and couples. I observed about the other shop: "Microsoft Store is where families meet". Microsoft carries that theme foward in its exciting new "It's a great time to be a family" marketing campaign.

Have you shopped in both Apple and Microsoft stores? Please share your experiences in comments or email joe at betanews dot com.

Eight days before Black Friday 2011, Microsoft opens its 14th retail shop -- at Tysons Corner Center, the Washington, DC area's busiest mall.

General Counsel Brad Smith cuts the ribbon on Microsoft Store Tysons Corner. It's symbolic, as Smith also is the company's government liaison.

The first shoppers flood into Microsoft Store Tysons Corner. There is another draw. The first 1,000 people through the door get tickets for Joe Jonas concert on Nov. 19, 2011.

Microsoft Store Tysons Corner is the company's 14th retail shop. About 75 are planned over the next two years.

The future of computing is touch.

A new survey by Nielsen says that 27 percent of kids 6 to 12 want an iPhone for Christmas. Perhaps someone should have asked about Windows Phone.

Everyone gets a T-Shirt on Microsoft Store Tysons Corner's opening day.

The Tysons Corner shop is Microsoft's first East Coast location. It's also in the mall where Apple opened its first-ever store in May 2001.

Photo Credits: Microsoft
Windows Phone 'Mango' upgrade rollout nears completion, gets update on top of it

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 6:25pm CET par Tim Conneally

The Windows Phone "Mango" upgrade rollout continued last night as users of the the Samsung Focus 1.4 on AT&T began to receive updates. Now nearly complete, this upgrade has taken only two months to finish and includes half of all the Windows Phones across the globe.

Given Microsoft's position of simply being the software provider and licenser, and the fact that these upgrades span multiple OEMs and multiple global carriers, this upgrade has been carried out with remarkable speed.

And the near-complete Mango rollout is being met with yet another widespread update.

"We’re also sending out another wave of firmware updates from our manufacturers to select Windows Phone models," said Eric Hautala, GM of Windows Phone Customer Experience Engineering on Thursday. "Customers of Vodafone, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom in Europe will start seeing notifications for a new Windows Phone service release called 7740 that fixes an issue with new voice mail notifications not appearing for customers on some European and Asian networks under certain conditions. It also fixes an email issue associated with Exchange Server 2003. This service release is being assessed by other mobile operators."

The update fixes an email threading issue related to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. With this fix, the original text in forwarded messages and messages that have been replied to are now included >in the way you'd expect them to be included.

It also fixes a voicemail notification display issue that occured on some European and Asian networks under "certain conditions."
Watch Facebook videos with RealPlayer 15

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 3:52pm CET par Nick Peers

Real Networks has updated the Windows version of its multimedia player, RealPlayer, to version 15. Available in both free and function-enhanced Plus editions, RealPlayer provides a one-stop shop for organizing, sharing and accessing media content, both online and offline.

RealPlayer 15 adds two new features: the ability to instantly access any video posted to Facebook, and a Private Mode that allows you to download and save video to a password-protected secure location. It’s a less radical build than version 14, which introduced social-networking tools alongside a host of other improvements, including a revamped user interface.

Facebook content is accessible by selecting Facebook Videos from the left-hand pane: log into your Facebook account and you’ll be able to browse all the video posted by friends and others into your news feed without being distracted by all the other Facebook content.

Videos can be viewed within RealPlayer itself, or you can comment or like individual videos by clicking the link under the video itself, which opens a new pop-up window for you to provide feedback.

Private Mode is enabled by clicking the RealPlayer button and choosing the feature from the dropdown menu. Enter a PIN (four to 16 digits) and all downloaded videos will be placed in a hidden folder, while individual videos can also be hidden in the RealPlayer library itself. Private Mode also automatically clears your clip history when you’re finished, wiping all trace of your browsing history.

The Plus Edition, which costs $40, improves download, conversion and sync performance, plus supports the transfer of HD video to DVD to watch on TV (using Blu-ray players). Plus users are also entitled to support.

RealPlayer 15 is available now as a free download for PCs running Windows XP SP3 or later. Also available is RealPlayer SP for Mac 12.0, which runs on OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or later. A Linux build can also be downloaded from the Real.com website.
Make your presentations zing with PointerStick

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 3:42pm CET par Mike Williams

Often, during a presentation, you’ll want to highlight a particular area of the screen. The obvious solution is to use the mouse cursor, and sometimes -- if you’re using a large projector, say -- that may be enough.

Mouse cursors are generally unobtrusive, though, which is why you might lose track of yours even when you’re sitting in front of the screen. So if you’d like to make your point rather more obviously, then you may benefit from a new free tool, PointerStick.

Just launch the program and immediately a large virtual pointer stick appears. This doesn’t replace your mouse cursor, but rather runs alongside it, so as you move your mouse, the stick relocates to point at the same thing.

By default the stick is so large that no-one’s going to miss whatever it is you’re highlighting. But if you would prefer something a little more modest, simply clicking the PointerStick system tray icon reveals a useful console where you can tweak its size, colour, style and even transparency.

Usefully, you don’t have to display the stick all the time. It can be toggled off by triple-clicking the mouse, or applying a couple of hotkeys (Ctrl+Alt+Y or Ctrl+Alt+Z), so you need only have this visible when you need to highlight some particularly fine detail.

And perhaps most conveniently, PointerStick is portable, so there’s nothing to install. Just save the executable to a folder somewhere and run it whenever necessary.

The program does have one or two small quirks and annoyances. The stick changes its orientation whenever it approaches the edge of the screen, for instance, which can be a little distracting at first. And the console includes a few non-standard buttons which don’t actually look like buttons at all (to exit the program you’d click the “# Esc” text, for instance).

You’ll soon figure this out, though, and for the most part PointerStick makes a very useful presentation tool, or any time when you need to highlight something (if you’re taking a screen grab of something for a manual, say): it’s well-thought-out and easy to use.
This is how you sell a smartphone

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 2:12am CET par Joe Wilcox

Google's Galaxy Nexus TV spot is simply exceptional. Good advertising is aspirational, and the 60-second commercial is every bit. Something else, and this is particularly true for gadgets: Good marketing emphasizes benefits, not features.

Sales started today in Europe, and I'm feeling oh-so cheated here on the other side of the Atlantic. Where's my Ice Cream Sandwich?

If you've got the Galaxy Nexus, I'd like hear about it. Please share in comments below. Or if interested in writing a review email joe at betanews dot com.
iPhone overtakes BlackBerry as top workplace smart phone

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 1:22am CET par Ed Oswald

Research In Motion's BlackBerry has lost its long held position as the top smartphone among business users, a new study finds. Mobility services company iPass found that the iPhone is now the most commonly used smartphone in the workplace, with the Android platform also showing impressive growth.

The survey of 2,300 workers found that 45 percent use iPhones, up from 31.1 percent a year ago. BlackBerry usage fell to 32.2 percent from 34.5 percent a year ago. Android now is 21.3 percent of the market, up from 11.3 percent a year ago. Overall, RIM market share isn't collapsing as much as other platforms are gaining acceptance in the workplace.

iPass findings verify those of Enterprise Management Associates, which said in October that 30 percent of enterprise BlackBerry users plan to switch to another platform within the next 12 months. The firm expects a significant decrease in RIM's market share, especially in larger companies where it lays claim to half of the market.

The increase in Apple and Android market share "is reflective of more choice in the enterprise", iPass explains.

Android's clout in the consumer sector is sure to extend to the enterprise eventually, but will likely not happen in the immediate future. iPass found among those receiving or purchasing phones, 18 percent say the iPhone and 11.2 percent Android. Microsoft's Windows Phone platform continues to struggle, with only 3.6 percent of survey respondents saying they will obtain a Windows Phone in 2012.

RIM's troubles in the enterprise are only indicative of its market share erosion in the broader smartphone market. Data from Gartner released this week found Android commanding 52.5 percent of the market in the third quarter of this year, double its share a year ago. iOS essentially treads water at 15 percent, but RIM fell from 15.4 percent a year ago to 11 percent this past quarter.

"Continued pressure is impacting RIM's performance", Gartner says.
New Skype betas add Facebook video chat

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 1:06am CET par Mark Wilson

Skype’s integration with Facebook is nothing new, but the latest beta version of the cross-platform chat and VoIP tool takes this to a new level. Skype for Windows 5.7 Beta and Skype for Mac 5.4 Beta bring further advantages to connecting your Facebook account with your Skype one. Now, as well as being able to make use of Facebook chat from within the app, it is now also possible to conduct Facebook video chats.

This can all be carried out from within Skype itself without the need to visit the Facebook web site -- just as it has been possible to conduct text-based chats with your Facebook contacts, the same is now possible with face-to-face VoIP calls. Improvements have been made to Skype’s video rendering, which helps to give a smoother overall experience, and there are a number of other new features to explore.

Another improvement in the Facebook arena is better handling of online status. Now, if you indicate that you are away in Skype, this fact will be relayed to not only your Skype contacts, but you’re your Facebook friends. Sticking with the video chat side of things, you now have the ability to share your screen when conducting a group chat.

This means that in addition to sharing your webcam footage, you can choose to share the content of your entire desktop, or just the contents of a single application window -- a great option for remote meetings. Skype is used in a huge number of different ways, and a new push-to-talk feature opens up even further possibilities -- of course, there will be occasions when you want to appear offline in Skype but remain online on Facebook, and this is also possible.

You can find out more and download a free copy of the beta software by paying a visit to theSkype for Windows 5.7 Beta or Skype for Mac 5.4 Beta review page.
Malware on Android begins to spiral out of control

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 12:59am CET par Ed Oswald

Malware aimed at the Android platform has increased five-fold since July, raising questions on the open-door policy Android has in installing apps. IT company Juniper Networks says the reason for this is the Mountain View, Calif. company's own lax attitude when it comes to oversight.

"With no upfront review process, no one checking to see that your application does what it says, just the world’s largest majority of smartphone users skimming past your application’s description page with whatever description of the application the developer chooses to include", it says. Of course, Juniper's description of how the review process works in Android is generalized and somewhat inaccurate.

It's not that no one's watching the hen house: the process is just different. Whereas Apple puts apps through a fair amount of testing before they are approved, Google allows developers to post their work without any interference. The company does review content and removes apps for a variety of reasons, including malicious intent, but only for the Android Market.

Android users have the option to install apps outside of Google's official app repository -- the Android Market. This makes oversight more difficult. "Most of the growth in Android threats comes from applications that are available from sites not associated with Google’s Android Market", spokesperson Danielle Hamel told BetaNews.

Is either way the "right way"? The answer may not be clear cut -- malware has also made it into the App Store. A security researcher has already proven that, and that got him banned from the Cupertino company's developer program as a result.

What may occur soon is Google itself reigning in on who may peddle apps to its users to protect them from malware and hacks. This is something that many Android users will find anathemic to Android's open-source roots.

To put the rapid increase in Android malware in perspective consider these numbers. From 2009 to mid 2010, malicious Android apps increased 400 percent. Compare this with the past six months where malware has increased some 472 percent. Juniper's data shows an increasingly larger problem.

Hamel declined to specify the number of malicious apps it has detected due to competitive reasons. "We are unable to provide more specifics around the baseline malware numbers other than saying we’ve moved from hundreds to the thousands ranges of known Android malware samples", she responds.

The real danger is in the types of apps Juniper is detecting though, Hamel argues. Spyware was the single biggest type "by far", putting users' personal data at risk of transmission to a third party. Almost all Android malware is leveraging one of several platform vulnerabilities that allowed malware to gain root access on the device.

The data may be damning, but Juniper stresses that its findings do not necessarily indicate that Android is less secure. "Across Juniper customers globally, infection rates of between five to six percent are common across a mix of all types of mobile devices," Hamel says.
Tablets take top spots on holiday wish lists

Publié: novembre 18, 2011, 12:05am CET par Andrew Eisner

What are bargain hunters going to be looking for this coming Black Friday and what’s on everyone’s holiday gift wish list? The latest Retrevo Pulse Study asked consumers about what they want for the holidays and what they’re going to be looking for in the bargain bins. For bargain hunters, tablets top the list followed by HDTV sets, laptops and smartphones.

Would you get up at four o’clock in the morning to get a deal on a tablet or laptop computer? Apparently there are plenty of bargain hunters who plan of braving the elements this Black Friday to buy electronic things. Although we don’t expect to see too many doorbuster deals on iPads or even other tablets, it’s at the top of the bargain hunter’s list this year.

It didn’t surprise us that iPads and Kindle Fires beat out other gadgets in this "year of the tablet" however, we were surprised to see digital cameras holding on despite the competition from phones. Meanwhile, Blu-ray players and iPod Touchs finished at the bottom of the list but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make great gifts.

This is a trend we don’t think anyone will dispute or be very surprised by but this Pulse study found fewer shoppers saying they are only going to a store on Black Friday this year than last while more say they will shop both in a store and online this Black Friday. Although many stores say they don’t put their best deals online, many end up there and some stores like Wal-Mart are offering free shipping on Black Friday.

Which Gadgets appeal most to Whom?

When Retrevo analyzed the data from this Pulse study in relation to certain demographics, we were able to recommend what could be popular gadget gifts for each of these groups. Tablets are at the top of just about everyone’s list but there are other gadgets that would surely make that special someone happy. Here are some suggestions:

Best gadget gifts for women. Actually an iPad would make either a man or woman happy but if you’re thinking of buying a Kindle Fire instead, the iPad just barely beats out the Fire with most woman. However, don’t bother with a 3DTV set for the woman in your life, meanwhile, a new digital camera on the other hand, should be well received.

Best gadget gifts for men. The Kindle Fire edged out the iPad among the men in the group. After a tablet a new HDTV set including 3DTV is the most popular gift for men.

Best gadget gifts for under-25 year-olds. A laptop would be even more appreciated than a tablet for this age group, especially a MacBook Air. An iPhone 4S would also be a popular gift along with a digital camera.

Best gadget gifts for middle-aged adults 45-55. Believe it or not, this age group is very interested in 3DTV as well as HDTV but 3D or not we imagine it’s the middle age lifestyle, sports and reality TV shows that make HDTV so appealing to this age group. Along with the TV why not throw in a Blu-ray player while you’re at it?

Best gadget gifts for iPhone 4 owners. We’ll give you one guess what iPhone 4 owners want the most this holiday season. Ready? It’s an iPad, who would have thought? Yes iPad topped the list but that’s not to say iPhone 4 owners aren’t interested in a Kindle Fire as that followed closely on the list. A lot of iPhone 4 owners said they wouldn’t mind an iPhone 4S while a digital camera also came up high on the list.

Rich or poor, it's nice to get a gadget gift. When we looked at the gadget wish list by income iPads were on top for both lower and upper income brackets while the Kindle Fire was more popular among the very high income group. Laptops were high on the list for low incomes while a digital camera was up there in high income households.

Andrew Eisner is Retrevo's resident gadget enthusiast. The former PC World executive producer helped establish Ziff Davis' premiere test lab, where he led a team testing the latest high-tech gear.