Live from CES: Sony Microdrives January 5, 2006
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Just when I wasn’t losing enough flash drives as it is, Sony was showing off its new line of Micro Vault USB flash drives. These things are damn tiny, and even though at first glance they don’t appear to be USB devices, they most certainly are, and can slide right into any standard USB port. To get a good size comparison, take a look at the comparison shot with the newly-designed regular flash memory vault. These flash drives go up to 5GB and are also available in your Technicolor rainbow choice.
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Live from CES: Microsoft and the 360 January 5, 2006
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Old Billy McGates gave his keynote address today and there was plenty of Xbox 360 news.
What did Microsoft learn from the release of the Xbox 360 nearly a month ago? Well, it’s pretty obvious: the 360 is a system that is flying off the shelves. Microsoft would ideally like to sell between 4.5 and 5.5 million Xbox 360s by June 2006. The company will be doing this by opening a third manufacturing factory next month. This factory, named Celestica, will be added next to the preexisting Wistron and Flextronics factories. With this good news, we were also tickled pink with an announcement of an external HD DVD drive add-on that will allow for HD movie playback on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately this is it, no more details on the HD-DVD player add-on, no price, and supposedly it will be out “this year,” but who knows what that means? Hopefully we can expect a sub-£300 price tag, if it follows the HD-DVD player trend going on at CES 2006.
Live From CES: Garmin Forerunner 205 and 305 January 5, 2006
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The Forerunner is just about the perfect real-time distance calculator for long-distance runners. But the previous model had one major drawback: The signal got lost in trees or even when jogging in big cities where tall building might block the GPS signal. Garmin claims to have fixed that problem with its 205 and 305 models by deploying a SiRFstar III chip architecture with higher gain sensitivity. The Forerunners have also been redesigned so that the antenna wraps around the wrist, which also gives it a better shot at finding a signal. The display is customizable, and an AutoLap function records lap data based on a specific time, distance or position. There is also a Virtual Partner that will pace you based on time, duration or distance. And there is a course memory feature that lets you download or swap routes with other runners.
The 205 will sell for £140. The 305, which includes a heart monitor, will go for around £200. Both are available starting in February.
Sanyo’s high-def HD1 camcorder January 5, 2006
READ MORE Digital cameras , Gadgets , Home Entertainment
It’s camcorder madness today. Following hot on the heels of Sony’s first hard disk drive Handycam – see below – comes Sanyo’s launch of the first camcorder capable of recording high-definition video to memory cards. The wee Xacti HD1 weighs in at 145g and boasts a 10x optical zoom. It can record 21 minutes of high definition 720p content to a 1Gb SD Card at 30fps. There is also a VGA resolution of 640x480 option for recoding more content at 60fps. The camera also comes with a swiveling 2.2in LCD and the ability to take photos at a very respectable 5.1 megapixels. Other features include the ability to record in widescreen, a pop-up flash, PictBridge support, USB connectivity and macro shooting down to 1cm. Expect this baby to launch in March with price tag of around £450-£500.
Live From CES: The Sony Reader January 5, 2006
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Who needs Blu-ray? This is the Sony reader that uses the display technology from E-Ink I’ve been hearing so much about. To give you an idea of just how good this display looks… I walked up to the counter, looked at the text on the screen and asked, “So when will you have working units to play with?” The reply: “This is a working reader.” I mistakenly though the text on the screen was some kind of plastic overlay—that’s how ink-like it looked. Then the PR rep increased the text size, searched through the table of contents and showed me some Manga comics. It is the first e-reader that seemed like I could sit down and spend hours on without experiencing eye strain. Part of the reason it works is that it does not have a backlight, so forget about reading in the dark. There is also zero flicker, as far as I could see. It’s small and lightweight too (.5 inches thick and smaller than a hardcover book). The reader accepts both Memory Stick and SD flash memory cards. It’s got a USB plug, and could be used to download and read websites, JPEGs or PDF docs. The battery life, as they are selling it, is equivalent to “7,500 page turns, avid readers can devour a dozen bestsellers plus War and Peace without ever having to recharge.”
The books will be available through the Connect Store, and there is some Connect software for managing your books (so far this is the only drawback). Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin-Putnam, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Book Group are all on board with titles, along with Manga publisher Tokyopop. Sony is promising to deliver this reader by Spring.
Live From CES: Eyebud 800 January 5, 2006
READ MORE Peripherals , Portable Media
Our pals from eMagin are rocking the wearable scene here at CES with the Eyebud 800. This is a single-eye personal OLED display. It straps around the head and the eyepiece flips up and down like something from a 1980s science-fiction film. But the eMagin folks are pitching it to go with the iPod video, natch. The Eyebud’s 40-degree field of view is equivalent to looking at a 105-inch display from 12 feet away. But only with one eye—you’ve got to close the other eye or you will fall over. The resolution is true SVGA 800 x 600, although its only got 24-bit color (that didn’t detract from the wow factor one bit). It weighs only 3.6 ounces, and as a built-in microphone as well. There is a rechargeable battery pack which I’m told is about the size of a video iPod. That means it won’t drain the battery of whatever PMP you hook it into, and you’ll get around four hours out of it on a charge.
Live From CES: Lego Mindstorms NXT January 5, 2006
READ MORE Robots
The latest and greatest iteration of Lego’s robotic toolkits debuted today at CES. The new NXT “brick” is a 32-bit microprocessor that can be programmed using a PC or, for the first time, a Mac. It’s Bluetooth enabled, which makes the instructions you plug into the LabView software easy to transfer to your bot, and even control it from a PDA or mobile phone. It’s got three servo motors with inbuilt rotation sensors for precise speed control (one of the demo units on display walked quite fluidly). An ultrasonic sensor lets the robot see, it will recognize sound patterns and tones, the light detector is sensitive to both color and intensity variations, and there is a touch sensor to let the bot feel its way around as well.
The NXT comes with 18 step-by-step building challenges, not including the working slot machine pictured above. And Lego has issued a call for a NXT great developers user panel. 100 enthusiasts who apply via the website will be chosen to receive a kit in February. They will have four months to tinker and create something amazing for when the NXT becomes available to the public in August 2006. It will retail for £145.
Panasonic’s High-Def Camcorder Prototypes January 5, 2006
READ MORE Home Entertainment
There is not much I can tell you about these HD camcorders shown behind the plexi in Panasonic’s booth. There was nothing in the press lit about them. But they look mighty neat. Anybody have any details they want to share on these?
Sony’s hard disk drive Handycam arrives January 5, 2006
READ MORE Digital cameras , Home Entertainment
Ever since the launch of JVC's Everio range of hard disk drive camcorders, it was always on the cards that the rest of the industry would be trampling old people and cripples in their rush to get there too. Sony has now obliged at the CES 2006 gadgetfest in Vegas with the launch of the DCR-SR100 Handycam. It’s a good looking device that is obviously somewhat larger than existing mini DV models but not so much you’ll have to take up bodybuilding. It’s a 3 megapixel camera that boasts a 30GB hard drive, although I’d like to see – I DEMAND - some really big perpendicular hard dives in these things soon. For photo buffs this baby will also take 3 megapixel photos and it records video in 5.1 surround sound. It has a 2.7in TFT LCD and so far, no price or launch date. Via Engadget.
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