Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS — A jungle of cables dangling from the back of a television detracts from the beauty of any home entertainment system. That’s why some manufacturers are making some of their premium TV sets wirelessly interact with other entertainment devices.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Panasonic and LG both showcased flat-panel, high-definition TVs bundled with wireless systems.

Both companies’ wireless systems appear very similar. Panasonic’s TC-P54Z1 television is sold with a SCZT1 wireless receiver box. You’d connect devices such as your Blu-Ray Player or Xbox 360 to the receiver, and on top of the receiver is a transmitter that wirelessly outputs to another receiver on the TV.

LG’s 47LH85 wireless system (above) works the same way. And both companies say their wireless systems transfer perfectly uncompressed data up to 30 feet away from the TV.

Neither company provided a price estimate, but since these are 47 to 55-inch TVs we’re talking about, I’d guess somewhere around $3,000.

Panasonic said its wireless home entertainment system is shipping June or July. LG did not have a ship date but said sometime 2009.

Photos: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

We just sat down with Palm for a more in-depth look at the device, and here are our takeaways. First off, the software and hardware they’re showing right now aren’t the final versions. They’re updating and tweaking as we speak, so some of the features haven’t been implemented yet. Our take? Check it all out after the break, along with video, a full spec rundown… and in case you’re wondering… it rhymes with Tree!

Continue reading Palm Pre in-depth impressions, video, and huge hands-on gallery

Filed under: Cellphones, CES

Palm Pre in-depth impressions, video, and huge hands-on gallery originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

LAS VEGAS — Sony has invented the webcam. Or at least, it has put the web into a cam. At CES 2009, the company debuted Cybershot DSC-G3, the first camera to have built in 802.11 (b,g) Wi-Fi along with a web browser.

As a camera, it’s no slouch. Ten megapixels, a 10x zoom, a hi-res 921,600-dot 3.5 inch touchscreen and smile detection. There is a decent 4GB memory built in, but if you want more you will of course have to buy a Sony Memory Stick.

Of course, the Wi-Fi is the interesting point here. You can hook up to any Wi-Fi point and using the browser you can also sign in to hotspots. From there, you can upload directly to Photobucket, YouTube, DailyMotion, Picasa and Shutterfly but, oddly, not Flickr.

The real gimmick, though, is the browser, and it is terrible. Buttons disappear half off the screen in forms, html links are tiny and hard to click (hence the plastic stylus on the end of the strap) and if you think you’ll be browsing your online photo collection you’re dead wrong. This is strictly html only, Web 1.0. No Flash, no Javascript.

You’re never going to have an iPhone-like experience here (except for the parity in the lack of Flash). In fact, its hard to see why Sony bother putting it in. In fact, if you need the uploading functions, just grab an Eye-Fi card instead.

Priced at $500, you can buy it now only at SonyStyle, coming to stores soon.

Product page [SonyStyle]

LAS VEGAS — With its new Palm Pre phone announced earlier today, troubled phone maker Palm has clearly put itself back into the game.

The spotlight is clearly on the slick hardware but Palm is betting its secret sauce, its newly created operating system, WebOS, will give the Pre an edge over competitors.

"We created a new platform from the ground up," said Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm at CES 2009. "It is going to redefine the center of your access point to the Internet."

A key feature of WebOS is the Palm Synergy, which brings different information from calendars, contacts and instant messaging applications into a single screen.

WebOS links contacts together so if the same contact is listed in Outlook, Google and Facebook accounts, it recognizes that they are the same person and links them together into one listing.

There’s also combined messaging, which allows you to see who’s active in a buddy list and start a conversation with just one touch, instead of having to fire up the IM application seperately.

The OS treats every application as a "card", a new term that Palm has introduced with the Pre. Cards or individual applications are stacked up like a deck on the main screen and can be scrolled through.

WebOS also comes with global search– any search string typed on the phone searches through contacts, applications and other information repositories on the device. The OS also offers to search the Internet, all in a seamless way.

While Palm has said the WebOS is developer friendly, it hasn’t commented about how applications written for WebOS will be compatible with Palm OS 5.

Behold! The glory of Engadget’s CES Coverage, Day two: Watch phones, Android tablets, Vaio P’s, and press conferences by the fistful. Josh, Paul, and Nilay (who finally got his grubby mitts on a microphone) gather ’round the campfire to ponder the intricacies of the last day before the show floor opens up and the first “really real” day of CES begins. (This was recorded last night before the Palm new-ness hit, we’ll be recording impressions about that and should have them up tomorrow).

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Beat It

02:55 – Cisco CES press conference
07:31 – Live from Steve Ballmer’s CES keynote
29:02 – Live from Sony’s CES press event
32:39 – Sony VAIO P hands-on
42:39 – GiiNii’s Movit Mini WiFi Android tablet hands-on
46:37 – LG’s GD910 wrist phone in action

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 125 – 01.08.2009: CES day two originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments