CES

#CES09: Schwinn Tailwind eBike promises faster charging, longer lifecycles

CES, Miscellaneous, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

Schwinn showed off the Tailwind again at ShowStoppers. An electric eBike hybrid that can be ridden as either a conventional bike or in electric motor-assist mode, the Tailwind is a lightweight aluminum alloy frame bicycle. We saw the bike in action and it’s pretty zippy.

What’s new about this electric bike is the brand new ion battery developed by Toshiba that has the following benefits:
fully chargeable in 30 minutes (which is 10-25% the time it takes current bikes)
greatly increased lifecycle – approx 2000 charge/discharges compared to 300 to 1000 for others
15 to 25 miles distance per charge
safe and environmentally friendly

Pricing: $3200 with the replacement battery going for $500-$600. There are other Schwinn eBikes available starting around $1400.

#CES09: Palm Announces Pre – raw specs

CES, Phones, Portable / By /

Here are the raw specs on the just announced, soon to be released cell phone handset from Palm. Stay tuned for another post on our thoughts on the product (hint: we love it!).

  • 3.1 inch HVGA (320x480px) capacitive multitouch touchscreen with gesture area
  • slide-out QWERTY keyboard
  • GPS
  • 3 Megapixel camera
  • 8GB internal memory
  • 802.11b/g Wifi
  • microUSB connector
  • user replaceable battery
  • new Web-centric Palm OS (named appropriately webOS) that offers true multitasking
  • integration of messaging (text, IM, Facebook, etc.) in 1 application without needing to switch between various apps
  • slide out QWERTY keyboard (yet still same weight as an iPhone)
  • development for apps uses HTML, CSS, & Javascript
  • curved shape (not perfectly flat)
  • Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
  • Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
  • Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective

#CES09: Easy Bloom wants to salvage your plants

CES, Miscellaneous, Tools, DIY, Home, Office / By /

Easy Bloom
Every year the Geeks go to CES happen upon a couple small but interesting gadgets. Last year we ran into Guitar Rising, this year we found a company enthusiastic about saving your plants called Easy Bloom.

Easy Bloom consists of a gadget that measures and collects various environmental variables and a database of over 5,000 plants in their database. Utilizing the collected data and comparing to the database, the right plants can be chosen for the right locations or a plant problem can be diagnosed.

The Easy Bloom is available from Amazon for about $60. If you have a black thumb or if you have a problem area or plant, you have to check out Easy Bloom.

#CES09: Blogging at NBC Universal’s Booth

CES, Miscellaneous / By /

Jon Accarrino and NBC Universal were kind enough to host us at their blogging booth again this year. NBC certainly stepped it up another notch after their first appearance at CES last year. The booth is even bigger and they aired even more live TV segments from right here in the Las Vegas Convention Center. Also nice for us bloggers was the larger blogging section, the This year, they’ve also featured Microsoft Surface Tables which visitors can play with. Nice touch.

The NBC Universal Booth
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#CES09: Blogging at NBC Universal’s BoothRead More »

#CES09: Bug Labs announces 5 new BUG modules

CES, Computers, Miscellaneous / By /

We first featured Bug Labs and their ‘open source’ hardware platform which features a Linux heart back in late 2007. Bug Labs is still around and announced 5 new modules at CES: BUGprojector, BUGsound, BUGbee, BUGwifi, and BUG3g GSM.

  • BUGprojector: the mini DLP-based projector Now you can display video from your BUG as big as you want to see it.
  • BUGsound is for music lovers. Has a 20-mm speaker, omnidirectional microphone and four stereo jacks for input, output, headphones and microphone.
  • BUGbee 802.15.4 module and the BUGwifi: 802.11 and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module. Connect BUGs to WLANs, PANs, headsets and more, wirelessly.
  • BUG3g GSM module: which provides your BUG the ability to connect to high-speed 3G cell networks.

All these new BUGmodules will be available by the end of this quarter, with pricing and shipping details to be announced soon.

More info to come on the BugCommunity as well as the Bug Labs site.#CES09

#CES09: Ten One Design’s Gadgets Fix Fustrations of Capactive Touch Screens

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Cameras and Photo, CES, Computers, Gizmo of the Day / By /

Ten One Design launched several products lately including the Pogo Stylus in September and the Pogo Sketch less than a month ago.

Ten One Design’s gadgets help consumers that are frustrated by the capacitive touch screens of the iPhone, iPod touch and MacBook due to consumers with fingernails that are a bit too long to accurately use the touch screens or due to fat-fingering.

Pogo Stylus is the world’s first iPod touch- and iPhone-Compatible Stylus while the Pogo Sketch provides drawing capability using the latest multitouch MacBook trackpad. The trackpad is actually transformed into a pen tablet for premium drawing programs and other artistic applications.

The Pogo Sketch’s tip is made of advanced material that acts as a bridge by transferring the signal from the display to the user’s hand.

Both the Pogo Stylus and Pogo Sketch are available from the Ten One Design website for starting at $14.95.

#CES09: DeviceVM’s Instant-On Platform

CES, Software / By /

Instant-On computing environment platforms seem to be everywhere at CES. We ran across DeviceVM at ShowStoppers just a day or two after talking with the Hyperspace folks at Digital Experience.

While Phoenix recently released Hyperspace, DeviceVM’s Splashtop software has been shipping since mid 2007 and is embedded on millions of notebooks, desktops, web-centric netbooks and nettops and other devices on manufacturers including ASUS, Acer, Intel, Lenovo and HP.

Splashtop is known as an Instant-On platform and loads and is ready to use in about 6 seconds. The Splashtop application environment is built on Linux. In addition to the Web browser, it includes Skypeâ„¢, IM, media playback tools, and PIM applications. The environment can be extended with native or web-based applications.

For CES, DeviceVM and Lenovo expanded the range of quick start netbooks to include the IdeaPad S10 netbook.

#CES09: FLIR introduces Pedestrian Detection into auto Night Vision product

Automotive, CES / By /

FLIR Systems showed off the latest version of their thermal imaging system for automobiles that now includes Pedestrian Detection.

First off all, the thermal imaging camera displays a clearer image at night than a human’s native vision can provide. Known as Night Vision and currently available in a select few BMW models, the image is shown in the vehicle’s in-dash monitor (which also duals as the info center).

The new addition to the system is Pedestrian Detection which if detects a heat source in the shape of a human, alerts the driver. Cool. Definitely something that needs to get embedded in all vehicles. Currently, the pricing is a bit too much ($2600 luxury add-on for some BMWs).

FLIR is working with another German vendor as well as a Japanese automaker for 2010 releases.

#CES09: Powermat says wireless charging mats are close

Books, Music and Movies, Cameras and Photo, CES, GPS, Home Automation, Phones, Portable / By /

Powermat has a wireless charging solution that uses, you guessed it, a mat that you just place your gadgets on, and voila!, they’re charged up. It uses magnetic induction just like many of the other (promised) solutions. They have a wide range of products ranging from the small, folding to the large desktop variety. Apart from the added price, the only 2 drawbacks that I can see is the limited number of devices that they support, and that you need some kind of device adapter and/or support pre-built-in.

Devices: iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, Razr, GPS unit, handheld game, laptop computer. Not yet available, but expect $100 mats and $30 chargers.

#CES09: tikitag Links Real World to Online Applications

CES / By /

Released in early October 2008, tikitag attempts to bring the online and offline world together by tagging real world object which, when scanned, will run an online application. Scanning involves touching the real-life item to a Near Field Communications (NFC) RFID scanner hooked to your computer which then executes an event on your computer such as dialing a number in Skype or loading a URL.

tikitag runs the Application Correlation Server (ACS) that provides remote tag management via web-interface allowing users to create associations of the appropriate actions with the RFID tag. tikitag includes an open platform via API (web services using SOAP and REST) for 3rd party application developers and geeks.

tikitag opens up NFC technology via an application platform that is available to consumers and businesses who are interested in using, sharing and creating NFC applications. The core element tikitag manages is the network-based Application Correlation Server, which monitors and launches the right actions in the right context whenever an NFC tag is touched with an NFC device.

The first demographic of users for tikitag were R&D companies interested in RFID but has spread to the geeky consumer over the holiday season. I wouldn’t mind playing with tikitag, but after a couple of weeks my interest would wain. The value for consumers will be in families where geeks can setup their non-techie family members to automate techie tasks such as calling a family member via Skype. tikitag will probably see more success with commercial applications such as tagging badges at a conference, but at least consumers can play with NFC RFID technology starting at $50 for a reader and 10 tags. Additional tags are $30 / 25 tags.

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