TECH COMPANIES ROLL THE DICE
IN VEGAS

It's time for the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which means glamour, gizmos and porn—if you're in Las Vegas. If you're anywhere else, it means a lot of press releases full of nauseating hype. Since we're miles from the nearest slot machine, we might as well wade through the jargon and boil it down for you.

Satellite radio giant Sirius has launched its website, siriusradio.com, which boasts 60 streaming music channels. Meanwhile, the satellite service will ostensibly be ready for cars in the spring. The company also downed a few complimentary cocktails and announced three new hires: Stanley Kozlowski, who stepped out of A Streetcar Named Desire to serve as VP Retail Marketing; Jeffrey Peace, formerly VP/GM Western Sales Dept for Thomson Multimedia, as VP, Western Retail Sales; and Russ Fyke, who served at RCA, General Electric and Thomson, as VP, Midwest Retail Sales. Whoever closes the most deals in one casino wins a luxury vacation; second prize is a set of steak knives. Sirius also announced that VP Retail Marketing and Distribution Tom Steckbeck will also serve as VP, Eastern Retail Sales and National Accounts. In honor of his additional duties, Steckbeck will wear a short-sleeved white shirt with a tie and brown polyester slacks.

America Online's AOL Music is hosting a "listening lounge" from its CES booth (#12936), Jan. 8-11. The lounge will showcase AOL Music features such as Radio@AOL, "First Listen" (which currently offers the new single from Brandy) and Sessions@AOL. While you're at the booth, you can check out other new AOL offerings, including the new Nokia 3390 phone with built-in AOL instant messaging. It's a whole new way to be interrupted.

Microsoft and Matsushita today announced that the consumer devices from the Japanese conglom's Panasonic division will support Windows Media Audio. The Panasonic DVD-RV32 player will be able to play hours and hours of music in the format from consumer-burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs. It's all part of Microsoft's plan to unite consumer technology to emit mind-reprogramming rays er, bring digital media into the living room entertainment center. Bill Gates gives tonight's keynote address. "Adding WMA support for playback on CD-R and CD-RW to our products makes them more attractive to millions of users, in terms of both ease and compatibility," declared Matsushita Managing Director Fumio Ohtsubo. "Also, I think the pretty young lady with the electrical tape on her nipples really likes me."

We may have more CES news later on, depending on how things go at Crazy Horse Too.