Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been five months since we first heard about the convertible Classmate PC, and now we’ve finally gotten a chance to get our hands on it at the Intel booth. It feels pretty durable — especially that kind of important display swivel — but we take issue with how lopsided the weight is towards the back. The Quick Launcher Windows XP shell lives up to the name and is indeed very fast and easy to navigate. When we rotated the tablet on its side, however, the interface awkwardly fills in only the top half. According to the rep, there’s no US distributor yet for retail. Glamor shots in the gallery, or check out video after the break. Is it too much to ask for capacitive multitouch next time?

Continue reading Video: Intel’s convertible Classmate PC hands-on

Filed under: CES, Laptops, Tablet PCs

Video: Intel’s convertible Classmate PC hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll be honest — we’re totally in love with Gibson’s Dark Fire guitar. The $3,499 update to the Robot guitar we played with at CES last year is lighter, faster, easier to use and features new Chameleon Tone technology that actually reconfigures the individual pickups to deliver different sounds. The FireWire / MIDI breakout box enables you to record directly to a computer, but you can also tweak presets and control the guitar from the included Ableton Live / Guitar Rig bundle. It’s seriously hot — and it’s even hotter when it’s being demoed by German inventor Chris Adams, who might be the single coolest dude at CES. Check it out after the break!

Gallery: Gibson Dark Fire hands-on

Continue reading Video: Gibson Dark Fire guitar hands-on

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Video: Gibson Dark Fire guitar hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At CES, not even the toys are all fun and games. Take Paro, the animatronic baby seal from Japan. It’s cute as hell, sure, but Paro also serves a much nobler purpose.

Referred to as a “healing pet,” Paro is created to serve as animal therapy for patients, without having to go through the sort of troubles that real life animals pose. According to the representative we spoke with, Paro has been around for a number of years. It shows.

The little seal is surprisingly lifelike a receptive. He responds to touch and sound and can actually learn behavior over time. Paro has recently hit US shores.

Check out a video of Paro in action, after the jump.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin is concerned that a proposal from the Obama team to delay the DTV transition would cause consumer confusion.

“I recognize that we have a problem [and it’s] something we need to make sure gets addressed, but I am concerned about the confusion” it might cause, Martin said during a Saturday appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Amidst reports that the government-run converter box coupon program is underfunded and that some stations might go black on Feb. 17 due to a “digital cliff,” President-elect Obama’s transition team this week sent a letter to Congress suggesting that the federally mandated Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital broadcasts be delayed.

“Ultimately this is Congress’ decision” because they picked the Feb. 17 date, but there are other options besides delaying the date, Martin said, including removing funding restrictions imposed by the Anti-Deficiency Act and lifting the 90-day expiration date on the $40 converter box coupons.

We’ve been trying to get a legitimate hands-on with Sony’s OLED-infused Walkman since we first caught the device on Wednesday, but security’s been super tight in the Sony booth and we couldn’t distract anyone long enough to unscrew the casing. So we can’t get an actual hands-on with the Walkman, but we don’t need to touch it to know that the OLED is seriously gorgeous and the UI looks super crisp. Sony’s reluctance to pull this out of its casing seems to show the player’s not ready for primetime, but we’ll keep trying to get something a bit more gratifying.

Update: Engadget Spanish got a video of the device in action, so check after the jump if you wanna see more and learn a little español.

Continue reading Sony OLED Walkman NWZ-X1000 eyes-on

Filed under: CES, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony OLED Walkman NWZ-X1000 eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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