CES

CES 2010: Skype Adding HD Telephony To LG, Panasonic TVs

Audio/Video, Home Theater, CES, News, Phones / By /

skypeSkype is partnering with TV makers to include their telephony service into TVs in 2010. So far, Panasonic and LG are signed up: LG Electronics will add Skype to its NetCast enabled displays, while Panasonic will add it to select sets equipped with its VieraCast services.

Of course, you will still need an active Internet connection in order to make use of this service, but it’ll certainly make it more convenient and comfortable to make calls from your sofa. It will be interesting to see how well this actually works.

Press Release

CES 2010: Easy Energy’s YoGen – Ripcord Power Generator

CES, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous / By /

Turn that food you eat into energy and then convert that to power for your gadgets using Easy Energy’s YoGen ripcord-pulling charger. Just pull the cord a few times repeatedly to build up enough power to get your device running for a few minutes. Watch the video to quickly get the idea.

easy energy yogen

Power is pushed out via the built-in mini-USB connector. You can get it directly from Easy Energy for $40.

CES 2010: Spring Design’s Alex – Dual-Screen E-Reader

1 Comment / Books, Music and Movies, CES, Gizmo of the Day, Portable / By /

spring design's alex ereaderSpring Design jumps into the e-book market with its Alex which is another dual-screen reader. It is yet another product running on Google’s Android OS, and features mobile browsing via WiFi and via 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM.

The top screen is a 6″ monochrome e-paper (e-Ink) screen while the smaller lower screen is a 3.5″ color LCD. Also included is an SD card slot, earphones and speakers.

One notable and useful feature is the ability to conserve battery life by displaying content on the EPD screen that was originally captured while surfing on the LCD screen with a simple toggle.

Update: Alex now has a release date of Feb 22, 2010 and a price of $399. [press release]

CES 2010: TabSafe Monitors & Dispenses Medications, and is Web-Connected

CES, Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

tabsafeTabSafe is a new ‘medication assurance device’ made by its namesake company, TabSafe. In everyday terms, it’s a consumer gadget that helps people monitor multiple medications, monitor vital signs and inform caregivers if pills have not been taken or needs refills.

The TabSafe hooks up to the Internet to keep it and the patient’s doctors up to date.

CES 2010: enTourage eDGe – Dual-Screen Netbook and eReader

Books, Music and Movies, CES, Gizmo of the Day / By /

entourage edgeAs we predicted, here’s another eBook reader. The eDGe from enTourage is not just an e-reader, but a netbook, notepad and A/V recorder/player. It is also unique in that it is a dual-screen device.

Includes a SD card, USB flash drive and WiFi. The eReader screen is a 9.7″ diagonal with a resolution of 1200 x 825 pixels, while the color touchscreen for the netbook is a 10.1″ diagonal 1024×600 pixel screen.

The netbook includes an audio recorder to capture lectures for later playback or sharing. It also has a video camera to record still images or movies as MP4s or 3GP files. You can plug in headphones or a microphone or use the built in speaker and recorder.

eDGe™ runs the Google Android OS with 3GB of memory and has future support for 3G using an EVDO or HSDPA mobile modem.

Available in Feb 2010 for $490.

CES 2009: CMS Products shows off latest backup software: BounceBack Ultimate

CES, Computers, Software / By /

CMS Products introduced the latest version of their BounceBack product, called BounceBack Ultimate which has some very interesting new features. As a couple of sys admins, we were impressed by what BounceBack is able to do, mainly backup an entire Windows 2000/XP/Vista system to an external hard drive and then boot off of that drive without any need for the internal drive.

BounceBack can be set to run continuously and it can back up everything – files, OS files, even the BIOS. CMS has figured out how to backup even OS-level files while running. The backed-up system is bootable from that external hard drive regardless of hardware and/or BIOS.
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CES 2009: NVIDIA Ion platform makes for smallest PC

CES, Computers, Portable / By /

NVIDIA is touting its new Ion platform as they’ve demonstrated how it can be used to make the world’s smallest Vista capable premium PC. By plugging the Ion board into a case that is just slightly larger than the board and adding a hard drive, the PC is complete.

What’s more interesting is that the Ion with its GeForce 9400 (with built-in North- and Southbridges) coupled with an Intel Atom processor can be used to power even smaller netbooks that can push 1080p HD video and 7.1 surround sound audio via HDMI.

This video shot at CES shows how small the board is:
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#CES09: Thoughts on the Palm Pre

3 Comments / CES, Phones, Portable / By /

Closely following Palm’s announcement of their brand new mobile handset, the Pre, and operating system (webOS), reaction was swift and unanimously exuberant. Palm has certainly hit this out of the park, and if the tech community’s reaction is any indication, this will certainly save the company for at least a little while to come.

My quick thoughts on the Pre and the OS:

  • the new webOS gets multitasking right
  • unified application for messaging (text, IM, Facebook, etc.) – Palm gets it
  • awesome that development for the platform is based solidly on ubiquitous, well-established technology (HTML, CSS & Javascript)
  • very sexy looking piece of hardware
  • love that they’ve retained the QWERTY keyboard and so maintain that link to their once solid Treo lifeline
  • disappointed that there’s no SD card slot
  • learned from Apple’s mistake of not including a user replaceable battery
  • hopefully they will upgrade the firmware quickly to enable video recording and Adobe Flash support.

One more cool photo for the road:

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