Hasta La Gadget!

Are you ready for the future of smoking? Desonic is. The Hong Kong electronics company “advocate[s] a more healthy and enjoyable lifestyle,” which doesn’t mean quitting smoking as much as taking up high-tech smoking. It’s Smoking 2.0.

The company has a large line of electronic smoking instruments, including cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. The devices are battery-powered and contain liquid nicotine, water, and propylene alcohol, letting users do something similar to actual smoking. But they don’t contain tobacco, and they let users adjust the amount of nicotine that they take in.

Just because it’s one of those things you have to see to believe, we’ve got a video of the electronic cigarette in action, after the jump.

Drunk dialing and texting I understand, but I hadn’t heard anything about an apparent outbreak of drunk music-listening. That said, who wouldn’t want a breathalizer built into their portable media player? Sascha found one yesterday–and I came across this one today. Trend alert!

From Korean company Seju, the iCheck is a “smelling” MP4 player. Measuring 5.6-mm thick (“the best slim size,” says the company), this device has most of the standard Flash player features: a 1.5-inch color screen, 4GB of memory, and a high-speed USB port that works with both Windows and Mac.

The iCheck also features a built-in breathalizer and a bad breath detector. Unfortunately, the thing won’t actually stop you from listening to terrible music while drunk. Hopefully we’ll see that functionality in the next version.

LAS VEGAS — For the past three years, every CES show has dangled the promise of wireless charging products. But we haven’t seen these power chargers become widely available.

This year Powermat says it is closer than ever to the finish line. At CES 2009, the company announced a line of products for home, travel and work use that could charge from three to four devices on a single mat. The Powermat can charge iPods, iPhone, other mobile phones and even a laptop.

Powermat uses the principle of magnetic induction to deliver wireless power. Users plug in their Powermat to an electrical outlet and can then place their devices on the mat to charge–which means there are two parts to the system, the mat and the magnetic cases/docks that are attached behind each device.

In its true sense the Powermats aren’t completely wireless since the device just goes on a mat that is plugged in. Think of it as a better-looking Power Squid. But when Powermat’s technology is built into kitchen countertops and walls, it could potentially be more true to its name.

The mats in white and black finish are priced at $100 and the cases/docks for each individual device will cost $30.

Verizon Wireless has completed its $5.9 billion acquisition of Alltel, making it the largest cell phone company in the U.S., according to the Associated Press. Verizon said that it will also take on $22.2 billion in debt from the company (which explains the original $28.1 billion acquisition figure announced last June).

Much of Alltel’s executive staff will be axed—probably on the order of 3,000 employees—but everyone below that level will be retained in the merger. “Alltel employees below executive level will continue in their present jobs as Verizon Wireless assesses staffing needs required to best serve customers and achieve synergies,” Verizon said in a statement.

As part of the deal, Verizon also gets Alltel’s 12.9 million customers, bringing its U.S. total to 83.7 million (after about 2.1 million get sold off in territory that will be sold later). That puts it significantly above AT&T’s current 75 million-ish total, which has been bolstered recently by the runaway success of the iPhone. Verizon plans to change out the Alltel name in stores over the second and third quarters of this year.

Day Three: Pre and P, but mostly just Pre. That’s all you really need to know. But in case you’re hungering for more, here’s the most enthusiastic hour and change of sleep-deprived talk about the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show to happen since at least a few days ago. But again, summary: lots of Pre, a little P.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Sweet Child O’ Mine

00:48 – The Palm Pre
51:10 – Sony Vaio P
59:20 – Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3 launches: world’s first WiFi camera with web browser

Subscribe to the podcast

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace

Download the podcast

LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast

1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 126 – 01.09.2008: CES day Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments