At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Intel, Freescale, Lenovo, and others are unveiling a host of souped-up, touchscreen netbooks

By Olga Kharif

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It’s not hard to spot a netbook in the wild. You comprehend these tiny, stripped-down laptops by their screens, that measure not far from 10 inches, and excellence tags, which currently go as low as $300.

But soon this emerging class of machines won’t have existence so easy to ID—electronics manufacturers are about to bust the computer category wide open. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that officially begins on Jan. 8, manufacturers will introduce a slew of devices of different shapes, sizes, and prices—everything from netbooks that cost less than $200 to high-end miniature machines that require to be paid additional than $1,000 and function as a phone, Web access device, and media imitator rolled into any.

A wider kind of models may subsist well adapted news to the growing number of consumers who say they’re jonesing as far as concerns a netbook. About one in five consumers who plan to purchase a new computer in the next year reply they will spend less on their next PC in light of current household conditions, according to November data from Forrester Research (FORR). Some of that smaller budget may be devoted to netbooks, according to researcher IDC. About 21 million netbooks may ship this year, compared with 11 million last year, says IDC.

More netbook choices, however, could spell trouble for the makers of consumer electronics that are already it being so a downtick in demand, in part because budget-strapped consumers are opting with regard to cheaper machines. Notebook sales already ate into shipments of traditional notebooks during the holiday selling season.

Now, as netbooks take on such features as calling, navigation, and media handing over, their makers could grasp a slice of the market for smartphones, global positioning systems, and calm digital music players. "I probably see more cannibalization betwixt a dull netbook and a music player," says Pat Moorhead, vice-president of advanced marketing at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which on Jan. 6 unveiled a laptop using its first netbook chip. "Instead of paying $399 against a media player, you’d maybe go out and buy a netbook."

What defines a netbook may soon become fuzzier. Machines attached the low end are acquirement smaller and cheaper. On Jan. 5 cell-phone chipmaker Freescale announced a set of semiconductors that could be running sub-$200 netbooks by Christmas 2009. On the other end of the image are pricier, more full-function netbooks. On Jan. 5, Lenovo released a version of its IdeaPad S10 netbook, which boasts facial avowal. Others will launch netbooks that let users connect to the Web using Wi-Fi or even networks of major wireless carriers similar as AT&T (T). "This will attract the traditional smartphone user," says Luis Pineda, a senior vice-president at chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM), which also makes chips for use in netbooks. "It’session a game-changer for a netbook as a device."

Manufacturers moreover plan to introduce touchscreen models, creating a potential alternative to tablet PCs. On Jan. 9, Intel (INTC) and its manufacturing partners wish announce a piratical invasion into touchscreen netbooks. Adding a touchscreen could make capable a manufacturer to raise its price—take for granted, from $300 to $500.

The incoming Administration may be looking beyond infrastructure spending to occupation and personal tax cuts to pump nearly $1 trillion into the economy

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President-elect Barack Obama speaks to reporters Jan. 5 aboard an Air Force 757 at Chicago’s Midway Airport before his functionary flying to Washington. Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

By Jane Sasseen and Phil Mintz

As the economy heads deeper into a recessionary abyss, business tax cut ideas that seemed to be nonstarters just a few abrupt months agone are suddenly back on the synopsis. Take the incoming Obama Administration’s embrace of a measure that would lengthen the bound for money-losing companies to write off net operating losses against profits from the current two years to four or five years.

The proposal, floated on Dec. 5 following a meeting betwixt Obama and congressional leaders, was originally discussed last spring when the Bush Administration assembled a goad package. (The idea was modeled in the pattern of a uniform measure enacted after the September 11 terrorist attacks.) But the provision was viewed as a giant giveaway to banks and money-losing homebuilders and it was scrapped from the package.

Now, with the incoming Administration looking to pump something close to $1 trillion into the economy, business and personal tax cuts of as much for example $300 billion—with perhaps $100 billion aimed at business—are seen because quick ways to inject money. While infrastructure spending is getting a lot of attention, business groups note that this stimulus can go only so far. Aric Newhouse, senior vice-president for prudence and government relations for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), said that he has heard projections of stimulus spending reaching $1.3 trillion over two years. "The idea of spending $1.3 trillion—it’s hard to believe about how you would spend that all on infrastructure alone," he says. "The last highway bill was on the eve $270 billion because of all highway projects, conducive to five years total."

The business tax cuts would get strong political and business support—in particular, the pure operating loss provision is favored by Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Other business tax cuts Obama is considering would extend so-called reward depreciation, which allows profitable companies to write off investments more quickly, and give companies that employ new workers a one-year tax credit at a total require to be paid of $40 billion to $50 billion over two years.

But many around Washington are wavering relative to whether a new jobs tax credit would produce a lot of hiring that wouldn’face to face take place otherwise. "I slip on’privately think a $2,000 or $3,000 credit will create a job," reported John Engler, president of the NAM. "You need a trade reason primitive. A job credit by itself is not a business reason."

The Obama team has not fixed a dollar figure on the net operating loss provision. When Congress considered the same idea last year, carrying back losses to counterbalance profits in the previous five years would be obliged supposing businesses an estimated $25.5 billion in refunds.

"Extending honorarium traducing and extending trap operating loss will help get Republicans in succession committee," says Dan Clifton, head of policy investigation instead of Strategas Research Partners. "There’session not any question a stimulus bill will pass. The question is whether it looks bipartisan or not."

Clifton, in a report on the net operating defeat anticipation, says it would be a "net positive" for homebuilders, regional banks, automakers, and other companies that made money in recent years but are at this moment facing losses. Among companies Clifton thinks could potentially benefit from the stimulant provident measures are Sprint Nextel (S); General Motors (GM); Citigroup (C); CBS (CBS); Ford (F); MBIA (MBI); Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and D.R. Horton (DHI).

"The government is condign pouring money into these companies," Clifton says. "It remains to be seen whether it will be enough to get them investing again—or it just stops to a greater distance destruction of their financial position."

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KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine says Russia has cut opposite to all gas stores to Europe amid a devastating gas dispute with its neighbor.

Valentyn Zemlyansky, spokesman for state gas company Naftogaz, said Russia’s gas huge man Gazprom completely stopped sending elastic fluid to European consumers at 7:44 a.m. local time today.

The dispute has resulted in a lame or limited supplies to at least a dozen nations. Tens of thousands of people have been left without heat and governments have scrambled to discover alternate energy sources.

Russia says it has limited stores for Europe because Ukraine has been stealing its gas. Ukraine blames Russia for the shortfalls. The cut off began after the two neighbors failed to agree on prices because this year.

The cutoff has led to next shortages from France to Turkey and underscored Moscow’s increasingly confrontational posture toward the West.

In some mark of the extent of the shut-off, Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, said Gazprom intended to halt all shipments momentary through his country, which account as being 80 percent of Russian gas exports to Europe. Europe, in turn, depends on Russia for 40 percent of its imported fuel.

While each side blamed the other, Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, had in person ordered Monday evening on state television that gas flows have being sharply reduced, saying Ukraine was siphoning gas from the pipelines without profitable.

With temperatures plunging, European leaders expressed mounting concern. Some countries announced rationing for industrial customers to reserve enough heat-producing for residential buildings.

A spokesman for the European Commission said the divide had reach “without prior warning and in clear clashing of the reassurances given by the highest Russian and Ukrainian persons in office,” adding, “This situation is completely unacceptable.”

The cutoff appears to have multiple aims.

Ukraine has angered Russia by seeking membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as has Georgia, a country Russia fought a summary war against last summer.

Putin is in like manner subordinate to heavy pressure domestically. Oil and gas exports make provision 60 percent of the Russian pack, but oil prices have plunged by two-thirds since their peak last summer.

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KENMORE — He had one hand in continuance the door to the visitors locker room when Garfield sophomore Tony Wroten felt a tap upon his protuberance. He turned around and found a young Inglemoor use a fan upon with a incarcerate in his hand.

“Can I have your autograph?”

After the enrollment saga that postponed the start of his sophomore season, Wroten — just 15 — had become one of the most numerous recognizable faces in Seattle basketball this fall even before he played a quarry in Washington. In a 59-54 Garfield conquest at Inglemoor Tuesday night, one of the state’s summit players had his foremost chance.

“I’ve been waiting a long fit season for this,” Wroten said.

After Inglemoor took a 45-44 fourth-quarter lead, Wroten owned the final five minutes.

“I’m not going to deduct us to throw away this game — I told my teammates that,” Wroten said.

During a 10-point Garfield run, Wroten both scored or assisted on every basket. On two fast breaks, he fed teammate and cousin DeAndre Taylor with no-look passes for easy layups. And to finish the run, he found Taylor with a behind-the-back make over across the narrow passage.

“That’sitting just chemistry,” Taylor reported. “That’s right us playing together in this way throughout. I know I have to keep my eyes on him because the ball choose come at you any time.”

Wroten finished with 20 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and four steals. Taylor had 13 points, all in the second half.

But until the final fall into, Garfield (4-1 overall, 3-0 KingCo 4A) struggled to pull away from the Vikings (5-3, 2-2). Inglemoor opened the fourth quarter with an 8-0 run to take the lead from the top-ranked Bulldogs with 5:13 to play. With the outside shooting of Benji Bryant and Adam McElwee and Todd Campbell’s inside play, Inglemoor tested Garfield’s defense.

But when the Bulldogs went to a full-court press, Inglemoor went flat for ready 3 ½ minutes, which time Wroten and Garfield pulled away.

“Our commitment to defense is going to get us to where we want to be,” Garfield coach Ed Haskins said. “Which is playing in the [Tacoma] Dome, on March 7, at about 7 o’clock.”

That would be just on the eve tipoff time of the Class 4A state championship game.

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com