Hasta La Gadget!

Clarion’s booth was like other rather underwhelming, but here as well it have at least one little diamond in the rough that we could not ignore with their new 01Drive. Unlike most speaker, the 01Drive is a ceiling speaker, made to be used mainly at home and that can also accommodate any light ceiling easy and without modifications needed! The 01Drive comes in an hexagonal six-drive sharp and will let you stream all your tunes via Bluetooth and this regardless of your device! Not sure if …

Pioneer did not had much to offer, at least that we did not really know about, at this year CEATEC, however they shown a very interesting product that for once was not related to Pioneer’s core business : Audio, by introducing a nice Mirror to help women to get a professional lighting to help them apply their makeup. The concept is rather simple by not only offering the best ligthing possible by using a pair of 4 LED lights, but also to give you the possibility to change the light …

How about some glass from CEATEC, eh? The folks at Nippon Electric Glass were showing off its still-in-development liquid lens technology, as well as its already-available “invisible glass.” The latter, as pictured above, is very much what it says on the tin albeit with some exaggeration, obviously, but we were still very impressed by how little reflection we saw on it. While it’s already being used in art galleries and inside cameras (as sensor covers), Nippon Electric Glass is pushing hard to get its invisible glass featured on mobile devices — the selling point here is simply to achieve the effect of somewhere in between glossy glass and matte glass, so that you’d get the best color vibrancy with minimal reflection. Do check out the video after the break.

As for the liquid lens, Nippon Electric Glass’ version uses low-power electric field to control its liquid crystal molecular orientation, thus changing the focal point. You’ll also see that the lens is also small enough to be integrated into phones and webcams. While the demo response was pretty quick, we were told that it’ll be at least another year before the technology becomes available for us mere mortals. For now, you can see our hands-on demo after the break.

Continue reading Nippon Electric Glass demos liquid crystal lens and ‘invisible glass’ at CEATEC (video)

Filed under: Misc

Nippon Electric Glass demos liquid crystal lens and ‘invisible glass’ at CEATEC (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 03:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While scanning through Panasonic’s booth at CEATEC 2012, we couldn’t help but notice a prototype of its world’s slimmest 100-lumen laser projector module (or OIU aka optical imaging unit, as the company prefers), which can beam out an 800 x 480 picture. It’s not clear when exactly we’ll see this 7.5mm-thick device getting into consumers’ hands, but there’s certainly room for improvement for the image quality. Likewise, the scan-type OIU (resolution at about 400 x 300) next to the slim projector is far from ready for mass consumption, as the company is hoping to actually shrink it down and integrate it into mobile phones. That said, the fact that this technology doesn’t require focusing makes it worth the wait — the light doesn’t go through an LCD filter like ordinary projectors do, and instead, it’s a single laser beam scanning out the picture, hence the name.

Also shown along side were the optical bay drive pico projector that’s already being offered by Fujitsu, as well as the PJ-SJ25U 854 × 480 DLP pico projector which was released in August this year. While the latter’s image quality was rather impressive even under the strong ambient lighting, we struggle to appreciate the ¥56,800 or $730 price tag. Anyhow, pricing is just a matter time, as always.

Update: The thickness of the slim laser OIU was originally mistyped as “75mm.” This has now been corrected. Many apologies.

Filed under: Displays

Panasonic’s 7.5mm-thick, 100-lumen laser projector module claims world’s thinnest title originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 02:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[CEATEC 2012] Windows 8 is just around the corner, and it’s no surprise that here at CEATEC 2012 we’re seeing tons of laptops and tablets running on the operating system. Panasonic is one of the manufacturers that will be competing for your dollar bills when Windows 8 goes on sale, and at their exhibition booth we managed to catch a glimpse of its AX Series ultrabooks. What’s neat about these ultrabooks is the fact that it features both a touchscreen and a regular keyboard. Let’s not forget an unconventional hinge that will let you flip the display all the way back, turning the ultrabook into a tablet. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Panasonic shows off foldable Windows 8 Ultrabook, Panasonic Smart Apps aim to make life easier,