Categories
Category: Conferences
Categories
Sony Reader
They Sony booth is always a big pain in the ass, teeming with waaaaaay too many people. They always have something cool, new and shiny to play with. This week, they introduced the US version of the Sony Reader, their implementation of E-Ink in a book reader format. I finally got my hands on one today.
First off, believe the hype. This machine is very sleek, the text is crystal clear and they’ve removed a variety of the the BS restrictions that the Japanese model had(very strict DRM, only used Sony proprietary book formats) and they added a bunch of new features including an RSS reader and the ability to open .doc and .pdf formats. I imagine it will be a little spendy (I recall $300 or $400), but for the first of its kind, not so bad. We’ll see if this thing does better than ebook readers of the past
(Man, I get more and more sweary in my post titles the later that it gets. Maybe its the crappy wifi and crappier Muzak). Gotta check this out tomorrow, but apparently, TiVo is showing off their Series 3 CableCard 1 and 2.0 HD PVR at CES. According to megazone, this unit will have 6 tuners (2 NTSC, 2 ATSC, 2 CableCard). I’m sure they won’t all work simultaneously, but 2 should work. I hope this means I can chuck my Craptastic err… Comcastic box sometime soon. Unfortunately, TiVo has a bit of a reputation of showing off the vapor at CES, so no ship date or price.
(Via Zatz Not Funny.)
We’ll be updating pics and posts throughout tomorrow (wifi willing) so check ’em out while they’re hot. Special props going out to photographer extraordinaire, Suzi Blakely for putting up with me dragging her all over the show floor at this latest nerd fest.
MUSIC UPDATE 2“Take These Broken Wings” – Please, somebody, make it stop!
Just to keep it nice and confusing, Microsoft has announced an HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. The announcement talks specifically about movies rather than games, so this unit better be cheaper than standalone units, or MS has a nice Sega CD on their hands.
Categories
More Bling
Normally, I walk through the car tech section with ear plugs and sunglasses to avoid being blinded by the bling, but today, we had to stop to check out the
More photos after the jump.
Categories
Crap Wi-Fi
So it looks like I’ll be hanging out in the lobby to make posts this evening. The Hilton Grand Vacations at the Flamingo (say that three times really fast) claimed to have Wi-Fi in all the rooms. I suppose by “in all the rooms” they meant in the lobby, then I guess they aren’t lying liars. Oh well, I didn’t want to go to bed anytime soon and God knows I love my fellow man(who are these retiree vacationers that didn’t know the biggest trade show of the year was going on right now?).
UPDATE: They just played Phil Collins’ “Groovy Kind of Love” on the Muzak. I think I’m going to poke my eyes out with my Treo.
Categories
Holy Big Ass Plasma!
Ok, normally I don’t get really excited about bigger, better, faster(Ok, that’s a lie, but generally I expect it.) CES is the place for the big electronics companies to show you who has the biggest screen, but I think that LG has the biggest plasma by far. Now, 50″ plasmas are nice and all, but let’s say you need a really, really, really big tv to bling out your media room, this 102″ monster is for you. No price on this sick tv, but if you have to ask…
One more picture after the jump.
Looks like we finally have some shipping dates for HD-DVD players. Coming in March, Toshiba will ship both the HD-XA1($799) and the HD-A1($499) with the XA1 coming with better stabilization and quad DSP decoders for better audio. Both have audio decoders for an alphabet soup of audio standards and only HDMI for video output. Looks like you early adopting, component video only early adopters will be shelling out cash for a new TV as well. Oy, at least these things are under a grand…
(Via I4u.)
OK, so a whole bunch of movies were announced today for the not yet shipping soon Blu-Ray HD players. Here are some of the worst of them.
- Hitch
- A Knight’s Tale
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse
- Species
- SWAT
- Fantastic Four
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
This craptastic lineup makes me wanna run right out and spend 1000 clams on a new player. Seriously studios, can’t we do a little better than this? Even the “A-list” contains tired movies like Terminator 2.
(Via HDBlog.net.)
Categories
XM Radio Equipment Onslaught
XM Radio has announced a variety of new equipment today. First up, from Samsung, 2 new portable players, the Helix XM2go that will play live XM, up to 50 hours of recorded XM and MP3 files and second, the Nexus, which will play live XM while docked and record XM and MP3 files on the go.
Next up, the suspiciously similarly looking Pioneer Inno XM2go, has all the bells and whistles of the Nexus and the same price of $399. All of these units should ship this quarter.
Lastly, and perhaps most interesting, is XM Passport. XM passport is a tiny, half dollar sized XM tuner designed to go from device to device so that users will only need one subscription for many devices.
Categories
Going to CES
I’m making the trek out to Las Vegas this Thursday through Saturday for the annual CES convention. If you’ve never been to a a CES, it is the largest technology show in the US attracting over 100,000 people to the city. I’ve heard it best described as a “museum of the next 18 months,” although many of the products seen at CES don’t ship for even longer than that (large format OLEDs, anyone?)
I haven’t been to CES in a couple of years, but the show rarely disappoints. I’ll be blogging the event and keeping folks up to date about announcements at the show.
If you are going to CES, drop me a line.