All Things Digital

One of our favorite D: All Things Digital speakers, and now a regular attendee, has been Hollywood director, producer, writer and big-cowboy-hat-about-town, Barry Sonnenfeld (pictured here at D6).

So, BoomTown extends belated but Texas-sized congratulations to Sonnenfeld for winning an Emmy earlier this week for directing the pilot of “Pushing Daisies” on ABC.

A gadget freak, as well as an entertainment mogul, Sonnenfeld was very entertaining and insightful about Hollywood’s uncomfortable relationship with technology in his interview with Walt Mossberg in 2006 at D4 (and which you can find here in photos and video).

Backstage at the Emmy Award show, which annually fetes the television industry, Sonnenfeld–who always tries to get Walt and me to ask outrageous questions of speakers at the conference in exchange for walk-ons on his shows and movies (so far, we have not bitten, although he has gotten off some good ones as an audience member in the Q&A part of the interviews)–gave a typically saucy interview to the press about his win.

And, no surprise, Sonnenfeld did manage to deliver one perfect geeky quip, as the music cue started to cut off his speech on Sunday night, which I doubt the glam crowd there got, but was not lost on me:

“Love TV and fear the Internet.”

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 3 of 3 of an interview I did with Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer.

(I posted one video part of the discussion with Glocer every day this week starting Monday and concluding today.)

Thomson Reuters was created by a merger in April that created one of the world’s biggest information companies, mostly aimed at businesses and professionals.

In this video, Glocer talks about how to avoid the fate of the music industry, the troubled economy, his favorite gadgets, new ways to deliver information on a variety of devices, and also takes questions from the audience about machine-trading and possible new acquisitions.

How did we miss this video of WSJ.com’s Tech Diary vlogger Andy Jordan getting Tasered by a leopard-skin device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past week?

Fun!

Here he mistreats an animatronic dinosaur, which calls for more Tasering:

And here Jordan checks out tricked-out trucks at CES:

What better way to brave the massive canyons of the Consumer Electronics Show than to hike them with the help of Walt Mossberg, along with Mossberg Solution writer Katherine Boehret?

Or, as Walt likes to call it: the Bataan Death March.

But he secretly loves it, as the gathering at the heart of Walt’s universe of gadgets, devices and all things digital.

I jokingly call Walt the “Brangelina” of CES, since he is stopped constantly on the floor by fans who want to meet him in person and those who just want to kibitz with him about the latest and greatest trends in the tech sector.

In this first part of two videos, we see lots of big screens and a pile of other devices at CES, as Walt explains it all for you (Part 2 is here):

Here is the second part of my video of following Walt Mossberg, along with Mossberg Solution writer Katherine Boehret, around the floor of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday:

In this, the second of two videos from the floor of CES, it is more big screens, more fanboys, more gadgets–just a typical day in the life of Walt (Part 1 is here):

Digital Daily’s John “Patches” Paczkowski and I continued our trek through the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show and the neon streets of Las Vegas last night, even though we ended up in the fake daylight of fake Venice by the end of the evening.

Here’s a video of a bunch of companies showing at CES, which we checked out at the ShowStoppers demo event, including those offering text voicemail, a tracker for kids, dogs and the aging, an air-Guitar Hero, an overpetted animatronic dummy and an inexplicable beer dispenser.

We also finally ran into the man we like to called “Brangelina of CES,” because this is his town this week–also known as Walt Mossberg and our revered co-kahuna of this site. Later today, we will be following Walt around the floor of CES, which should make for an interesting video.

Until then, enjoy this one:

So we arrived at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with Digital Daily’s John “Patches” Paczkowski yesterday from rain-sodden San Francisco, and launched right into gadgetmania.

While there does not seem to be much news or truly groundbreaking products as of yet out of anywhere–”It’s like no one has anything new, but we have to all be here to show the flag,” said one attendee to me in a rare moment of honesty–it does feel a bit like old home week for the tech crowd.

While Patches covers the keynotes and the floor, I am roaming around searching high and low for new trends. And, so far, that feels like I am searching for Big Foot.

Here is BoomTown’s Welcome to Vegas video, where we arrive, start to brave the crowds of CES and run into blogger Robert Scoble, as usual, in the press room (and where I give him a hard time for giving in to Facebook’s fascist data rules):

On Sunday, the AllThingsD team, including Walt Mossberg, Katherine Boehret, John Paczkowski and BoomTown, are headed for Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, that cornucopia of gadgets, gewgaws and whizzy devices and the geeks who love them that takes place all next week.

We’ll be live-blogging, catching keynotes, doing videos and, most importantly, giving you important insights about what the key tech trends are in the coming year. (Also, we hope to get in a few games of craps, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Some of the tech luminaries who will be appearing include Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and Paul Otellini of Intel, but the real action is on the noisy floors of the convention where gadgets vie for supremacy.

Some important themes, looking at the news coming out so far: mobile focus, social networking and wireless.

Last night, Walt Mossberg and I co-hosted our annual holiday gadget fest for the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.

Now in its fifth year, it was called “Making a List: The Fifth Annual What’s Hot and What’s Not in Personal Technology” and took place in Palo Alto, Calif. Our guest were Marissa Mayer of Google and tech consultant Greg Harper.

Walt and I typically show off several devices we think are interesting and try to identify some important trends.

Here’s a video of Walt, Greg and Marissa at the event:

(I still am having problems with the Brightcove player, so I uploaded the video to YouTube.)

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Here’s an interesting video from WSJ Online about new wrinkles in the never-ending search for high-profile flier Amelia Earhart, including using new gadgets like an autonomous underwater vehicle and magnetometers.

Here’s some lovely tech-oriented videos to peruse from The Wall Street Journal Online.

Lightning and video games–Ouch!

Are you a hostage of Webkinz? So are we!

Steve Jobs Rocks!

Steve Jobs Rocks, Part 2!

CTIA conference highlights!