Short circuits 1/3: 'Contagion' is an infectious thriller

DVD: Infectious thriller

"Contagion" is the thinking person's horror movie about a viral pandemic from the writing/directing team of Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns. The film is stuffed with A-list actors -- Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Elliott Gould -- running around frowning and spitting out terms such as "pathognomonic" and "R-naught number." What "Psycho" did for showers, "Contagion" aims to do for shaking hands and shared water glasses. The script, reportedly based on solid scientific research, is admirably unsensationalistic. And that's even considering that the virus at the heart of the story has a shorter and more lethal incubation period than anything we've previously seen. It claims hundreds of millions of victims, although Mitch, played by a schlubby-looking Damon, remains immune -- from the bug and from our emotions. As a hero, the film treats him with an oddly clinical detachment. He spends most of the movie sensibly holed up inside his house, as the world around him descends into a chaos of looting and Internet-fueled panic. The DVD and Blu-ray (Warner, $29-$36) include documentary-style medical featurettes.

Out on DVD Tuesday 1/3

Out on Blu-ray

GADGET: A speaker in the hand

The Logitech Mini Boombox ($99, www.logitech.com) is truly portable and Bluetooth-equipped. Besides fitting in the palm of your hand, the speaker is compact enough to store in a laptop bag. But don't let the small size make you think it doesn't have powerful sound. In addition, it has a built-in microphone to act as a desktop hands-free speakerphone for cell calls. An audio indicator sounds to alert you of incoming calls and with a top-sided button you answer or end calls, allowing you to go back to the music. A rechargeable internal battery will last about 10 hours, but that can vary depending on volume.

GAMING: Streaming catches on Streaming video on game consoles is up 7 percent over last year, according to the latest data from Nielsen. It found that streaming and video-on-demand now represents 14 percent of Xbox 360 time, 15 percent of PlayStation 3 time and 33 percent of time spent on the Wii. The growth is due to the availability of services such as Netflix, Hulu, MLB Network and ESPN3, Nielsen said. The survey also found that each system enjoys a majority of use in a unique niche, with the Xbox 360 most notable for online gaming (34 percent), the PS3 for DVD and Blu-Ray viewing (22 percent) and the Wii for offline gaming (55 percent).