Techies and gadget lovers who didn’t make to the 2007 Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES) in Las Vegas, can catch up online with excellent video coverage from CES CNET and CES Engadget. CES is the world’s largest annual consumer technology tradeshow, and thousands of new products are announced there every year.

What makes news newsworthy? Is popularity a factor? Digg.com is a tech news website were visitors (free registration required) vote on the importance of stories. Stories will a lot of votes, naturally float to the top of the page. Although Digg focuses on technology, they also run stories on movies, music, gaming and science.

Customized email news alerts are useful for keeping close track of breaking stories, or following any subject near and dear to your heart. Here are three to try:
CNN.com Email Alerts.

News and current events can be found in a wide variety of websites, from local and national newspaper sites to personal blogs, portals and search engines. Here are seven popular news search engines that aggregate reports from a variety of sources:
Google News
Yahoo News
Alta Vista News
All the Web News
MSN News
Daypop
Topix.net

Even if your handheld offers Internet access, it is often slow, expensive, hard to read, and difficult to navigate. A lower tech way of getting news, movie listings, weather and sports on your PDA or smart phone is through your daily computer sync. You do sync every day, don’t you? AvantGo offers thousands of free channels, and integrates with most syncing software to load your handheld with your choice of daily content.

How many Oscars did Katherine Hepburn win during her illustrious career? For what film did she earn her fist one? Find the answers to these and all other Oscar questions at the official Academy Awards Database. The site is searchable by nominee, film title, song title, year and award category.

Magazines are a chronicle of the times we live in, and their covers a reflection of our priorities and values. A handful of magazines have put their cover archives online. Here are four. Time Magazine (since 1923), Life Magazine (1936 to 1972), The New Yorker (since 1925) and Wired Magazine (since 1993).

Google News allows you to limit your news article searches to one publication with the use of the “source:” parameter. For example, to search for news on “Iraq” from the BBC, use “iraq source:bbc”. For publications with multiple words, use an underscore instead of a space. “UN source:new_york_times” will search the New York Times for recent news articles about the UN.

Much like a press clipping service, the experimental Googlert sends daily emails of new Google listings that match specified keywords. To take advantage of this free service, you will first need a free Google API key. Googlert is great for “vanity surfing” or keeping tabs on your favorite hobby or business interest.

News junkies who want breaking news in their email box or on their mobile phone can sign up at Yahoo! News or The New York Times. Both free services allow you to customize your alerts with keywords.