Hasta La Gadget!

Get ready for an orgy of electronics industry news, speculation and hype.

Despite the downturn in the economy and disappointing holiday sales
figures, the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show is still going to be a
massive gadget fest.

Yes, attendance will be somewhat smaller than last year — and no doubt many manufacturers will be touting simpler, cheaper gadgets along with their massive TVs and unaffordably expensive and complicated stereo systems. But CES is still the biggest American electronics trade show, and it’s not about to disappear — not this year anyway.

VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi interviewed the Consumer Electronics
Association’s executive director, Gary Shapiro, to get the lowdown on CES 2009. Here’s what he reports:

• An estimated 130,000 people will attend the show (down 8% from last year’s 141,000)
• 2,700 companies will be exhibiting their wares (the same number as last year)
• The footprint of the show is down 5%, to 1.7 million square feet
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will deliver a keynote, instead of Bill Gates
• 300 new companies will be there
• Sanyo, Cisco and Philips will not be exhibiting on the show floor
• DTV, 3-D displays, and wireless HD video will all be big
• OLED displays will also generate a lot of buzz
• Companies are still shelling out for celebrity appearances, including Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and Akon

Despite the somewhat reduced numbers, it’s a safe bet that CES 2009 will produce a huge torrent of gadget news from January 6 to January 11 — and Gadget Lab will be there.

In fact, Wired.com is sending a team of 9 to the show, including a video crew, a photographer, and the entire Gadget Lab news staff. Bookmark our "CES 2009" category to get the latest gadget news from the show floor as well as the keynotes, press conferences and parties.

And if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Gadget Lab Twitter feed. We’ll make sure to keep it humming with interesting CES tidbits throughout next week.

CES preview: what to expect at the big, not-so-gloomy tech trade show [VentureBeat]

Photo: Rob Beschizza / Wired.com

What better way to welcome the new year than with a collection of bright and shiny party gadgets?

You can handle the basics: Flare pants. Sequin dress for the ladies (and some of the gentlemen). Hair gel. Beer. Breath mints.

But Wired’s Gadget Lab has the electronic tools that will make this a truly 21st century event. Whether you will live it up on Times Square, throw your own block party or merely make a drunken nuisance of yourself in a subway car, here are 11 cool gadgets that can help you pass the last few hours of 2008 in high-tech style.

Alcohawk ABI Digital Breathalyzer
So your New Year’s Eve resolution is to quit drinking (for the 10th year in a row) but you want to have a blowout before you give it all up. Too bad you had to drive to the party. Before you get back into the car at 4 a.m., fish out the $100 Alcohawk digital breathalyzer and do a quick test. Above legal limit? Taxi!

Pacemaker Pocket DJ System
This beautiful piece of hardware is pricey ($800), but it’s all you need to create a mobile disco. The Pacemaker has two digital "decks" that let you scratch, bend and tweak your tunes to create a party and sell tickets. It comes with extensive mixing functionality, allowing you to change the pitch and cross=fade, and it has 120-GB hard drive.

Soundproof Microphone
Clearly karaoke is not your thing. That’s why you may want to put a bag over
your head when you sing, or do the digital equivalent of it and get a
soundproof microphone. This rather uncool-looking device muffles your
singing and lets you belt out Ricky Martin’s "She Bangs" without letting
everyone know you’re more like William Hung.

Porta-Party
Shy
guest coming to your New Year’s Eve party? Rent this booth so they can
party in private — sort of. Los Angeles-based artist Nick Rodrigues
has created an iPod-shaped booth called Porta-Party that you can walk
into. Shut the door, crank up the music and start grooving. The best
part is the exhibitionist aspect: The iPod-like
screen on the booth shows a video of what’s happening inside. Get ready
to put on a show!

Remote Fireworks Launcher
Why risk starting the new year with first-degree burns? If you have
a place to set off some pyrotechnics, get the remote
fireworks launcher. With a wireless remote you can set off up to five
different fireworks at one time. Burn, baby, burn!

DIY LED Mirror Ball
A disco mirror ball is a must-have for a New Year’s Eve party.
What else will you point your upraised hand toward when "Stayin’ Alive" comes on? But ordinary mirror balls are so … ordinary. Buy a mirror ball and soup it up with some LED to make your party even more disco-licious.

Cocktail Fountain
The
name suggests a centerpiece shooting a fountain of Martinis or
Manhattans high into the sky. The Cocktail Fountain is not quite that, but it promises to deliver cascades of
alcoholy delight directly into cups, which is almost as good. It’s the
adult version of the chocolate fountain.

LED Throwies

Some people just talk about painting the town red. Others actually do something about it. LED throwies are little blobs of LEDs, stuck together with a battery and a rare-earth magnet that can be thrown and stuck to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. They’re cheap and easy to make. Throw a few to see where they stick, and light up the city.

Mood Lighting Kalediosopic Critters
Party lighting could mean candles and Christmas lights. Better yet, how about some glowing creatures that look
like cousins of Casper the Friendly Ghost? They come in four moods — chipper, peppy, dizzy and gloomy — which will probably reflect your mood
cycles through the evening. So bring on the kaleidoscopic critters, add
the mirror ball, the pocket DJ system and the cocktail
fountain, and it will be one helluva party.

Sony Dancing Egg Rolly
Need
a party attraction? How about a dancing egg that flashes and rolls to
the beat of the music it’s emitting from its own flapping speakers? The Rolly dancing robot from Sony may be entirely useless, but it’s good for a few laughs. It could be an icebreaker, too: If everyone is standing in the corners, roll this out on the dance floor and watch the crowds follow.

Cobra XRS Radar/Laser Detector
New
Year’s Eve can see more cops per square foot in your town than a drug bust on a Baltimore street. Even going 55 miles an hour in a 50-mph zone is enough to get
the red and blue lights flashing behind you. Before you hop into the
car, turn the radar detector on and give yourself some advance notice about upcoming speed traps. A warning though: Radar detectors are
illegal in some states.

Photo: Disco Ball (massdistraction/Flickr)

iLuv has been on quite the roll of late with these radio clocks and whatnot, though we’re a touch more excited than usual about the iHD171. For starters, this one tunes into HD Radio stations (you know, given how FM is so 2006), and it also plays nice with dock-connecting iPods and iPhones. You’ll find twin alarms for keeping couples happy, a front-panel display, iTunes tagging support, jAura speaker technology, an auxiliary line input (3.5-millimeter jack) and twin 4-watt drivers. If all that’s enough for you to exchange $199.99 for, you can do just that next month. Full release is after the jump.

Continue reading iLuv rolls out iHD171 HD radio with iPhone / iPod dock, iTunes tagging

Filed under: Home Entertainment

iLuv rolls out iHD171 HD radio with iPhone / iPod dock, iTunes tagging originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While EMTEC clearly knows how to have a good time, it’s getting back to business with the Gdium. If you’ll recall, we heard about this here netbook eons ago, but since then, we’ve been too overwhelmed by countless Eee models and various changes in Wind direction to even give this fellow a second thought. Now, however, we’re told that the firm will be debuting the 10-inch netbook at CES in preparation for a US release. The Linux-based machine will come loaded with loads of open source software as well as a G-Key, which is described as “a bootable USB key on which the Linux operating system, applications, and personal data are stored.” Expect it to ship in white, black and pink sometime between January and the end of time for $400.

Filed under: Laptops

EMTEC bringing 10-inch Gdium netbook to America for $400 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The International Consumer Electronics Show kicks off next week, and premature product news releases and apparent leaks have already been rolling in.

While there’s of course a certain amount of surprise in store at the year’s biggest tech showcase, there likely won’t be anything too unexpected. But that’s OK. With the global economy’s lashing of some of the biggest and most successful consumer electronics companies, along with the recession here in the U.S., this seems to invite a more subdued type of affair this year in Las Vegas.

The head of the CEA (the company that puts on CES) told Venture Beat that it will indeed be a smaller show than in years past. Attendance will be down 8 percent to 131,000 visitors this year, according to Gary Shapiro. And floor space devoted to exhibitor booths will also be down slightly, to 1.7 million square feet, from 1.8 million in 2008. The number of exhibitors however will remain the same as last year, about 2,700.

That’s because though some big-name attendees have dropped out–as CNET News reported in November–some new exhibitors have signed on.

When it comes to products, to know what’s in store at the show this time, easy clues can be taken from what many of these same manufacturers were showing at Ceatec in Tokyo in October.

Thin TVs will be big. We just started to see this at CES 2008, and the top-tier TV makers will renew their battle for slimmest set this time. Expect Sharp, Samsung, Hitachi, and Toshiba to compete for thinnest LCD, and a few will try with plasma as well.

…