Last night, Google hosted a media mixer at its New York engineering offices, with a handful of journalists and a dozen or so software engineers and executives in attendance. Besides the chance to mingle with Engineering VP Stu Feldman and CIO Ben Fried, the highlight of my evening was a private tour of the office.

Google leases several floors of a Chelsea office building, including a floor the size of a full city block, to house the engineering team. Google's main HQ is in Mountain View, California, but with more than 300,000 square feet and roughly 1,000 employees, the company's second-largest office is not too shabby.

Read on for a few pictures from the office, including a buffet-style snack room (there are several), a scooter parking station, a recreation room, and a computer museum that houses working machines dating back to almost before I was born.

Memo-

To: The Cable Company

From: Geoff

Subject: AT&T U-verse

Dear Cable Guys,

I just read AT&T's press release about their U-verse DVR's

new features.

You'd better step it up or I'm bolting as soon as U-verse

gets here... if it ever does... because they don't even offer

DSL in my neighborhood yet.  But you'd better get on the

stick anyway.

All the best,

Geoff

PS - Is my call still important to you?

---

This has all been brought on by AT&T's DVR throwdown. With their new U-verse DVR software you can "watch HD and SD DVR recordings on other connected TVs in the home. In addition to your DVR, you can access, play, pause, rewind and fast forward any recorded SD or HD program on up to seven additional U-verse-connected TVs." If you're thinking of a DVR as one machine hooked to one TV, you're now living in the wrong century. All this is possible because the DVR is talking to your TV through a settop box which in turn is an IP addressable network device. There's little analog here until your eye senses light.

The trend in camcorders continues to be smaller--obvi. That certainly goes for the new DXG-567V HD. "The DXG-567V is not much bigger than an average mobile phone," the press release claims. No need to be defensive about it. We know you're not my dad's camcorder.

Let me tell you right now what does worry me--and I freely admit this is my hangup. Before the specs of this camcorder are announced, DXG is telling me, "in 4 eye-popping colors including black, red, pink and sky blue." Next time, pretty second, functions first. OK?

Dan Costa wrote about the Microsoft Surface last year. He called it the "geekiest coffee table ever." Maybe it was, in the abstract. In the real world, geek has been replaced by chic, as Harrah's rolls out Surface technology in the iBar ultra-lounge at Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in (Fabulous) Las Vegas.

Introduced through a video featuring a slinkily hot yet Microsoftily proper long-stemmed, high-heeled blond, this isn't the "guy who lives in his parent's basement," Surface. And it's obvious that Microsoft is not yet aiming toward bars with 25¢ wings nights.

It's not often you get to write about a table for Gearlog; I'm guessing this is a first. This table is different than most, though. It promises to change casinos and card games forever. PokerTek's PokerPro deals poker in casinos without a human dealer.

This table comes at a great time; over the past five years or so, poker has exploded. Casinos that closed down their poker rooms years ago have now reopened them. Online casinos have multiplied like weeds in a lawn (until cut down by federal legislation). And cable TV has adopted poker as another (cheap) form of reality programming.

Media Power Inc announced yesterday that it is donating $5 million over the next five years to Georgia Tech's GVU Center for research and educational activities in augmented reality (AR) and mobile computing. In addition to the funding, it's providing hardware and development tools to the GVU Center to aid research and will assist the Center to find realistic settings to deploy and evaluate game ideas.

Augmented Reality (AR) is an environment that combines both virtual reality and real-world elements. As an example, an AR user might wear translucent goggles through which you could see the real world as well as computer-generated images projected on top of that world.

I recently had a chance to test out the StarTech InfoSafe External Slim USB 2.0 DVD+/- RW Dual-Layer Drive ($149.99). As its name implies, this device is fairly slim and portable. It weighs just over 12 ounces and measures 0.91 x 5.3 x 5.31 inches. The InfoSafe drive also has some handy features, such as dual USB ports (for power if you don't have an outlet handy) and support for DVD+/- as well as CDs. The drive is capable of up to 8X speeds.

The included software, Nero 7 Essentials, is a well-intentioned addition, but it's a bit bloated and unintuitive. In addition to the DVD-burning app, it also installs apps for audio, photos, data, video player, home networking utility, and a multimedia-file organizer called Scout. You could consider this a value compared with the simple drivers that most burn drives come with, but the whole suite is a 433MB install, so if you already have your favorite media apps, you may want to skip it.

I tested the InfoSafe drive by burning a 1-hour episode of the HBO show "Deadwood" in AVI format. To covert and burn the file using the Nero software took more than the running time of the episode. Needless to say, this drive is no speed demon. But if you want a portable dual-layer DVD drive, you could do a lot worse than the InfoSafe.

Sergeant First Class Kurt Torpey of the Army Reserve,a veteran, "saw [the] article today and wanted to cry", Torpey said after reading our story on YourDigitalElectronics.com and other suspect discount electronics stores. Although Torpey said he was convinced he was the only guy in America taken in, a simple search reveals that dozens have paid hundreds of dollars for products that never materialized. Call it the "Italian Job".

Torpey's story will end on a happier note, though.

Buffy fans, rejoice. For those that still mourn the loss of Firefly, there is reason to remove the sackcloth and ashes: Joss Whedon is returning to TV with Dollhouse, a new science fiction series starring a familiar geeky actress, Eliza Dushku.

According to the interview with E! Online with Dushku and Whedon, Dollhouse is the story of Echo, a programmable human plaything:

"Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language--even muscle memory--for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal.

"When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments--or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse."

Since I lived in the U.K. for two years, I'm seriously behind in keeping up with the Joneses. Incompatible electrical and video standards meant that I couldn't really invest in high-end A/V equipment. And when we moved back to where my wife worked in tony Scottsdale, AZ, suddenly we were surrounded by exotic sportscars, televisions measured in feet, and cosmetic surgeries that cost more than my annual salary.

So the 1,200 American Christmas lists compiled by the Solutions Research Group matched up pretty well with mine. Here's what I want ("afford"is another matter) for Christmas this year.

We've got a meaty show this week. First up is Michael J. Miller, former PC Mag editor-in-chief and now senior vice president for technology strategy at Ziff Brothers Investments. He tells us what he saw at DEMO this year, who the show targets, and why many of the businesses there won't make it. Next, we talk about our own electronics show, DigitalLife, which took place last week in NYC. What were the best products showcased? We reveal who we picked as best of show and more. And how could we not talk about Microsoft's second attempt at designing MP3 players?

On the second half, we introduce GoodCleanTech.com's Katherine Montgomery to tell us what the pope and carbon neutrality have in common, and if the Vatican will successfully become the world's first carbon-neutral state. Dan may not be afraid of Google, but we are, after he tells us that the giant search engine can keep a history of all your searches; that is, if you want it to. Later, we present a new segment: the Hot Five in Five, where Brian Heater wraps up the hottest five stories in—you guessed it—five minutes. Stay tuned for this week's weird gear; it's a mouthful.

Oh yeah. That's a pic of me, taken at DigitalLife.

Listen to the podcast here!

Hosts: Dan Costa and Jennifer DeLeo
Guests: Carol Mangis, Brian Heater, Michael Miller, and Katherine Montgomery
Audio Engineer: Scott Bernstein
Theme Music: Terry Sullivan

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A few drinks, a little food (um, too little--we'll order more next time), and good company all go a long way toward curing the tired feet, ringing ears, and general overstimulation a tech show brings on. That's exactly what we provided for a flock of bloggers and other press people last night (Heater, you made it happen!), in the upstairs press room at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. I think we'll need to make this an annual tradition.

In the above photo, left to right: Molly McLaughlin, Colleen Wickwire of CircleUp, Kyle Monson, Chloe Albanesius, Brian Heater, Corinne Iozzio

More photos after the jump--and all photos courtesy of BeeCee Photo. Thanks, Rob!

(Sorry I can't identify everyone. If you can fill in any of my question marks, please e-mail at gearlog@ziffdavis.com.)

Every year PC Magazine's editors scour the showroom floor at DigitalLife and compile a list of the dozen or so best products being showcased at Javits that year. The ceremonies have just wrapped up for 2007. Here's what we picked.

CinemaNow.com is capping off a summer of partnerships by inking a deal with streaming media provider Quartics to allow CinemaNow members to watch Internet selections on their TVs.

Quartics' PC2TV solution provides wireless streaming of high-definition 1080 x 720p content from a PC to a TV without buffering. CinemaNow currently boasts an online library of 10,000 movies, TV shows and music videos. You can buy content to own, rent and watch within a 24-hour period or burn to DVD. For those who'd rather watch their selections on TV than a laptop, enter Quartics.

This is not the first TV solution for CinemaNow.com, however. HP's upcoming MediaSmart TVs will also have access to CinemaNow's movie database.

In July, CinemaNow signed an agreement with Sony BMG, EMI and Sanctuary Records that will allow for the sale and rental of content from those labels on CinemaNow and its partner site, WatchMusicHere.com.

When you first encounter the DigitalLife showroom floor, one of the first things to catch your eye will be the big Dance Dance Revolution booth, run by a Ryan Seacrest knockoff who's handing out prizes--Chip Ahoy cookies--to some of the more...creative contestants. As it has in all previous incarnations, gaming is playing a large role in the fourth year of DigitalLife.