[photopress:IMG_0445.JPG,full,center] My favorite thing to do at the show is hit the odd retailers who sell the crazy junk we all know and love from Sharper Image, Brookstone, et al along with the stuff that ends up in close-outs. Take this weird blue phone, for example. It’s a mini phone! It’s blue! Doug loves it. → Read More
[photopress:apNERL07_PANASONIC_HD_00OLA.jpg,full,center] AP image It’s Day Two of the Consumer Electronics Show—time to start analyzing, looking for trends, seeing what’s hot and what’s not. Right now, we’ll focus on HDTVs. In case you hadn’t noticed, unknown companies from Asia (mostly China) are moving in on the HDTV space, which must frighten the “trusted” name brands like Sony, Samsung, Pioneer, etc. As the Associated Press points out this morning, if these unknown companies can successfully edge their way into the HDTV market, the big guys may have their business pulled out from under them. The reason being, of course, is price: if you could pay, say, $1,500 for a 40-plus inch HDTV, why would you pay nearly double that for the name brand? → Read More
While our liveblogging software worked wonders, our wireless connection did not. Thanks, CES, for repeatedly holding the keynotes in places surrounded by electronic interference and wall after wall of signal-reducing crap. Anyway, here are the photos we couldn’t get to you live, and we’re sorry we could not. Also is the replay, so you can follow along step-by-step, like you were there! And like we had a decent Internet connection! And it was still Sunday! Yay! → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=gotme.flv Those posers who use wired Guitar Hero controllers suck, don’t they. Those in the know use wireless guitar-shaped controllers. They rock out with the plug out. But the groupies at Jada are working on something beyond the wireless guitar controller: the air guitar controller. Check it out in the video and tell me you don’t want to do scissor kicks. → Read More
[photopress:lenovo__006.jpg,full,pp_image] Here’s a hands on of all the new Lenovo IdeaPads. Photos by Devin. Above is the 15-inch. → Read More
Not entirely sure how it works, but the picture quality on the 65-inch Laser TV is stunning and produces twice the color of HDTVs today. It’s the first of its kind in terms of laser tech and it also does 3D ala Real D. The Laser TV is also said to be energy efficient, but there aren’t any stats on it. Details are limited and a launch date has not been set other than a vague date of later this year. I overheard a buyer or someone close to the dealings of the TV say the set would retail for $1,800. → Read More
A selection of fine posts from our CG cellars. Please, drink responsibly. Contest: The saddest CES meatball/hush puppy in the world Exclusive Video: CrunchGear gets all hands-on with Surface; I get faced by Microsoft in a good way Hands-on with Garmin’s nu nüvi line of GPS gear Roomba’s misshapen cousin shows its face Alienware’s curved monitor: Dude, seriously? More… → Read More
Wacom had this awesome big touchscreen with a big line to use it. I’m really not much of an artist and probably would have drawn something obscene anyway, so I resisted the temptation to hang around. Of course, Leonardo here was just starting some masterpiece so I probably wouldn’t have gotten a shot anyhow. The screen looked really nice and didn’t appear to have any lag or trouble tracking the special pen. I know a few souls who would kill to get hold of this thing. → Read More
http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Hey, look at this doodad. It’s similar to a near-field technology feature that Microsoft showed off a while ago with its Surface technology except this is from Sony. You basically drop your camera on top of that cube, which is actually a media storage device. The cube senses that your camera is there and starts backing up your photos while whisking them onto the screen at a sustained rate of 375 megabytes per second with a maximum throughput of 560 megabytes per second. No pricing or availability yet but can you really put a price on flying pictures? I’d say yes and I bet Sony says yes too and I bet that after Sony’s done saying yes the price comes in around $400 or $500 just for the cube. → Read More
http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf Follow me here. These little plastic figurines are hooked up to an AV player that plays specially-encoded discs. Whatever the real-life human musicians do on the screen gets replicated by the little plastic dudes. It’s like being at Chuck E. Cheese all over again except that the animatronic musicians don’t give you nightmares. Well, maybe they do. → Read More
Doug and I spotted this forlorn hush puppy/meatball in the CES press room and thought it was the best thing we had seen all day. Granted, we haven’t been drinking and our Danny Gans tickets aren’t until Wednesday. Special bonus: tell us what we should name this thing in comments and one lucky commenter will win a Samsung MP3 player. → Read More
I love these guys. They make good stuff. Their booth was pretty sparse, but the A3 and D2 were looking good in their little enclosures. The A3 (right) I’d seen before, and it was the D2 that caught my eye. It fit my hand well, the touchscreen was responsive, and the display was crisp and bright. It looks like the perfect thing to carry around a ton of standard def videos on — YouTube silliness, .flvs downloaded from all over the net, and so on. Foreign stuff like this is always compatible with almost any format and is extremely customizable. → Read More
Product Name: Exilim Pro EX-F1 Description: The EX-F1 is a hybrid DSLR with video cam that shoots 1,200 fps and does burst at 60 fps. A little weak with 6-megapixels but who can really tell the difference? It does 12x optical zoom and shoots in 1080p. Not janky 720p, but full-on HD. Price: $1,000 In-store date:Spring Site: Casio Why it’s cool: A decent hybrid that won’t cost you a few months salary. → Read More
The Voodoo booth was an orgy of exposed PCB, flashy accessories, and some guy with dreds up in a topknot. And rotating in a glass case was this gold thing, which really just seems incredibly impractical, but still awesome. The Blackbird ran Unreal Tournament 3 beautifully, and I killed some fools who thought they could rumble with this. Now, if I were rich, I would buy these products, but I just put together my own PC and it runs Crysis, so I’m not feeling the heat yet from these hardware artists. See the Blackbird and an old guy playing in a huge racing rig after the click. → Read More
Sony’s A200 just dropped last night and we got a quick look at it in the booth today. If you’r familiar with the Rebel or the D40 you’ll recognize the A200 as an able, lower cost DSLR for entry level folks. It has 9 point autofocus, a 10 megapixel sensor, and is compatible with the full line of Minolta accessories. They’ll be selling a lens/camera kit next month. → Read More
Not to brag, but I just spent a half hour with Pete from Microsoft and his fantastic Surface device. I’ll be the first to admit that when Surface was first announced I kind of turned my nose up at it. A table with multitouch? Pshaw! But after having seen what it’s capable of, and especially having seen what’s in the video below, I’m more than impressed. Surface isn’t a device, Surface is a technology, and that’s how we have to think of it. What we’ve seen in the demos is just the stuff it’s doing at launch, which should be this spring. The point is, it’s a new technology and there’s a lot of places that it can go. This type of new hotness guarantees brainstorming. Just watch the wine shop demo part of the video after the jump and tell me you can’t think of amazing things it can do. And do watch it, you’ll be glad you did. → Read More
To all those who emailed asking about the meet up I’d like to invite you all to meet at about 9pm on Tuesday, January 8, at the Monte Carlo Pub and Brewery in the Monte Carlo. This place has good beer — it no longer brews its own, sadly — and has some standard grub for hungry CE folks. Look for the CG folks near the front at about 9pm. We’re all on AIM and email so feel free to drop us a line at tips@crunchgear.com if you don’t see us. → Read More
A few days ago you guys got the preview of Garmin’s nuvis. Well, I’d like to confirm that they are as slim and featureless as they seem in the heavily-optimized press shots they released. I fiddled around with them for a bit; the touchscreen is responsive but doesn’t really jump, and the display is nice and bright. The 5000 was great and felt really meaty. Garmin had crippled the things for display, and I couldn’t get as much out of them as I’d like to have, but it was enough to tell that these things are great little devices. Bigger pictures if you want em, click below. → Read More
One of the fun things about expos like CES is seeing what kind of crazy Wi-Fi networks show up. Right now, we’re in the Blogger’s Lounge using one called “BLOGGERS” (yesterday it was “BLOOGERS”). Earlier, I found an OLPC mesh server, but sadly I didn’t have the password → Read More
[photopress:xstreamhd.jpg,full,center] A quickie update on XStreamHD, a new service that aims to bring high-def (1080p) content to your home using geosynchronous satellites and its own set-top receiver. The company has teamed with Seagate, which has had a big day already, and DTS to perfect its soon-to-begin service. Seagate’s in with its hard drives, from 1 to 2TB, and DTS will provide the ability for XStreamHD to stream lossless (!) 7.1 sound. There’s no pictures of the device yet—I’ll try to get our team in Las Vegas to fix that soon—so we’ll have to just imagine a generic set-top-box that does decidedly non-generic things. Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll even drop a release date on us at the show. XStreamHD → Read More
