The room is packed, there are jugglers on stilts walking around to keep the crowd entertained while an entire ballroom fills with spectators and the soft rattle of hundreds of laptop keyboards sounds like rain falling outside. Lights dim, the introductary music fades and we begin the CES 2007 with the first keynote speech.

Connectivity was the theme from Microsoft at this year’s keynote. Devices – mobile phones, PCs, TVs – are coming along quite nicely on their own but it’s only when they come together that they become really powerful and that’s where MS want to be playing, specifically with Vista. Bill Gates and co did speak for an hour and a half though, so I’ll split the keynote into a few posts covering the different topics.
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As well as announcing the world’s first multi standard high definition DVD player today, LG have also pulled off another world first by putting the same technology into a PC optical drive.

The GGW-H10N can read both high def DVD formats, DVD and CD, and wite to blu-ray offering up to 50GB of storage using dual layer media. What the press release doesn’t make clear, and what I forgot to ask (Doh!), is whether it will also read and write the more mundane CD and DVD formats we’re used to today.

edit: I’ve just taken a closer look at all the logos on the front of the thing and looking at those it does seem to handle pretty much anything you can throw at it!

It’ll be the same price as the standalone player ($1200) and should be available in Q1 2007.

You know it’s going to be an important event when you can get a bunch of journalists out of bed for 8am on a Sunday morning. LG managed this trick with the first press conference of the 2007 CES, showcasing their latest technology – a high definition DVD player that is capable of playing both HD-DVD and blu-ray discs.

The “Super Multi Blue” player BH100 is a very sleek looking device with touch sensitive controls, ringed with a soft blue backlight. It wouldn’t look out of place in any high end equipment stack, which is lucky because at $1200 that’s the market LG are going after.
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Also on display at CES Unveiled last night was the… um… interesting designs of Dutch PC maker Ego.
It certainly does make a statement, although what that might be is best left up to your imagination – I think the picture speaks for itself!

To be fair, the skins are interchangable so if you don’t like the suede leopard print you could always choose something a little more orthodox – but then again, if you’re buying something like this “orthodox” probably isn’t what you’re looking for!

This was just bizarre, a talking and singing robotic Elvis. As I had the camera shakes (I’m blaming it on sleep depravation rather than the DT’s) here’s a video courtesy of Gizmodo:

After 20 hours of traveling and queuing I had to choose between drinking and gambling or attending the first official CES event of 2007, CES Unveiled and am I pleased the geeky side of my head won that argument.

The CES show opens good and proper on Monday but tonight they gave us a bit of a preview of what to expect. There were 30 or so exhibits to have a look and play aroud with (the main show is host to something like 2,700 spread over 65 miles of carpet) and the one that particularly caught my eye was the BladeRunner Recon remote control helicopter. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a very exciting time for CG and I. Today is my final day in the 9-5 rat race and as of 5PM this afternoon I’ll be a fulltime blogger, webmaster and frugal tight wad.

Coincidentally this just happened to happen at the same time as CES (the largest Consumer Electronics Show in the World). So Marc and I will be flying out to Las Vegas tommorow morning to report on all the latest gadgets that are due in 2007. It should be a real eye opener so expect a load of posts over the next week or so. We’ll also be meeting up with some of the guys from Gizmodo, Gizmos for Geeks and Sci Fi Tech so it will be great to put faces to the names. If you’re off to CES and fancy meeting up please leave us a comment.

Now if only Google would give us our search rankings back that magically dissapeared on New Years Eve life would be perfect.