Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS — Femtocells, or small cellular base stations designed to boost cellphone signals, are seen as the next big thing in wireless.

At CES 2009 Motorola showed off femtocells packaged in a digital picture-frame like exterior in a bid to make it easier for consumers to hop on to the trend.

The CDMA femtocell 9100 Series includes a VoIP soft phone and offers enhanced phone coverage inside the home. Touching the screen activates the femtocell.

Through the screen, users can specify
coverage radius, average number of walls, windows, doors, or select one
or more mobile devices to optimize performance, says Motorola. Device, subscriber management and access control
settings can also be handled through the femtocell frame.

Motorola will start trials of the femtocell frame in the first half of the year and hopes to have it available by the end of the year. The company hasn’t finalized any deals with carriers yet but  Verizon could be the possible service provider for the device.

In Europe, femtocells are available for about ten-euros a month. Motorola hopes to ink deals that will bring similar pricing to North America.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

LAS VEGAS —
Asus isn’t having a hard time distinguishing its netbooks from the rest of the herd. The company’s latest mini notebook features a swivel touchscreen.

The touchscreen netbook, powered by the standard 1.6GHz Atom processor, will be available in two different screen sizes: 8.9 inches and 10 inches.

Asus will also implement a new touchscreen software interface called 3Doorway. The company is still developing the software, so not many details are available, but in a nutshell you can swipe back and forth between three menus. Each menu displays an intuitive collection of apps as large icons that you can tap easily. 

Pretty neat stuff: Creating a new software interface is way smarter than simply slapping a touchscreen on a computer.

The 8.9-inch model, the Eee PC T91, is shipping March. The 10-inch model, the EeePC T101H, is shipping June. Price details are not yet available, but expect somewhere around $600.

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

Remember those sub-$100 Coby netbooks that we deemed a hoax? Well, it looks like they might not be as hoax-y as we originally thought. Here at CES, Coby has a bunch of base models on the show floor in a myriad of color combos. The rep who showed us around made it clear that this was a “market research project” but that the ‘books would ring in at under $200. There were a bunch of different configurations, but nothing too different from the usual Atom setup. The six color offerings might pique your interest, but after playing with them for a few minutes, we don’t know how eager we’d be to run out and pick one up — they felt pretty low-end. However, the only way to differentiate oneself in the crowded netbook market is with price, and Coby certainly has that working for it. We’ll see if these ever make it to market, and reserve final judgment until then. Check out the non-junky gallery below.

Filed under: Laptops

Coby’s sub-$200 netbooks handled at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We happened upon this preview of the Sync concept from CES installed in a concept car sharing the same marketing visuals as the Lincoln brand. We’re assuming we’ll see it at the Detroit Auto Show.

After some demo time with WirelessHD and founder John Marshall, it appears 2009 will finally be the year cable-free TV connections roll out in a big way. Expect products to launch towards the end of Q2, according to the Gefen rep on hand, their adapter will go into production towards the end of Q1 and hit shelves for about $700, while WirelessHD tech could add as much/little as 10% to the cost of a new TV like the demo units from LG and Panasonic. How well does it work for the money? Pretty well, with no untoward effects on the picture, and easily switching from source to source automatically. Walking between the display and source didn’t cause a problem but even millisecond-switching 60Ghz hardware was no match for being picked up and fumbled around by a photo snapping Engadget editor. Check out pics featuring Gefen (fear not, the final models will have RS-232), LG & Panasonic prototypes plus OEM hardware we’re likely to see soon in one form or another.

Filed under: CES, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Wireless HD hands on & recklessly-interfering originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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