If you’ve ever found yourself totally lost or stuck; your mobile’s died and you’ve no idea how you’re going to contact anyone to ask for help; you need to get yourself a SPOT Statellite Personal Messenger, available from SPOT Inc and as seen at the CES 2008 Unveiled.

This neat little device not only lets you know where you are via a GPS or satellite network, it can also let other people know where you are if you get stuck. Particularly useful for those who participate in some of the extreme outdoor sports, such as snowboarding, rock climbing or even if you’re just a simple skiier or hiker. So, in the unfortunate scenario that you end up falling down a ravine with no way out and a broken leg to boot, you just press the ‘9-1-1- alert’ button on your SPOT which contacts the emergency services for you and gives your location via the commercial satellite network, allowing them to get to you pretty pronto.

This device has already saved lived – the next could be yours! Retailing at $169 and with an annual subscription of $99.95, I think you’re worth it.

PulseLink promises an end to the wiring nightmare that is a modern home cinema setup, by offering OEMs an easy way to build in wireless HD video transmission.

The PulseLink PL3304 RDK is a wireless transmit /receive station that can send HDMI signals between compatible devices. It’s available to OEMs as a direct "plug in and go" module so it should be easy to integrate into existing designs.

They’re trying to get buy-in from device manufacturers to include their technology as standard and that’s the rub. If they succeed, my home theatre cabling setup just got a whole not neater. If not, you’ll just end up with yet another set of boxes to find room for.

It does at least seem to work as advertised, which is always the first hurdle in getting something off the ground! Things should start happening around Q2 this year, so watch this space…

It’s thirsty work walking around the CES 2008 show, but if you are in need of refreshment in the form of a nice cold beer (or alternatively a soft drink of course) then you could use the remote control cooler from Interactive Concept Toys. Capable of storing up to 6 drinks and also collapsible for easy transportation it would make a great present for dad! Another feature is the carrying handle is good for picnics but what makes this cool is you can move it via remote control.

We posted about this before, but it’s always good to see these things with your own eyes. I had a quick demo of the "Invisible Shield" film from zagg and I must say I’m impressed. Imagine a transparent flexible film. Now stretch it over the point of a car key and pull both sides down. Really, really hard. The film had a slight dent when we finished but other than that it was basically unmarked. Very cool stuff indeed!

Other things to note are that it’s not just for the iPhone – they actually have made to measure kits for about 1500 devices. Also they ship free from their website to anywhere in the world. Prices vary but expect to pay $15-$25 depending on what you want protected.

Oregon Scientific have long been known for their advanced takes on common ideas and at CES this year they’re moving into the weather forecasting game with a raft of new products.

At the top of the line is this digital weather station, which gives you all the sensors you need for a comprehensive forecast and transmits the data wirelessly to the control panel, giving you at-a-glace information on 10 measurements such as wind speed and direction, humidity, pressure and temperature. It also connects to a PC so you can save or analyse the data offline.

If a local weather forecast isn’t worth $420 to you, the InstaForecast I300 and I600 products give a simplified (and cheaper) overview of upcoming weather without the vast array of external sensors but even they’ve got a twist: They use your internet connection to download weather from around the world. I’m not too sure why you’d need regular weather updates from the other side of the planet but it’s cool so "need" probably doesn’t matter too much

Today is Sunday, which means last night was Saturday, which in CES speak means CES Unveiled, the pre-CES press event.

So why no post from the event? Well by the time we’d finished we were approaching our 23rd hour awake and as anybody who’s done that knows the brain starts to go a bit… funny at those times. Point in case – the most heated discussion after the event: Hottest tech? Most useful gadget? No, it was which colour LED you should choose for your power distribution block! Obviously blue is the way to go, but Al thinks retro is back in with red…

So, now we’ve rejoined the land of the living what took our eye? I’ll start off with this neat USB 3G modem from Novatel Wireless. The modem has an integrated micro-sd storage slot that appears as a drive so you can store your downloads and all the drivers are stored on the device so there’s no pre-installation needed.

You could just turn up to a PC, plug the modem in and start downloading. It would use your 3G broadband account, whatever that was and download files to the integrated card so it comes that one step closer to "internet anywhere" even without a PC.

They also included a GPS because… well, why not? It’s always handy to know where you are! Last nice touch – the integrated drivers are for Windows, Mac and Linux so it really should work just about anywhere you can find a PC.

The unit is being sold in both the US and Europe under various partner bundles. Cheapest entry point in the US seems to be Sprint, which gives you the unit and a data plan for $79.99