Monster Cable: hate ‘em or love ‘em, they are a driving force in the CE world. Their 2009 lineup, at least according to its wares spread out in front, doesn’t look to innovate. A few headphones we’ve already seen and reviewed, a couple of new power centers, and HP branded HDMI cables that are sure to carry a high MSRP. Hopefully the head monster, Noel Lee, will have something special for us. And later to rag on. → Read More
Good news, YouTube freaks. Eye-Fi is going to demo the all new video-upload-to-youtube feature at CES. According to the Video End-User Research: 2008, you guys use your camera to shoot videos quite often. It’s the same as before, just with video and in HD. → Read More
Unless you’re down to hobble your own crazy homebrew set-up, tinkering with wireless audio systems is a damned expensive hobby. Everytime I read about these products, I imagine some rich old dude tango’ing himself around his mansion with a rose in his teeth and an air-partner in his arms.
Linksys’ just announced “Wireless Home Audio System” is an obvious attempt at a shot across Sonos‘ bow – we’ll have to wait until we get our hands on it to see if Sonos has any reason to be wary. → Read More
CES can be a lot of fun, but it’s a whole friggin’ lot of work, too. Meetings, press announcements, booth tours, darting back and forth from hall to hall, show floor to hotel, and a whole lot of trekking around the show floor in search of diamonds in the rough. Media attendees probably walk more in the four days of CES than most people walk in a month – all while wearing a backpack stuffed to the brim with every single tool we might need.
If you were to take a peek into one of these mystical blogging tool chests, what might you find? Find out after the jump. → Read More
D-Link announced two new products today, something they are calling a “networked video recorder,” or NVR, system. This is intended mainly for small business surveillance, however I’m sure there would be some crossover to the home market. → Read More
This is dedicated to my friends (and enemies!) who’ll be spending this week, know colloquially as Hell Week, in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES. While I feel for y’all—I was scheduled to attend until three weeks ago, when an angel descended from Heaven and told me, sweetly, I didn’t have to go—I can’t help but feel that the show is largely a waste of everyone’s time. And, if Max Weber has taught us anything, it’s that “time is money.” → Read More
Rough times for Sony. Even though it revealed a corporate gutting last month, a new report in the (UK) Times today says that even more could be on the way, ones that could see the abolishment of “several major divisions.” Sony has denied these allegations, as is its wont. → Read More
The annual Consumer Electronics Show is going to be so boring this year that even Bill Gates is not showing up. He gave his farewell keynote (and his 13th) last year. This year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will try to rouse the crowd.
Ballmer is a high-energy guy who can be entertaining to watch, but Microsoft just doesn’t have anything exciting to announce this year. (Who does, right?). When Ballmer takes the stage at the Venetian in Las Vegas on Wednesday night it is going to be hard for the audience to stay awake no matter how much he yells at them.
Here’s what Ballmer will “announce” at CES: → Read More
3D sporting events are becoming more and more commonplace but that doesn’t take away from their appeal. This year’s BCS Championship game is going to get the same treatment as the NFL game and the NBA All-Star game. The game is going to be shown, not only at CES ’09 to a select group of 1,200 geeks, but also to sports fans in 35 states. (check for your local showings) The CES event is going to feature Sony 4k projectors at the Paris Hotel on January 8th. Should be a good time. We’ll let you know how it goes. → Read More
Looking to revive the once-mighty Palm smartphone brand, the struggling company turned to Jon Rubenstein in mid-2007, a former Apple SVP who was instrumental in the development of the iPod and now Palm’s executive chairman in charge of product development, to help turn things around. More than a year later, it looks like we’re finally about to see the fruits of Palm’s efforts with its secret plan to launch a new operating system, codenamed Nova (Latin for “new”), along with at least one accompanying handset at the 2009 CES. According to Rubenstein, Palm is targeting the “fat middle of the [smartphone] market,” looking to bridge the gap it sees between the work-centric BlackBerry and the more fun-oriented iPhone with its Nova-powered devices. → Read More
A netblet, eh? Here’s the Amtek T10L, a device that’ll apparently be shown of at CES this year. While it’s quite possible that this would never make it to the US and/or it’s not even meant for consumer use, the specs seem to indicate that it could very well be sold as a low cost netbook-class device: Intel Atom N270 chip 512MB RAM, expandable up to 2GB Battery life of “at least” three hours 80GB SATA hard drive 10.2-inch 1024×600 touchscreen 1.3-megapixel webcam Wi-Fi, Ethernet Three USB ports, one Cardbus PC card slot, VGA out Weighs 2.6 pounds The big question, of course, will be pricing and availability. If this thing could slide in at under $500 and would be sold as a consumer device, it might be something to watch. Man, imagine if it fit perfectly in a double-din bracket for your car. [via UMPC Portal] → Read More
Samsung has shown off some incredible OLED advancements over the last few months but the best might soon be revealed at CES. The company might, might bring a 50-inch display to the Consumer Electronics Show. “We can make larger displays, and we may demonstrate a 50in OLED TV at the CES show in January, though we haven’t decided yet,” he said, “But how much more would you be willing to pay for such a set? Previously, the largest OLED screen shown to the general public was a 40-inch with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio so this 50-inch would be a good step forward. The display technology still has a ways to go before it hits a cost-friendly alternative to LCD or plasma. → Read More
Hop-on is planning to release a new open Android phone at CES early next year. It will reportedly sell for less than $200. “Hop-on is committed in bringing the latest technology to the market, the Android open platform makes Hop-on competitive in the high end mobile phone market. This will create market value for our share holders,” said Peter Michaels, Hop-on’s CEO. It’s nice to know he doesn’t have the consumers as his top priority. I looked high and low for any more information on the phone, and found nothing. I guess those kinds of details are saved for the shareholders. If they release this phone like they released their disposable phone, you will only be able to look at nice shiny mock photos of it on their website. While the site says it’s available, there doesn’t appear to be any way to buy it. Do I smell vaporware? → Read More
Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin said yesterday that he expects interoperable radios (that is, radio that can receive both Sirius and XM, full-on) in less than nine months. (The FCC gave the combined company nine months to come out with such radios.) Whether or not that’s in time for the Holiday shopping season… Now, radios that work with the a la carte service—you have XM but want one or two of Sirius’ music channels—should be here before the Holidays. The best news is that the new radios, in all their glory, will be at next year’s CES. I may actually head out to Vegas just to see ‘em. → Read More
I didn’t want to weigh in on this because I know all the parties involved, I used to run Gizmodo, and I understand the impetus behind this prank. This is a nasty hack performed by punchy, hungover kids that, as we see, got the CE world’s attention. Will Gizmodo be banned? Nope. Nothing will happen, this tempest will die down, and next year someone will buy some electrical tape. But what caused this behavior and, more importantly, whither blogging? This is something I’ve been thinking about since I landed in Las Vegas and I want to get it off my chest. Blogging, in the form we are practicing it here — with a small budget, young staff, and irreverent commentary — now has a seat at the table. For the first time in many years it was an actual pleasure to attend CES. The blogger’s lounge, far from being a second-class ghetto, was spacious, well-stocked, and relaxing. My team — all of them had blogger badges except Doug and I but they let us in anyway — were productive and had loads of fun. I may just say I’m a blogger next year just so I can avoid the scrum at the press room where thousands line up to get free lunches and read email (international journos with spotty credentials fighting for crappy lunch boxes, I would say, is more despicable than Gizmodo’s actions but, as we know, journalists love them some free lunch). → Read More
I started Brief 288 talking about Rovio, a home exploration and telepresence robot, but the photo we showed, we think is called “Mr. Personality.” Samsung had a couple cool announcements. The HT-X715 5.1 home theater-in-a-box includes Bluetooth for streaming audio from a phone or other Bluetooth audio source. The SyncMaster 2263DX is the perfect monitor for Adobe users. Oh Gizmo live blogged the Bill Gates keynote and snapped a photo of some interesting looking phone thing. Griffin announced a dock for charging FOUR iPods at a time and the availability of individual Evolve wireless speakers. Manfrotto’s 585 MODOSTEADY Three-in-One brings stabilization to moms and dads who own camcorders. Now, we’re off to Vegas. This episode is brought to you by the HP MediaSmart Server. To enter the contest to win a MediaSmart Server, see the details here. → Read More
It’s a particularly silly day for us here at CrunchGear, as is any day when you find out that one of your close friends had a rather successful career in amateur pornography. (We’re all very proud of him, believe you me.) But that photo up there for Sanus Systems, that may well win the prize for strangest CES advertising we’ve seen yet. It’s just that we’ve never seen anyone so excited over furniture, dancing all whimsically and wearing well-tailored clothes. I guess we’re sorta obligated to visit them at CES now. Sanus Systems → Read More
Is the R50A for you? According to Asus, it’s "the one indispensable gadget for everyone" thanks to its GPS, 3G/3.5G, webcam, and "full notebook functionality" features. It also has a built-in TV tuner. Everyone needs a TV tuner. The R50A scooped up a 2008 International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award in the Computer Hardware category. That’s all well and good but I can’t seem to shake the fact that there’s no keyboard. That kind of kills the whole "full notebook functionality" aspect. The thought of using a 4.8-inch touchscreen is only mildly appealing to me. Maybe less. ASUS Wraps up Four Prestigious 2008 International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards [Asus] via jkkmobile → Read More
We hate rumors. No, wait, we love them. So do you, that’s why you’re here. We’ve got one that we’ve been hearing about that will bore most of you, but some of you will love. The word is that at CES in January, Sony is going to be dropping 16GB Memory Stick Pros, doubling the current top-end of 8GB. If true, then Memory Stick might not be a back-seat format anymore, and might get a chair at the grown-up’s table. Excuse the metaphor mixing, but that’s all there is to this right now. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. Since it was at CES last year that Sony dropped the 8GB cards, this might actually be true. → Read More
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