While most attendees pick up badges and badge holders for the show, bloggers were introduced to a somewhat...different experience. To get their badge holders (i.e. the things you put your badge into) you had to go onto a great journey. Here you can see bloggers making th etrek away from the show into the dark reaches of South Hall to get the official badge HOLDER for the badges they already have. That said, bloggers do get to enjoy all the goodies of being the press. ...
I like toys. I admit it. When I was 15, I would go to the store to buy a Transformer and claim I was buying it for "my little brother" for a gift. Here at CES, there are lots of toys such as these cool World War II era toy tanks. I've only had time to barely scratch the surface of what's at CES. Stay tuned.
By now you have probably heard that this year is the last year Bill Gates will be giving a keynote. He's going to devote his full time efforts to his foundation. You can see his awesome keynote (parts are hilarious) over at Neowin.net here . The nice thing about trade shows is that they force companies to pick the things that really matter to show off. Booth space is always at a premium and so only certain things can make the cut. Based on what I saw at the Microsoft booth the key i...
To prove I'm not narrow minded about Microsoft Sync, I would be willing to take this Sync-equipped car off their hands because that's just the kind of guy I am this week.
Garmin had several new GPS devices to show off. For those who have been thinking of picking up geo caching or getting a GPS for their car but wanted to wait a little longer, you need wait no longer. nuvi 880 The 880 adds speech recognition for navigation on the road. It makes use of MSN Direct services for getting the latest data from the net. Thanks to its use of MSN Direct, it gains features such as traffic conditions, fuel prices, weather reports, movie listings, local events...
Intel had one of the most impressive displays at CES and one of the more impressive showcases was the myriad of real-world uses of the Intel Mobile Core Duo processor. In one example, a eco-PC using it along with the 950gm Express chipset achieved an impressive PC experience while using less than 60 watts of power (i.e. less than a common light bulb). In addition to being able to be used for eco-friendly PCs, they can be used in extremely small form factor PCs. The PC that the Intel...
The Samsung booth has some really amazing video cameras coming out. The one that really caught my eye -- the SC-HMX20C. First, it's quite small. Far smaller than my current camcorder (it weighs less than 1 pound). Secondly, it uses flash memory for storing video and will accept external flash memory modules. And third, it records at 1080p. One advantage it has that other high-definition cameras do not have is that it records natively at 1920x1080 as op...
At CES there are companies from all around the world. And the respect people have for intellectual property seems to depend on the culture. There's nothing quite like walking the show floor only to see your stuff on some computer's screen without permission. The above photo doesn't really show it well but Chinese Computer Manufacturer "Lime Computer" was showing their full screen weather application on their PCs. It's cool but it's using Stardock's copyrighted weather images. ...
One of the big trends at this year's show is that people want to customize their gadgets and computers to a level unheard of just a few years ago. One of the things Stardock has been showing off to partners is MyColors 2.0 . With licensed content from the NBA, NHL, NCAA, GM, with more on the way, the library of MyColors themes is growing quickly. Stardock plans to begin making MyColors generally available later this month. MyColors Theme Manager MyColors 2.0 is set to be pr...
What is the ideal ultra-portable? What is the minimum functionality for a device that you could truly use on the road? Here are my specs: Must be able to run Windows Vista or whatever is the current desktop Microsoft OS. NOT Windows Mobile. The keyboard has to be big enough to be able to touch type comfortably. It should have a trackpoint (little eraser thing that Thinkpads have) so that i don't require an extra mouse or lose space to a touch pad. Lots of ports and support for 3...
It was a good trip this year at CES but it is time to go. I've got so much to write, sorry that I haven't had more up lately but I've been so busy visiting booths that I haven't had time to actually post articles. Will address that shortly.
Voltaic has announced at CES a new laptop bag that is solar powered and is able to actually charge the laptop. Of course, the bag has to be in the sun to do this which I'm not sure how keen I am about that. But imagine a scenario where you're outside for a long period of time. This would be quite helpful then. At $599, it isn't cheap so you would have to really need this capability to justify the cost. I'd be more inclined to just bring an extra battery with me. My laptop gets 5 hour...
I'm not going to cover specific media player gadgets. I'll leave that to others, I just can't get that excited over music players. Just not my bag. But one trend I noticed with MP3 players is the addition of new features such as iRiver's W7 incorporating GPS into their player. My ideal portable device would let me play music and videos, use GPS, have 802.11 support, optional 3G support, a fantastic web browser and be relatively small with maximum screen size. Or put another wa...
One of the cooler things I saw at CES this year was the arrival of mini laptops that didn't suck. Over the past couple of years, I've seen more and more people (including myself) starting to use full-sized laptops as their main machines. I think there's a reasonable chance that these mini laptops (laptops weighing less than 2 pounds) might be the next step. Two in particular stood out. OQO Model 2 First there is the OQO Model 2 . Running Windows Vista, it seemed reasonabl...
Okay, that's pretty cool.