To all those who work for Neonode, let it me known that the employee known as Claudia deserves a raise. The reason being is because there were many booths at CES 2008 that ignored me completely, even though I could bring them some easy press.

However, Claudia came right up to me and showed me the Neonode N2, and she had me at hello. She was legitimately excited about this product, and it was easy to see why.

The Neonode N2 was quite a tiny device that I hesitate to describe as a one-handed iPhone, but it certainly is the simplest description. Basically, you hold it in one hand, and you use your thumb to do all the scrolling movements.

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While visiting the LG booth at CES, I got to check out the three highlight phones from the company. Some of these phones have received some CES awards for Innovations, and they are something to talk about.

The Voyager, for example, is breaking new ground as the first handset with an interactive touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard. Not only that, it has a cool retractable antenna for V CAST, as well as full HTML internet browsing. It also has dual speakers, a 2.0 megapixel camera/camcorder, and is Bluetooth capable.

The Venus is another pretty little number with two screens with interactive touch navigation. It also has a music player, 2.0 megapixel camera, and a microSD. Like the Voyager, it is Bluetooth and V-Cast ready.

The Shine is unique with a metallic finish, and is available in silver, red, and black. The screen is viewable from all sides, and has the 2.0 megapixel camera and Bluetooth capability.

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Everything this year seems to be all about being “eco-friendly” and “green”. Well, in the mobile electronics industry, this trend is nothing new.

Nokia had announced their Eco Sensor Concept phone a while back, and at this year’s CES, they have a non-working prototype on display. From the official website:

The concept consists of two parts – a wearable sensor unit which can sense and analyze your environment, health, and local weather conditions, and a dedicated mobile phone.

The sensor unit will be worn on a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells that provide power to the sensors. NFC (near field communication) technology will relay information by touch from the sensors to the phone or to or to other devices that support NFC technology.

Both the phone and the sensor unit will be as compact as possible to minimize material use, and those materials used in the design will be renewable and/or reclaimed. Technologies used inside the phone and sensor unit will also help save energy.

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The problem with cell phones is that annoying tendency to just not work anymore when dipped in water. Fortunately, some scientists in Britain have come up with a solution. And when I say solution, I mean a liquid that can do something as well as a liquid that can solve your problems.

This Ion-Mask is a protective layer that bonds to a mobile device using some plasma, electrically charged gas, and then chemical properties allow oil and water to be repelled. The Ion-Mask was developed at the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down, Wiltshire. Its intended use was not for mobile devices, and was actually developed as a treatment for soldier’s uniforms to repel toxic vapors and liquids like chemical or biological weapons.

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Even though the Asus Eee is making quite a splash into the laptop marketplace, I’m not certain whether to classify it as a laptop or UMPC. However, there is a new kid in laptop/UMPC market that could give some healthy competition to the Eee.

Enter the Noahpad, a new product from a Taiwanese company called E-lead. The E-lead sports some nice workings outside, such as a nice 7 inch screen and dual touch pads.

As far as the inside, the Noahpad has Ubuntu 7.10 for running Windows XP, a 1GHz VIA C7 Eden processor (CX700 chipset), 30GB hard drive, plus 512 MB worth of RAM.

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I know mobility is the hallmark of any cool gadget, but a mobile DVD duplicator? Why not, I guess. The EZ Dupe Ultra Slim Single-Target Portable DVD Duplicator touts itself as “world’s first Ultra Slim Portable DVD/CD Lightscribe Duplicator.”

The RIAA is going to love this.

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If you’re like me, you grew up with Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy and the rest of the gang. You also may have found that you could relate to Charlie Brown, who seemed to fail at everything he did but was by no means a failure.

Fortunately you can grab yourself a special edition Peanuts/Charlie Brown laptop with some exclusive Peanuts cartoons right on the front. Well, maybe not exclusive, but just watch someone else have some just like them.

The computer has a 1.73 MHz processor, 1 GB of Ram, an 80 GB hard drive, CD burner, but if you’re a diehard Peanuts Fan, you’re not interested in that. You want the pre-packaged Peanuts screensavers, backgrounds and more.

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It has now official: texting is bad for you. You see, this New Zealand student had been diagnosed with the country’s first known case of text-messenger’s thumb.

This condition, known as texting tenosynovitis, is an inflammation of the tendons in the thumb caused by text messaging. There is only two reported case of this, and a school-aged child in Singapore is the first one. As for the second aforementioned New Zealand student, she apparently texts 100 messages per day.

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