Marji Smith talks to me about women engineers and her experience growing up as the only woman in a crowd of men.

We're on The Little Big Trip, heading to Cupertino, Redmond and Portland. We stopped at The Big Texan Steak Ranch, where they will give you your meal free if you can eat a 72 oz. steak plus a salad, and roll, and other stuff all in under an hour. I gotta tell you, nothing compares to Chef Dave's ribeye at Bluegrass in Highland Park, Illinois!! On today's Brief, Marji Smith shows me the MVP 8400, one of the controllers available for the AMX systems. We also take a look at the automation and notifications built into the doorbell.

On Sunday, we had a meetup at the Great State Fair of Texas. Friends of the Brief got together so we could all eat way too much. Some of the braver souls in the group tried Chicken Fried Bacon for the first time while those of us with Chicken Fried Bacon experience stuck with our Never Again! position. We were invited to visit a Smart Home exhibit at The Women's Museum. A team of women engineers were heavily involved in the tech used in the exhibit. Marji Smith, Director of Product Strategy at AMX, gives us an overview of the Smart Home in Brief #442, and she'll give us a more in depth look at the tech in action on the next episode. Stay subscribed! :)

In an interview with CIO Magazine, Steve Balmer said they're working on porting the Zune software to Windows Mobile. Sony's eBook reader, the PRS-700, was announced today. It'll have a touch screen, allowing you to flip pages with the swipe of a finger. It'll be available at the end of October. Wii Speak is a new channel on the Wii. With a Wii mic, and you and three other people can voice chat. The Nerd Girls are a group of women with the goal of encouraging girls to embrace science, technology, engineering and math. You can join their community at www.nerdgirls.com. PrintWhatYouLike.com lets you print exactly what you want from a webpage, minus all the ads and extras that take up so much paper. Don't forget about the State Fair of Texas meetup on Sunday, October 5th! You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. **Editors note: We were supposed to put a list of domains names that were registered with my promo codes, but we kind of forgot, so that segment is there for your comedic pleasure. :)

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic rumors were true. It includes something they're calling Comes With Music, which gives you access to two million songs. The new Nintendo DS is the DSi. We're seeing two cameras and the ability to alter playback speed of audio. For details of the State Fair Meetup on Sunday October 5th, click here. We'll be shooting at the Smart Home, designed by women engineers, and we'll be using the DVRig Pro, an inexpensive camera stabilization system. The smaller version I mention is the DVRig Jr. If you don't know about Sweetwater, we highly suggest them when you need to buy audio gear. They're selling SonicPrints, a treatment to help with sound bounce issues in your home theatre. Nicholas Colas joined us yesterday on Cali Live to talk about the crisis on Wall Street. He explained everything in an easy-to-understand way and answered the chatroom's questions. You can watch it at www.calilive.tv. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. Viewers bought these domain names and saved money with my codes: mattlucht.com, semanticviolation.com, and denniscadorniga.com.

I've got three reviews for you on today's Brief. I start off with the Mophie Juice Pack. It's a battery pack that doubles the battery life of the 1st gen iPhone and the iPod Touch. A version for the iPhone 3G is coming October 30th. Sometimes WiFi isn't enough. Not every device that wants to be connected to the Internet has WiFi built in. When you don't want to lay a new Cat 5, there's the Netgear Powerline. A couple weeks ago, I tweeted about NeatReceipts. It's a small, portable scanner that does way more than just scan. It uses text recognition software to read your receipts and help you organize them and succesfully get ready for tax season way before tax season arrives. I'm loving this thing! I show you the PC version. They also announced the Mac version yesterday. If you deal with a massive amount of paperwork and receipts, check out the NeatDesk.

I've eaten octopus before, but I've never heard of Octopus Balls, otherwise known as takoyaki in Osaka. The Automatic Octopus Ball Maker makes it easy to make your own. TiVo partnered with Nero a few months ago, and out of that partnership, we get the Nero LiquidTV, which let you turn your PC into a TiVo DVR. Thanks to AutomatedHome.com for finding Jaikoz. Using MusicBrainz and Acoustic ID, it works to tag your music files to fill in the missing blanks. The Jupiter Mouse is a nice looking gyroscopic mouse. Netgear announced the WRN2000 and the DGN2000 WiFi-N Routers. Their intention is to make setup and connecting additional computers to your home network. The routers take advantage of the Push 'N' Connect technology. Push a button on the router, then on the computer, and it automatically connects that computer. Cali's Shirt Courtesy of MacMost.com

If I could keep fish alive, I would be buying the R2 Fish Training School Kit. Train your fish to do tricks. If you try it, let us know!,b, The Electronic Drum Kit Shirt has audio built in, so you can tap away and make music while you walk down the street. Asus announced a new eeePC with seven and a half hours of battery life, Windows XP, 3G mobile broadband and more. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

The 5800 XpressMusic phone might be Nokia's answer to the iPhone. The translation got a bit screwed up, but we do have some details about the phone. The Apollo Pro WX is the first wireless USB hard drive, with capacities of 250GB to 1TB. Sony Ericsson announced three bluetooth enhanced watches for women. Control music on your phone, see who's calling, and answer or ignore the call. They're the The Sparkling Allure Edition, The Contemporary Elegance Edition, and The Evening Classic Edition. The Colombo Two is a landline telephone with a 2 line dot matrix display for Caller ID, a digital answering machine and more. The Delicair Basin is for laundry geeks like Neal. It has 14 to 16 air jets in the sink for washing delicate clothing.

Vincent Laforet's short film that we mentioned yesterday is online at Canon. He used the 5D Mark II to shoot the film. The behind the scenes footage is online at SmugMug. We've all been waiting to see a real live phone built on Android, an open source platform. Today, T-Mobile, HTC and Google showed us the G1. It doesn't have multi-touch, but it has a physical keyboard and a trackball. More pros/cons in the show. Sony announced the VAIO TT, an ultraportable notebook with Blu-ray included. Anyone know what the TT stands for? Leave a comment below. Eye-Fi got an update. It's an SD card that automatically uploads your photos to your computer or a photosharing site like SmugMug. The update makes uploads faster. Microsoft applied for a very interesting patent. They're calling it Mobile Device Collaboration . The idea is that you and your friends can all lay your phones side by side and aggregate resources for one large display, surround sound, extra battery life, and more. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

If we ever have kids, I really want the Origami Stroller. It automatically folds or unfolds at the touch of a button. It's powered by a generator that charges a battery when the stroller is being pushed. Vincent Laforet had the chance to use the Canon 5D Mark II camera I told you about last week. He shot a short film with a $5,000 budget and thinks the camera is fantastic. He says it's so good, it will change everything. Definitely take a few minutes to read about his experience. SmugMug stepped in to provide the bandwidth so we can see Laforet's film. It will be up sometime tonight Pentax released a DSLR for beginners. If you're making the jump from point and shoot to DSLR, take a look at the K-m (also known as the K2000 in the US). You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here. Cali's Shirt Courtesy of Thinker Clothing, Knowledge as Your Style I'm wearing the Roboticus Carpalium

Fitbit is a small device that monitors your fitness activity and your sleep at night, and automatically uploads information to the website for you to see how you're doing. There have been several crowdsourcing ventures that haven't made it, but let's hope FairSoftware does. It was a TechCrunch50 finalist. MagHound takes the idea of Netflix and applies it to magazines. Switch around the titles you receive each month, or keep receiving the same ones. Up to you. CRAY intends to make supercomputers available to everyone, although I'm not sure they're there just yet at $25,000 a pop. The AOC V17 is a very inexpensive HD monitor. It's 17 and cost $200.

Hotels.com released a technology (in Beta) that uses image psychology to find hotels you might like. All you have to do is choose between photos based on your desired vacation and Hotel Visualizer will give you some options. KATA has a Multimedia Backpack designed for photographers, videographers and filmmakers. It has tear-resistant fabric, foam padding and protects gear from bumps and weather. Hammacher Schlemmer is selling the Laser-Guided Pool Cue, the first of it's kind that's available for purchase. It brakes down, has a touch sensor to turn it on and off, as well as an auto shut off option. They're also selling the Anywhere Home Sentry, a home security robot that can travel around the house, take pictures and email them to you. It also streams audio and video to your Web browser. Neuros Technology announced the OSD2, an update to their open source DVR. Cali's Shirt Courtesy of Thinker Clothing, Knowledge as Your Style I'm wearing the Mobo T-Shirt

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR is getting the most buzz out of all the announcements Canon made today. It has a 21.1 megapixel camera and captures full 1080p video. It's actually pretty speced out. Kodak is showing off the first digital photo frame to use an OLED display at Photokina (photography trade show). It has WiFi, a 7.6 display, 2GB of internal memory, a built in card reader and a USB port. The Iomega eGo Helium portable drive gives you 320GB of storage and weighs less than half a pound. Drop Guard technology helps to protect the drive for the clumsy (like me). If you have OTA (over the air) HD, and are tired of dealing with the unsightly antennas, RCA Flat Antennas might be of interest. They're supposed to fix a couple issues you get with existing antennas, and they're designed to fit with your decor. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

We have an audio conversation with Jim Carroll, the founder of Savant. They the only company (that I'm aware of) that builds home automation systems on Apple hardware. You can check them out at SavantAV.com. I don't see the iPhone/iPod Touch app in the App Store. As soon as I get the link, I'll update this post. We also officially announce the 2008 Christmas Party in Nashville with Geoff Smith. Last year, we did it virtually over Ustream. This year, we're inviting everyone to come to The Big Bang Bar (Geoff's dueling piano bar). We'll stream if we can on Ustream, and if we can't because of bandwidth, we'll record it and release later. If you can make it to Nashville on December 15th, it's going to be a blast! We'll be renting a couple cameras and a Tricaster in addition to piping in some additional bandwidth. If you're interested in underwriting the event, please contact me.

You could have watched every episode of GeekBrief.TV and not know that we have a helicopter fixation. Radio Controlled helicopters, actually. The Wow Wee Bladstar Flame Indoor Flyer has built in sensor detection to help it avoid obstacles. The HTC Touch 3G site is live, but hidden. It certainly wants to be an iPhone killer with touch and zoom features. You can also shoot video with the 3.2 megapixel camera. If the site is still playing hard to find when you read this, click here. Crave underwent a site redesign, and today they posted a link to TechRadar.com's Ultimate Guide to Motherboards. I highly encourage those who are just casually interested in technology and don't consider themselves to be all that tech savvy to read it. Seagate announced their Fall 2008 Lineup of FreeAgent external hard drives. The Go Portable is supposed to be the slimmest external drive available. The Free Agent Desk Drive is for Macs, and comes in 500GB, 1TB or 1.5TB. The Expressionist BASS speakers are cone shaped, stereo speakers with 4 subwoofers. I blogged yesterday welcoming new viewers. Click on the BBC featured GeekBrief.TV on their show. We're honored. You can see that show here.

Unboxing of the new Nano 4G and iPod Touch

The Ikonoskop A-cam dll Digital Motion Picture Camera (what's with the supercalifragilisticexpiladocious long name?!) captures footage without compression. It shoots in 1920x1080 and you get 12 minutes of video on an 80GB memory cartridge. Peek is a device meant to do one thing. Email. It's $100 and $20/month for unlimited use. David Pogue's review is here. Panasonic announced the Lumix DMC-G1, the worlds smallest and lightest Digital Interchangeable Lens camera. Hulger VoIP handsets are the most elegantly designed handsets I've ever seen. It's plug and play, works for both Macs and PCs and each one is handmade to order. If you haven't already figured this out, iTunes 8 allows you set specific settings for each individual podcast. Very nice feature! In Brief #427, I explain the difference between our iTunes formats. Click the following links if you'd like to change your subscription to a format that better fits you. You can also click here for a description of each format. Extra Large Medium Small You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

We saw the Microsoft ad for a laser free mouse last week. Now we have the details. Three mice have been introduced using BlueTrack. They're the Explorer, the Sidewinder and a mini Explorer. Ion Audio releases a large range of analog to digital converters. If you're looking for a turntable for those old records, take a look at the Ion LP2 FLASH. RIM and TiVo announced a partnership, allowing Blackberry users to program their TiVos remotely. Advanced Windows users running the .NET framework might enjoy an alpha CircleDock, a tool for launching applications quickly. Today I posted on BigTrip.TV about how we're rethinking the type of bus we might buy for the trip. Then we saw the Tabbert Paganini and fell in love.

Microsoft announced an update to the Zune. The most exciting of the features is the ability to tag songs from the FM radio to buy over WiFi or later when you're connected to your computer. The Nano predictions were right, curved screen and all. Apple also updated the iPod Touch to make it thinner, with a contoured back. Both have the new Genius technology that will suggest songs and playlists. iTunes 8.0 is now out. The Grid view is fantastic! TV shows will now be offered in HD for $2.99. Oh! Oh! Oh! NBC is back in the iTunes Store.

Scientists at CERN have been working on the Large Hadron Collider. It's a 17 mile ring with the initial intention to test the theory of how mass happens. Some scientists are worried that the experiment will cause the world to end. I'm not worried. We'll be live on Ustream, watching the CERN webcam while the experiment takes place. Join us if you can! When: Wednesday the 10th CERN Webcam: http://webcast.cern.ch Our Live Stream: Ustream.tv Times: 7:00 AM UTC 3:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time 2:00 AM Central Daylight Time 1:00 AM Mountain Daylight Time 12:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time Tomorrow there's an Apple event called Let's Rock . Kevin Rose says we'll see this Nano announced, and iTunes 8.0. I'm skeptical about the nano. I'm reading how Apple develops hardware, and I can't see this version getting through. We'll be live on Ustream.tv during the event. When: Tuesday the 9th Where: Ustream.tv Time: 10 AM Pacific (5 PM GMT) Plastic Logic is introducing their electronic reading device today. It's the size of an 8.5x11 piece of paper. The goal is provide publishers with more flexibility for business documents. It'll go on sale next year. RealDVDis a new Windows DVD ripping application that will copy the entire contents of your DVD...special features and DRM included. It's similar to my favorite Mac DVD ripping application called Drive-in. Drive-in is now available for purchase from Flip4Mac. RealDVD will be released soon. . These applications are legal due to a precident setting case involving Kleidescape. The judge in that case said Nothing in the agreement prevents you from making copies of DVDs. Nothing requires that a DVD be present during playback. We'll see how this develops in the future!

CEDIA Update #7 is full length today. Toshiba's XDE DVD Players are another option to Blu-ray. They're working on upconversion like we've never seen. I've been learning a lot about how Hz effects your TV viewing experience. Philips announced their new Aurea II 100Hz Displays at IFA last week and Sharp announced their Aquos 120Hz Displays. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

CEDIA Update #6 covers the LG DP889 Digital Photo Frame. The thing that makes this frame different is the built in DVD player and twin earphone jacks. There are some downsides, as there are to every digital photo frame I've seen. What have you guys bought? What do you like about your choice? What don't you like? Leave a comment! The 1394 Trade Association and HANA got together to demo Firewire 800 data distribution via standard coax.

CEDIA Update #5 covers THIEL Audio's zöet. It's a plug and play home theater system, and is meant to be simple to setup and easy to use. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

CEDIA Update #4 covers the Madison Fielding Lowboy, a low sitting console designed for a flat panel display, all your home theater components, and speakers built right in. This is the last update for Tuesday. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

CEDIA Update #3 covers the Avoca Semiconductor Voice-Enabled Multi-Modal Interface, or VMI. It's a controller for playing your music collection, and is supposed to understand plain English phrases without needing to be trained. For example, Play Frank will begin playing your Frank Sinatra collection.

CEDIA Update #2 covers the CLO Systems T2:Tilt wall mount. It automatically tilts your TV down when you're ready to watch it so you don't get a glare. When you're done watching, it will automatically move back into an upright position.

CEDIA Update #1 covers the Triad InWall Silver/4 Omni Sconce Loudspeaker. It's a speaker system and LED light source in one. You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.

The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association Expo (CEDIA) starts today in Denver. We want to use the week to experiment with how we cover trade shows. Producing video takes a lot of time, and because of that we're not able to get information out quickly during big events like CEDIA, Macworld and CES. The experiment is this: we'll release several shorter shows throughout the week. Let us know what you think throughout the test by leaving comments! Also let us know if you run into any bugs or issues with the new site design. We're still working on it and have lots more to roll out.

IFA 2008 is taking place in Germany and Philips Electronics announced enough beautifully designed products to fill a weeks worth of briefs. I picked my top three favorites: Cinema Ones an all-in-one home theater system that includes an upscalling DVD player, CD player, an iPod dock, a five channel amplifier, six speakers and a subwoofer. The Phillips DVD Home Theater System provides 9.1 surround from four towers, a dedicated center speaker and a subwoofer. The NP2900 Network Music Player streams music from a PC or Internet radio stations over your home's wireless netork. Sony's DSC-T500 (I always like to imagine the DSC stands for Daily Source Code) Cyber-Shot point and shoots 720p video. Amit Goffer, an Israeli engineer created ReWalk. ReWalk is a robotic exoskeleton that makes it possible for paraplegics to walk.