We're all awaiting the annual Microsoft keynote, to help kick CES 2009 off in style. We're not really sure exactly what to expect--it'll certainly be a marked change from last year, what with all of the celebrity-packed Bill Gates goodbye videos, not to mention the Slash/Gates Guitar Hero battle.
One thing's for sure, however: For better or worse, the company's current CEO, Steve Ballmer, is alway entertaining. At the very least, we know we're in for a lot of screaming, frantic flailing, and probably some sweaty pit stains.
If you're looking for a quick, easy way to get back on the wagon, I suggest taking a shot only when Ballmer mentions Windows Vista. This year's address will be all about Windows 7--and beyond. And even more than that, it'll be about the Windows' "lifestyle" rather than any alliance to a particular iteration thereof. Oh, and they'll probably come up with an excuse to bust out the Surface again. And, if we're lucky, Gates will pop his head in for solidarity.
We'll start our live blog here at 6:30 PM PST, 9:30 EST (or a little before). Be sure to hit Reload. A lot.
Cell phones that work like MP3 players. MP3 players that share menus with TVs. Samsung is aiming to unify their user interfaces across many categories of products this year, Dr. Jong Woo Park, the president of Samsung's digital media business said at CES today.
Samsung's move to unify their menus and interfaces will begin with their new digital camera line, Park said. At Samsung's press conference, he showed off TVs and digital cameras that shared a menu system, and an MP3 player and cell phone that both share Samsung's TouchWiz widget-based home screen. This is part of ensuring "a digital seamless experience," Park said.
Nokia's only retail WiMAX product is no more. The N810 WiMAX tablet, which could be used with the Clear WiMAX networks in Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD, has reached the end of its life, Nokia spokeswoman Lauren Butler said.
"The Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition has reached the expected end of its lifecycle. We will continue to follow the WiMAX network development and new product development decisions will be considered based on the evolution of the business," she said in an e-mail.
The N810 was the only handheld that worked on Clearwire's Clear WiMAX network (formerly known as XOHM, and formerly run by Sprint.) With the N810 gone, users' only option for hooking up to WiMAX comes in the form of PC modems.
At its pre-CES press conference today, Sharp introduced a slew of new home theater products, including the world's first LCD with a built-in Blu-ray player, the company's first soundbars, and two new Blu-ray players.
Looking to ride out the recession in front of a brand-new LCD TV? Toshiba can help.
The company announced a number of new LCD TVs, DVD players, DVD recorders, and devices at a Wednesday press conference, including a revamped line of Regza LCDs.
Toshiba will add three new Regza lines in April and May, dubbed the XV645 (above), ZV650, and SV670 series. All new Regza sets will incorporate what Toshiba calls "Deep Lagoon" technology, which is intended to provide better picture quality.
The Regza XV series will debut in May 2009 and will incorporate invisible speakers, auto view that will automatically adjust picture parameters, and a color temperature control that adjusts color based on the type of lighting in the room. The XV will also include an insta-port for faster HDMI switching.
The Regza ZV series, expected to hit shelves in April 2009, will include XV features as well as ClearScan 240 technology, which will add backlight scanning to cut down on possible blurring. The ZV will also include Dolby Volume sound control, and expert mode for specific adjustments, a USB port, and SD card.
If your taste runs beyond basic black nylon, check these bags out. Today at CES, Speck introduced a new line of original laptop bags, backpacks, and sleeves. Each bag comes in two colorways: Speakeasy Black Pinstripe with a Robin's Egg Blue interior, or Coffeehouse Brown Plaid with a Desert Tan interior.
The AftPack Notebook Backpack (above) carries laptops up to 17 inches wide. It has contoured, padded shoulder straps and tuck-away chest straps and a quick-access notebook compartment. It sells for $99.95
I needed to take a trip to Walgreens here at CES, so I hopped into a demo car from ICO, which has launched the world's biggest commercial satellite to beam TV into millions of cars next year.
They gave me some more details of their system, which is based on the international DVB-SH standard. The ICO mim TV system uses a satellite signal reinforced with ground-based repeaters to connect auto passengers with 10-15 channels of TV, plus navigation, emergency assistance, and even Web-based instant messaging.
The system runs on the S-band, which is near the 2,100-Mhz cellular band used by European 3G cell phone systems. But because it's a broadcast system, ICO needs far fewer repeaters than a cellular network would; they're covering Las Vegas with two towers, plus the satellite.
Many countries will be using DVB-SH equipment on the S-Band, so there won't be the sort of "U.S. versus the world" division you see in traditional TV and cellular. That's going to make mim-compatible equipment cheap, according to Alcatel-Lucent, who makes the network equipment.
Scion fans with a taste for car tech will want to check out the xB Release Series 6.0, a limited production version that features an array of navigation, entertainment, media tools, and other options centered around a 5.8-inch touch screen Audio Visual Navigation (AVN) head unit—although so far (for mysterious reasons) the company has chosen only to release a couple of vague, black-and-white photos of it.
The AVN head unit features flash memory, voice recognition, MSN Direct, and Bluetooth connectivity. It also comes with an SD card reader, iPod connector, and a USB port. It's satellite and HD Radio ready, and can play DVDs and iPod videos whenever the transmission is in park. The owner can also customize the display and choose from over 32,000 colors.
Is it just me, or is this space stuff like, total rocket science? Telescope manufacturer Meade is looking to take "all of the hassle and [put] in all the fun" of looking at cool stuff in the sky, with its new ETX-LS. This massive telescope has a slew of features that bring clear images to users who couldn't locate a celestial body to save their lives.
The ETX-LS features Lightswitch Technology which lets users align the scope with the flip of a witch, using the Integrated Sensor Module and ECLIPS (Electronically Controlled Locate Identify Position System).
The telescope also features Advanced Coma-Free optics, an ECLIPS CCD for image capture, and the Autostar III hand-held controller, which features a database including more than 100,000 images.
Here's something cool: Internet radio for your car. mRoamer integrates the wonders of streaming Internet music into a standard car stereo alongside the standard AM/FM selections.
The mRoamer radio features more than 16,000 Internet radio stations from more than 200 countries. The system utilizes iRobot technology to improve scanning, and users can create customizable folders for presets and favorite stations on their units.
The company will also be integrating IPTV into the system in the "near future." Further software updates will also let users integrate the car stereo with premium music systems (I'm sure Rhapsody is eager to get on this bandwagon) and MP3 lockers.
Not really sure why this unit says "New Jersey" on it, but I'm sure it takes requests for anything off of Born to Run.
I've never seen the appeal of sunglasses with built-in earphones. OK, I suppose I get the theory, but in reality, there are time that you want to listen to you music when you don't necessarily want to be wearing sunglasses--like at night, for example (yeah, yeah, Corey Hart, I know, I know). That said, plenty of companies have been jumping into the space with both feet ever since it was pioneered by Oakley a few years back.
The latest is Step Labs, which is showing off its new TriSpecs at CES. These guys offer "high fidelity," according to the company, plus Bluetooth for pairing with your handset. The headphones also offer fairly good speech quality--I can attest to that, having tried out a pair last night. Also, unlike the Oakley Thumps, they actually look like something non-crazy people might wear in public.
According to Step Labs, the glasses are available now--well, sort of. The company actually doesn't have any distribution in the States. So in the meantime, if you really want a pair, be sure to check out the site.
Two terabytes of data in your phone? Seriously? That's what the SD Association announced today. The new SDXC card standard supports sizes up to 2TB, with data transfer speeds up to 104 MB/sec and potential future speeds up to 300 MB/sec. The SDXC specification will be released in the first quarter of 2009, the association says, which means that cards may come out by the end of the year.
"Big" SDXC cards will fit into digital cameras and music players. But the most amazing part of this news is that SDXC even applies to the sort of "micro" cards that go in cell phones. "The microSDXC card [would be] based on current SD interface for use in mobiles," an association spokeswoman said via e-mail.
How do you file away 2 TB of data on a flash card? The SDXC standard will use the Microsoft exFAT file system (aka FAT64), which extends the venerable FAT file system to handle file sizes greater than 4 GB and more than 1000 files per directory.
Badly Photoshopped rendering above is imaginary; SanDisk has no such card (yet.)
LG announced a new noise-cancellation technology called "DSE" at its CES press conference today. DSE uses dual-microphone noise cancellation and digital signal processing to kill off background noise coming through the microphone on phone calls. According to LG president and CEO Dr. Woo Paik, LG will be adding this technology into many of their phones during the second half of 2009.
Dual-microphone noise cancellation is a popular approach in many noise-cancelling Bluetooth headsets. Motorola has been shipping phones and headsets with their own noise cancelling technology, called CrystalTalk, for more than a year now. But more noise cancellation is better, especially in a popular phone brand.
If your New Year's resolution is to spend less money, let us help. Check out Gearlog's deals for Wednesday:
1. Quicken is taking $20 off of its line of personal finance CDs and downloads. Choose from the Deluxe package to help maximize your savings, Quicken Premiere to optimize your investments, Home and Business for personal and business in one, or Rental Property Manager for personal and rental property in one package. The discs range from $39.99 to $129.99.
2. Whoops, almost missed this one! Circuit City's New Year's Resolutions Event ends today, so hurry over to the site for a variety of deals. Save 15 percent off of select HDTVs, 25 percent off select games, 25 percent off digital cameras, and up to 50 percent off of computer accessories. Also, Netbooks, MP3s, fitness DVDs, and Wii Fit games and accessories are also on sale.
3. Good 'ol Woot. Today's deal brings us the Philips HTS6600/37B DVD Home Theater System (above) for $199.99. The system has a list price of $499.99, meaning you won't find a better deal anywhere else.
There are some weird phones at every CES (I'm looking at you, Neutrano) but the weird-award winner so far goes to something called the Logic Bolt. According to Logic Wireless, the brand-new company behind the phone, the Bolt is a GSM phone that will be sold subsidized by T-Mobile for $100 and has a built-in pico-projector.
Logic Wireless is a 19-person, Arizona-based company founded by Aasim Saied, the former owner of two software companies. "I built the whole company in the last three months," Saied said. "There was an existing company that made a prototype of the projector-phone. I took over the exclusive rights and redesigned all the features of the phone," he said.
According to Logic, the Bolt can project a two-hour movie on a 36-64" screen. The projector can route video from almost any source, including an XBox or Nintendo Wii, Saied said.
The phone uses an LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) projector with an LED backlight from Butterfly Technology, a Chinese company that makes micro-projectors and projector modules.
The phone also has a 320x240 touch screen, the ability to read Microsoft Office documents, Bluetooth, GPS and a 3-megapixel camera. The Bolt runs a Java-based OS on its 100 Mhz MTK 6225 main chipset, and is made in China, Saied said. Bizarrely, the phone has a huge 1800 mAh battery but only gets 2-3 hours of talk time, which seems very short for a battery that size. Said said they're working on a 5-hour battery.
The Web abounds with gadget blogs. What makes this one different? Our posters are PC Magazine analysts and editors; we encounter an enormous amount of new products and announcements every day, and we know what you want to know about. Because Gearlog is the gadget blog written by geeks, for geeks.
Earthmate PN-40 GPS for Serious Adventurers
Earthmate PN-40 is a high-sensitivity, bright-color-screen GPS.
* Lightning-fast performance
* High-Sensitivity 32-channel Cartesio chipset
* Full DeLorme and USGS topos, aerial imagery, nautical charts
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Cell phones that work like MP3 players. MP3 players that share menus with TVs. Samsung is aiming to unify their user interfaces across many categories of products this year, Dr. Jong Woo Park, the president of Samsung's digital media business said at CES today.
Nokia's only retail WiMAX product is no more. The 
I needed to take a trip to Walgreens here at CES, so I hopped into a demo car from ICO, which has launched the world's biggest commercial satellite to beam TV into millions of cars next year.
Two terabytes of data in your phone? Seriously? That's what the 
There are some weird phones at every CES (I'm looking at you, 
