Nokia shows its MD-8 speakers
(Credit: Kent German/CBS Interactive)
If you’ve followed me at CES over the last couple of years, you’ll know that I’m a sucker for cell phone speakers. It’s an odd passion, I know, but I like how they make your music …
Originally posted at CES 2009
We chose the Nyko Wand as a Best of CES gaming finalist because the product not only improves on the original Nintendo design, but because of the controller’s innovative Trans-Port interface.
Check out our slide show detailing the features of the Wand and see how it will combine with
…
Originally posted at CES 2009
We just bumped into LG’s X120, a barely-differentiated followup to the X110 that’s floating around the show floor. There’s still a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, Windows XP and a 10-inch WSVGA screen, but what’s new is the Splashtop-powered “LG Smart On” OS, which does the quick boot thing we’ve come to know and love on many ASUS products, the Voodoo Envy 133 and elsewhere. The effect, as always, is pretty stunning, and the OS should be helpful for a quick look at the web or to hop on IM over the laptop’s WiFi connectivity. The netbook itself seems to have been tweaked a tad on aesthetics, but it’s still a bit thicker than we’d like at this point for the netbook market. We’re short on further details, but since the X110 did 3G, there’s a good chance that’ll be in play as well — we’re still waiting on PR from LG. In the meantime, you can check out a video of the startup after the break.
Continue reading LG’s new X120 netbook with Splashtop-powered instant on
Filed under: Laptops
LG’s new X120 netbook with Splashtop-powered instant on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It can be kind of a pain in the butt, owning a bike in a big city like New York. For starters, there’s never any room to park the thing in your cramped apartment, but if you have any sense at all, you’re not going to leave the thing chained up outside all night. Also, if you’ve ever attempted to transport the bike in a crowded subway car, you know all about the dirty looks folks tend to give you.
So, what’s the answer? Design company Areaware has developed a pretty cool little folding bike, the Strida, which it claims is the “lightest, cleanest, [and] most user-friendly folding bike on the market.” The bike comes in five size varieties and a number of colors. The company also offers a number of accessories like a travel bag and kickstand.
Check out a quick video of the bike in all of its folding glory, after the jump.
CES 2009 brought us a new player in the smartphone upper-echelon. Let’s drill down and see how the Palm Pre compares with the iPhone and Android’s G1.
1. Multitouch touchscreen/gesture control: All three are capacitive, only the Pre and iPhone have multitouch. The Pre’s glowy little “gesture area” has dropped the touchable real estate all the way down tto the bottom of the phone, which is great for being able to navigate with one hand and not interfere with the screen at all. The wavey dock you bring up from the bottom looks awesome, but can you use it out of the box without a second thought or page through the manual? That’s my question. Advantage: iPhone/Pre tossup.
2. Multitasking: One of the beefiest of our beefs with the iPhone SDK is its insistence on Apps running one at a time. The G1’s notifications drawer was definitely a step in the right direction, but the Pre’s interface is the first smartphone OS that was built with multitasking as a core design element. Resembling the Xbox’s old Blades, or a less-jarring OS X Expose even, the Pre’s “Cards” interface always places you in the context of every app running for fast switching, and notifications from other apps don’t pull you away completely from the task at hand. Multitasking is hugely important on a phone, and it’s a good sign that Palm recognizes. Advantage: Pre
3. Hardware: Adrian says:
While the hardware is definitely high quality, I’m not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it’s a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don’t like the black space on the sides of the screen.
A phone with a built-in QWERTY still hasn’t touched the iPhone in terms of sleekness and pure sex. And it might still be a while. Advantage: iPhone
4. Development platform: The Pre’s “Web OS” sure sounds nice—all developers need to know is JavaScript, HTML and CSS? Sounds good in theory, but building a mobile app will never be as easy as cranking out a new theme for your Tumblr. Palm’s stressing ease of development, though, so it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Apple’s solid, familiar-to-devs OS X-based SDK and Android’s fully open source approach. Advantage: Pre? If it’s straight-up JavaScript, that’s a lot of programmers ready to go. Note: we had iPhone here before, but we’ve switched with a qualification. Developer community still goes to iPhone for volume.
5. Web Integration: The Pre subtly integrates the internet into the phone at every opportunity, and it’s awesome. Contacts get pulled in from Facebook, Gmail, IM and and scanned for dupes; the messaging app shows your last several emails, IMs and SMS with that contact in a single window. Really, really smart stuff. Advantage: Pre
6. App Store/developer community: A smartphone is only as good as the software it runs. On the Pre, Palm is still keeping application delivery details like pricing behind the curtain, but they did say the app delivery will be entirely handled by the phone (without a desktop app), which is a shame. They’re saying that they’re not going to duplicate Apple’s Hobbesian app approval black box mistake, which Android has also hasn’t fallen for, but there will be an approval process based on “security and stability.” But as we know with Android, a dev community needs enough devices in the hands of consumers to reach critical mass, which the Pre will have to match. Advantage: iPhone, even with the black box, but Android and Pre’s more open stances are reassuring.
7. Wireless charger: We’ve seen wireless charger tech for years at CES, but it’s taken this long for a major consumer gadget to come bundled with its own wireless charger in the box. Whoops, it’s not in the box, sold separately for unknown $$. But still: Bravo. Advantage: Pre
8. The Network: Dan Hesse, Sprint’s CEO, gave our coast-to-coast 3G test a shout out in his press conference. Of course he did: Sprint won (in download speeds). Sprint was the only major carrier without a powerful, hype-catching smartphone choice, and now they have one. The Pre is a data-centric phone with a network we’ve proven to be strong in a large swatch of the country—that’s a good combo. But would you switch to Sprint for the Pre? Ugh. Advantage: Not cut and dry for everyone, but we stand by our numbers: Sprint is the best 3G network in our tests.
9. Physical keyboard: It’s preference, but one held by a large swathe of the gadget buying public: physical QWERTY keypads are still the mainstream input of choice. Touch is getting better all the time, but a lot of people still want physical keyboards. But better yet is the ability to choose; unfortunately, the Pre doesn’t have a soft onscreen keyboard, and its slide-out is the same meh QWERTY from the Treo Pro. Advantage: It’s preference, but on me, the iPhone’s soft keyboard can’t be beat.
10. Camera: The Pre has an LED Flash for its 3MP camera, something both the iPhone and G1 lack. Flash cellphone photos are ugly, but for a lot of people, they’re good enough. So credit for throwing it in. Advantage: Pre
11. Battery: Apple’s still an outlier with their non-removable battery; like the G1’s, the Pre’s comes out for a spare swap too. We’ve heard Apple’s reasons for this a million times, we know the drill, but removable batteries will never stop being handy. Advantage: Pre
12. Copy & Paste: Yep, Pre’s got it. iPhone still doesn’t. Advantage: Pre/G1
13. Browser: All three use a browser based on WebKit, which has become the standard for the mobile web. We couldn’t put it through our Mobile Browser Battlemodo ringer obviously, but what we saw looked great, and it’s the only other mobile browser besides the iPhone that supports multitouch zooming. Advantage: iPhone/Pre
So there you have it. We’re excited. Are you?
Samsung is clearly intending to make a big push with its LED-backlit LCDs, but the company did announce one new line of LCDs without LED. The Samsung LN-B750 series uses standard CFL backlighting, but includes other cutting-edge features such as 240Hz refresh rate, a slim inch-thick design, and access to …
Originally posted at CES 2009
Laptop mice are supposed to be smaller than average ones to save space in your bag, but do they have to be so small that only Stuart Little can use one? I’d rather sacrifice a little extra room in my bag for a comfortable mouse, but Jasco offers a …
Originally posted at CES 2009
LAS VEGAS — Several manufacturers are scooping out the guts of netbooks and implanting them in inexpensive, all-in-one desktop computers. And even though they’re cheap, it’s unlikely these desktops will break into the mainstream.
Micro-Star International (MSI), Asus, Viewsonic and Shuttle showcased various budget all-in-one desktops at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And hardly any convention attendees even appeared to care about the devices; most of their attention remained fixated on mini notebooks.
MSI is proving to take this new category most seriously with four all-in-ones on display at CES. Dubbed the NetOn series, the computers included the same processor and chipset as the MSI Wind netbook. They range from $500 to $800, depending on screen size (from 16 to 22 inches) and other configurations such as optional touchscreens.
Of course, these companies are embracing this new marketing direction with two trends in mind: 1.) Budget devices, such as netbooks, are flourishing largely because consumers are spending less in a failing economy; and 2.) All-in-one compartmentalization is also highly desirable, as proven by the phenomenally popular iPhone.
But they’re missing one key ingredient that’s making netbooks (and the iPhone) so successful: They’re mobile. They’re light and small enough to carry around with you everywhere, which is what’s making them loved among both casual users and now even the business world.
The companies are trying to spruce up the all-in-one desktops by offering additional options such as touchscreens. Shuttle’s X50 All-in-One (right), for example, is a $500 desktop with an Atom processor and a touchscreen. But this isn’t going to cut it either. Consumers definitely are enjoying touchscreens, but is there much of
a point in a touchscreen computer if it’s stationary? What would you do
with it besides tap around for recipes while in a kitchen?
Companies producing budget all-in-ones and netbooks face a problem: The two products are competing with each other. And there just isn’t enough of an incentive to buy an all-in-one desktop as opposed to a netbook. Want to add to your netbook’s screen size? Attach it to a monitor. Need a keyboard and mouse? Plug them in via USB, just like you would with a desktop system.
Of course you’re going to ask — what about the iMac? What makes that system so popular? A few things: Apple’s cultlike status, superior aesthetic and higher quality parts. If I were considering an all-in-one desktop, I would want it to be capable of handling everything I would wish to do with a computer — play games, watch movies, edit movies, do work, etc. — and I wouldn’t want a low-powered system to do all that. The iMac can handle all of that, and that’s why it’s not a budget system.
Budget all-in-ones are a truly nascent product — and we won’t know how well they’re performing in sales until we see some earnings reports. But we’re going to make an early call by saying this product category is going to fail very fast, very soon.
See Also:
Photos: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
Smartparts has added two new Wi-Fi enabled digital photo frames to its lineup, the 10-inch SPX10WF and the SPX19WF. They feature such things as one touch Internet setup and automatic image correction.
As with the current Smartparts Wi-Fi digital photo frames, the new SPX10WF and the SPX19WF have photo e-mail …
Originally posted at CES 2009
We got hands-on with the FyreTV living-room porn streaming solution last year at AVN, but this year’s version is even better. Why? Because it’s wireless so you can take it anywhere in your house.
The FyreTV system, which just went out of beta this past month, has a Wi-Fi version of their set-top-box with the same DVD-quality porn streaming for the same $9.95 monthly subscription. Here’s their thought process. Lots of people like watching porn in the bedroom; their previous FyreTV box is only Ethernet-enabled, with no dongle option; not a lot of people have Ethernet wiring in the bedroom. Thus, the wireless FyreTV is born.
We’ve tested the original FyreTV box for a while now, and it’s definitely worth the subscription price in both usability and convenience. The wireless box is still fairly inconspicuous, with a black finish and no “THIS IS MY PORN BOX” label, as you can see in the photo above (left) with lovely model Ashlynn Brooke.
FyreTV guys also told us that they’re going to be enabling HD wireless streaming in about two months, meaning the same box you buy now will be able to stream HD content wirelessly to your bedroom—assuming your bedroom has the required high def equipment. [FyreTV]
Some bonus info from adult star Ashlynn Brooke:
Hey Y’all! I’m here at the Adult Entertainment Expo 2009 representing FyreTV. It is so much fun being able to talk to my fans, take pictures with them and sign autographs. If you don’t already know FyreTV is the hottest IPTV set top boxxx around. Just think….you can have me, Ashlynn Brooke right there on demand. Now I know you guys would LOVE that right?
Now here’s all that great geeky stuff I know you guys like: it’s wireless 802.11 b and g. It’s really small and cute even though I usually like larger things …hehe. It has all kinds of output, HDMI, S-video, component and composite. And the best part of all is it can deliver me right to your bedroom!
So make sure you check out www.fyretv.com and my website www.ashlynnbrooke.com.
Love ya’ll!
Ash
P.S. All this geeky stuff is kinda hot…I think I might have to do a couple more posts 🙂 Would you guys like that? And by the way Jason Chen…you are so hot 🙂
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
