CES 2009

Orange is the first carrier in Europe to offer the LG G910, incidentally the first touch watch phone in that region as well. First making an appearance at CES 2009 early last month, the LG G910 will be available from flagship Orange stores in Europe later this year, featuring an accompanying Bluetooth headset, a full touch screen interface (make sure those fingernails are trimmed now as we wouldn’t want to end up scratching the screen all too easily), 3G HSDPA and video calling capabilities. While the face of the watch is not as large as an iPod touch to watch videos on it, that doesn’t mean you can’t do so, but we’ll advise you to take frequent breaks if you plan to watch a feature length movie with this. No idea on how much this will cost, but guess our European friends will rejoice faster than those living across the pond.

Press Release

Okay, this is going to be my last entry about CES, because I think I have officially done it to death. I mean, how many times can I say “I visited a booth, I saw a cool gadget, here is a description of it?” The answer is at least one more time. As it so happens, I was over at the iRiver booth, and I saw the WAVE-HOME, and it was pretty impressive.

The WAVE-HOME is a home-networking device that provides advanced multimedia, web and phone capabilities. As you can see from the photo, the WAVE-HOME has a base station and a handset with a minimalist design for a very interesting aesthetic.

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I was pretty excited last week when I covered the VPAD+, a device that allows two-way video communication for the deaf. Unfortunately, I forgot to mention another product that I discovered at CES Unveiled that can aid the hard-of-hearing, the Krown Sign Language Translator.

Krown is a company that has a good reputation for making products for the deaf, and the Sign Language Translator is a definite jewel in their Krown. The Sign Language Translator looks a lot like a Portable Media Player with the large screen, but this screen is designed so the user can enter in a word with the included stylus pen on the keyboard. After the user hits enter, the Sign Language Translator will then show a video of a person signing that word.

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It has been about a year since we covered a product from VuPoint Solutions. For those who aren’t familiar with VuPoint Solutions, they are a company that makes digital cameras as well as devices that can convert prints and slides into digital formats.

I got a chance to see their latest model of their print photo-to-digital file converter at CES. The PC-C520-VP is a definite step up from the PS-C500-VP, as the C520 has a 2.4 inch TFT LCD color display so you can see what the photos look like before they are scanned.

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While I was at CES Unveiled, I managed to see a product that I probably would have missed on the showfloor called the Tri-Specs. Tri-Specs are Bluetooth wireless headphones for an MP3 Player or cellular phone that are in the form of sunglasses.

At the ends of the Tri-Specs are two retractable earbuds that the user can put in his or her ears, which automatically turn the Tri-Specs on when extended. The best part is that no one would ever know that you are wearing earbuds while you wear the Tri-Specs glasses. You could be listening to MP3s while you’re supposed to be listening to the human resources director talk about some needless thing. Unless they look closely, your supervisors would never know.

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I have been seeing more and more Internet radios on the market these days, and I suppose that it was only a matter of time before someone invented one for the car. At CES, miRoamer, a popular Internet radio site, and Blaupunkt, a leader in automotive multimedia, introduced the world’s first Internet radio for the car.

I know that I have said this before, but I always get suspicious when I hear the words “world’s first” applied to any technological product. Usually, those words mean that “someone else actually did it first, but we are the first to really market it”. However, most of the other Internet radio makers at CES seemed genuinely surprised at the release of miRoamer and Blaupunket’s product, and they all asked the same question: How is an automotive web-connection achieved?

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Last year at CES, I was very impressed with ZAGG’s display of the Invisible Shield. The Invisible Shield is a transparent plastic cover for mobile devices that covers it like a second skin, making it scratch-resistant. At CES 2009, ZAGG officially announced the expansion of its product line with three new audio products: the ZAGG Audio USB Speakers, the ZAGGphones, and Zbuds.

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When I was at CES 2009, I got to meet with Hillcrest Labs. I met them near the Kodak booth, where one of their Hillcrest remotes was being used on one of Kodak’s products. I had no idea who Hillcrest was, but when they showed me their motion control technology, they had my attention.

Hillcrest is responsible for Freespace technology, which requires no line of sight in order to work. That means that if you go into the other room to get a snack, you can still use the remote. As long as you can see the cursor on the television, it will work. Hillcrest also uses orientation compensation which can filter out any tremors for shaky-hand remote-control users.

Of course, what really got my attention is when the Hillcrest representative pulled out the Loop. More like kidnapped my attention, and then held it for ransom. As soon as I saw the Loop, I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it. Right now, the Loop is only a concept remote control for now, but it feels like it was plucked from the future. However, I can just see it sitting on my coffee table in a charger now.

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