Fire safes are nothing new, but most people forget that paper burns at a relatively high temperature. Media, on the other hand, is much more fragile and consequently a data safe needs to keep a much lower internal temperature than something designed to just protect paper.

Of course if you’re using a data safe to keep your precious hard drive full of backups safe, you can’t use the drive. Until now. SentrySafe have built a Maxtor 160Gb hard drive into a fire and water resistant casing. The result is a USB hard drive that is fire-resistant for 1 hour. The drive can be used just like any other external hard disk but if the worst happens and your home or office burns down, there’s a fair chance that your data will still be accessible afterwards.

Continuing the USB-connected theme, they also have a range of more conventional data safes that have internal USB connectivity. This enables you to house the USB hard drive of your choice inside the safe along with documents, CD backups etc and still use it as normal.

The larger data safe is rated to 2 hours fire resistance and if you do find that data is unreadable after a fire SentrySafe offer a free data recovery service included in the purchase price of all these products so

Manfrotto are known for high quality camera tripod system. This year they’re launching the "ModoSteady" video camera stabiliser system at CES. It’s basically a comfortable grip with a counterweight that hangs down under the camera to give it some stability. It really does make a surprising difference – as camcorders get smaller, they get harder to hold steady and even with stabilisation built in to the camera you can still get shaky images.

With the grip attached to the camera even this inexperienced user was able to make steady, slow panning shots and hold the camera still.

The mount also converts to a "shoulder pad / pistol grip" style of grip, which some people find a more comfortable way of doing the same thing. It has the usual array of adjustments you’d expect from manfrotto gear and is available soon from your favourite camera store.

CES 08 Unveiled gave Viable the opportunity to show their VPAD, a wireless portable videophone designed specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing. Not only does the VPAD have light displays to indicate incoming messages/calls, it also allows the hearing impaired to take the kit with them so they can sign in to their Video Relay Service which enables them to effectively have a portable translation service.

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This is something that came up last year, but this year it actually exists as a product rather than a concept. The Adesso Cyberpad is a "digital clipboard" that lets you take handwritten notes on paper, then transfer them to the PC.

The clipboard has on-board memory to store your notes, then when you plug it in you can download your scribbles for archival or electronic sharing.

It also functions as a graphics tablet when connected to a PC, which makes the $199 price tag easier to swallow as you’re effectively getting two products in one.

Addressing the problem of confidential data being left on surplus PCs and media, the Norazza Data Destroyers are a range of crushers and shredders that make sure nothing can be recovered from devices once they’ve reached the end of their lives.

Pictured is the powered hard drive crusher – as well as crushing the hard drive or cellphone you want to dispose it also pushes 4 large spikes physically through the device to wreck any chances of recovery.

Also available is a CD shredder to do the same thing to surplus media.

This company is an embedded systems research and development company and at CES 08 showcased some of it’s innovative and cool robotics. I was particularly impressed with “Flexo” as seen above, which has the abilitity to travel upright on 2 wheels, which showed some exemplary balance skills, and also recognising colours which it then follows like a little lost puppy. It was set up to recognise the colour red and therefore latched on to me quite quickly as I had made the mistake of wearing a red shirt! It was very friendly and didn’t want to leave my side (ahh, so cute) – it was only with the intervention of one of the stand’s staff armed with another red shirt to distract Flexo so he could tag someone else. His big brother, “Bender”, was also there, being a larger version with the ability to be controlled remotely.

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This Norazza d-skin clips onto CDs and protects it from scratches. It doesn’t interfere with the normal operation of the CD so you can just attach it and leave it. Useful for families with kids (who never seem to grasp that the silver disk isn’t actually indestructible) and those offices where CDs get left around on desks, used as Frisbees and generally abused. Prices start at $12.99 for 5.

We covered Camera Armour at CES last year and it looks like they’re still innovating. The latest product is protection for compact cameras. It’s a neoprene sleeve that attaches to the tripod adapter and wraps around the camera, protecting it from knocks and scratches.

Because it’s permanently attached you can unfold it (it closes with velcro) and take a photo in less time than it would take you to remove a camera from a conventional camera case, and it offers better protection too. It also includes a tripod in the base.

They’re also expanding the DSLR protection line of Camera Armour, with products fitting the Sony Alpha and new Canon 40D.