Category: CES 2009
CES 2009: WowWee Cinemin Pico Projectors – candybar, swivel and dock
Last time we heard from WowWee, they showed Ashley a robot at last year’s CES. I guess they decided that there’s not much money in robots, because this year they’ve got a bunch of cheap, tiny, but remarkably attractive projectors instead.
From left to right, there’s the “Stick”, which takes SD cards, but also has some internal memory, the “Station”, which lets you both dock your iPod and display its contents, and the “Swivel” which has a 90° hinge, letting you project your videos skyward. It also packs a three-hour battery life, for those long sessions of lying on your back. No pricing or availability yet, beyond “2009”.
Find more CES coverage here. Tempted? I sure am.
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Rock adds Intel's Q9000 quad-core chip to its Xtreme 780 gaming laptop
There are very few true PC gamers that’ll willingly buy a laptop over a desktop, primarily because the performance-price difference is so great. Rock’s just added an Intel Q9000 chip to its flagship gaming laptop – the Xtreme 780, but I suspect the majority of gamers out there simply won’t care.
It’s not even that great a machine. Quad-core aside, the 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS is merely adequate, the 2GB of memory will look very meagre before the end of 2009, and a 250GB hard drive is considerably less than most gamers will need. For £1700, which is what the Xtreme 780 costs, you could make two desktop PCs that outspec this laptop.
CES 2009: Pentax announces Optio P70 and Optio E70, possibly the most forgettable cameras in history
The rather non-glamorous Pentax has revealed a couple of thoroughly mid-range new digital cameras – the Optio P70 and Optio E70.
The P70, on the left there in the fetching white finish, is the most impressive model, managing 12megapixels with a 4x optical zoom, a 2.7″ LCD monitor round the back and what Pentax calls its “Pixel Track Shake Reduction technology” image stabilisation tool. It’ll also come in red and silver, if you’re mainstream enough that one of the first things you look for when buying a camera is what colour it comes in.
Meanwhile, the E70 (right) is a bit more “entry level” – offering “large control buttons,” a 10megapixel sensor and 3X zoom. Both will be out in the US this February…
CES 2009: Cisco announces Internet-connected Media Hub: get your music and video organised
Cisco has announced its new Media Hub (well, the Linksys by Cisco Media Hub, but that’s a bit of a “my company owns your brand” mouthful) which allows users to consolidate their home multimedia libraries and access them from their network or over the Internet.
The Hub comes preloaded with a general media server as well as an iTunes server, and automatically searches the network for other media devices, presenting music, pictures and video within a simple web browser…
CES 2009: Asus press conference 23:00 GMT
Well good evening all Asus fans in the UK and welcome to the press conference you’ve been waiting for and the first of CES 2009 here on Tech Digest. My name is Daniel, I shall be your editor for the day. Stay with me on this tour of what the netbook nobility has to offer…
Logitech shows off its revamped gaming lineup – two keyboards a headset and a mouse
Next up, it’s Logitech’s turn to show off its new products to the world. They’ve got the G19 keyboard, the G13 gameboard, the G9x mouse and the G35 surround sound headset. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the G stands for ‘gaming’, because these are all very squarely focused at PC gamers.
I’ll start with the G19, which we spotted previously, but called the G18. In every other respect, though, it seems to be the same model – it’s got the same 320 x 240 colour LCD, the same 12 macro keys, and the superb “game mode” switch that disables the Windows key so you don’t hit it by accident at a crucial moment. No sign of that D-pad, though.
HP launching two Pavilion laptops, and one Firebird desktop
HP has announced a couple of new notebook PCs in its Pavilion range, and a successor to its high-end Blackbird desktop – the Firebird. Let’s take a look at the notebooks first.
They’re named Pavilion dv2 and Pavilion dv3. The dv2 is a slim-and-light machine, with 3.8 pound weight, and thickness of just one inch. The full specs aren’t available, but it’ll include an AMD Athlon processor, 12″ display, “nearly” full-size keyboard, discrete graphics and up to 500GB of hard disc space. There’s an optional external Blu-ray drive, too.
Sandisk reveals one-button-backup USB flash drives
Now that flash memory has got to a price competitive with mechanical storage, we’re starting to see it crop up in all sorts of places. One of those places is backup, where the speed of the memory presents a clear advantage over a traditional disk drive.
With that in mind, Sandisk has brought out a new backup-focused USB drive, which is the first in the world to work its magic with just a button press – no software installation needed. The capacities aren’t huge yet – the biggest is 64GB – but that should cover the contents of ‘My Documents’ for the vast majority of consumers.
The SanDisk Ultra Backup will go on sale in April, and cost between $40 (£28) and $200 (£137) depending on the size you plump for. How big is your “My Documents” folder? How about when you don’t include the porn? Let us know in the comments.
Sandisk Press Release
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Samsung announces 64GB SSD H-Series HD camcorder, and some others too
Not to be outdone by Canon, Samsung has also released info about a range of new camcorders that it’ll be bringing to market later in the year. They all come under the banner of H-Series, which seems to mean nothing except that their meaningless product numbers all begin with H.
In full, there’s the HMX-H106, HMX-H105, HMX-H104, and HMX-H100. They’ve got HD sensors, and lenses from Schneider Kreuznach that have a 10X zoom and “Optical Image Stabilisation”. One of the models in particular – the top-of-the-line HMX-H106 – comes with a 64GB SSD, which I believe is the first camcorder with a drive that big.
