Here we go again, eh? Vizio‘s hitting us up with yet another round of wares here at CES, starting with a trio of Razor LED sets that are designed to watch mobile TV. The 9-inch VMB090 and 10-inch VMB100 are among the first to use the new ATSC-M/H standard and ship with an HDMI 1.4 input, while the 7-inch VMB070 holds it down on the low end. The whole trio arrive in enclosures that are less than 1-inch thick, though you’ll only really enjoy the integrated antenna if you live in a spot where the broadcasts are available. Speaking of, none of these will be available until “later this year,” with prices set for $149.99, $199.99 and $229.99. Moving on, the company’s outing 2.1 and 5.1 channel wireless surround home theater systems, wireless headphones and stereo Bluetooth headphones, and if you’re super interested in learning more about the bevy of options there, give those source links a tick of your attention.
Vizio digs into mobile TV market with three Razor LED TVs, other wild audio products originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Kensington Wall Ultra Compact Notebook Power Adapter: more compact than your notebook power adapter originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading NeoVue HD video streaming platform announced at CES
NeoVue HD video streaming platform announced at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LAS VEGAS — Everybody is showing off new e-readers at CES this year, and Samsung is no exception. But there is one reason for you to keep reading this post. With Samsung’s e-book, you can write on the pages.
We knew e-books would be a hot item at this year’s show, but the surprise is that there are so many large format readers. Samsung’s small range tops out with a 10-incher, which joins the Kindle DX in its new international clothing, and Plastic Logic’s enormous 8.5 x 11-inch Que proReader.
Samsung’s e-books, the E6 and E101, look just like any other black and white e-ink device. When you’re done reading either of the 6- or 10-inch books, though, you can pull out a stylus and start scrawling. These sticks come in various thicknesses and use “electromagnetic resonance” to draw lines on the page.
The smaller readers also have secret, slide-out controls hidden behind the screen, and an on-screen, soft QWERTY lets you type real text — your stylus scribblings remain just that, and are not automagically transformed into actual text. Still, its a lot easier to jot notes on top of your pages than to do it the Kindle way and tortuously tap out text on the chiclet keyboard.
The readers grab content over Wi-Fi (no 3G) and can display PDF, ePub and plain text files. I played with them briefly at Samsung’s stand (”No pictures, sir. It’s our policy this year.”) and took some pictures. The e-ink screen is much the same as any other, but when using the stylus to navigate, the local refreshing that draws menus is cleaner (but no quicker) than, say, the Kindle.
The navigation itself is clunky, and you never know whether you should be pressing an actual button, touching the stylus to the screen or using a finger (hint: fingers don’t work). Drawing, though, is responsive, and just like using a real pencil.
The e-readers need some work, and feel like the prototypes they are. Hopefully, there will be some additional polish before these go to market, otherwise it will be yet another rushed product hoping to grab some sales from the flawed leader, the Kindle. Also, a quick question to the visitor at the Samsung stand who asked, “Just what is the main difference between this and the iPod Touch?” Are you serious?
$400 or $700, depending on size. And don’t say “Magna-doodle.” The pictured prototype with a hardware keyboard does not yet have a price.
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Samsung Unveils Its First E-Book for Reading, Writing and Sharing On-The-Go [Samsung]
Verizon’s MiFi was one of our favorite products of 2009: It takes a 3G wireless data signal and turns it into a Wi-Fi hot spot.
Now Sprint has one-upped Verizon with the Overdrive, which takes a 4G signal and turns it into a Wi-Fi hot spot.
On Sprint’s WiMax-based 4G network, the Overdrive, which is about the size of a drink coaster, will reliably deliver 3 to 4 Mbps of download bandwidth, Sprint executives say, with peak speeds as fast as 10 Mbps. Upload speeds will be slower, but could peak as fast as 4.5 Mbps.
Because the 4G network isn’t available everywhere yet, the Overdrive also works with Sprint’s widely deployed 3G network, which delivers 600 Kbps down and 100 Kbps up, Sprint says.
The router then takes that internet connection and blasts it out as an 802.11b/g signal, with an “extended range” of up to 150 feet. It will support up to five simultaneous device connections.
In demos, the Overdrive router was used to deliver streaming Netflix movies, Skype conversations, and webcam views simultaneously.
Overdrive also contains a GPS receiver (accessible to network applications via a programming interface Sprint provides) and a MicroSD card slot, which can be used to store up to 16 GB of data for local access.
Overdrive will sell for $100 with a 2-year contract at $60 per month for unlimited 4G data downloads, and up to 5 GB of monthly data on the 3G network.
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Photo: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com
LAS VEGAS — Dell is poised to flood the market with a whole range of tablets, from tiny iPhone-sized handsets to big media players. At CES this morning, Dell’s marketing boss Michael Tatelman gave us a teasing sneak peek.
The handset he showed us, seen above, is a skinny sliver with a 5-inch screen and runs the Android operating system. It will probably never make it into stores, but Tatelman said that there are plenty of tablets, of all shapes, sizes and operating systems living in the Dell labs and aimed at going on sale as soon as possible.
What really surprised us, though, is how Tatelman referred to it. He introduced the handset and said “I believe they are known as slates.” He’s not the only one. At Microsoft’s CES keynote yesterday, CEO Steve Ballmer also called his company’s new line of tablets* “slates”.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has one take on this. “I honestly think Microsoft renamed these things on the basis on a rumored name for Apple’s tablet, just to try to fuck with them” he writes.
What is extraordinary is that, whatever their reasons, both Dell and Microsoft are naming devices based on rumors that Apple has the trademark and domain name for “iSlate.” The mythical tech-unicorn that Apple may or may not announce later this month is has already created an entire new product category based on nothing but speculation. How’s that for influence?
*Which are exactly the same as the failed tablets of yesteryear, only running Windows 7 instead of XP, both of which are designed for desktop computers.
LAS VEGAS — Microsoft and Dell aren’t the only ones trying to beat Apple to releasing a tablet. Sony has introduced a sort-of tablet, too. It’s called the Dash.
The 7-inch, wedge-shaped touchscreen device is designed to stand upright for viewing on a table or a nightstand, or laid down flat on your lap. The gadget displays content via widgets from Chumby.com, which provides access to sites such as Yelp, Facebook, New York Times and Google News. The Dash connects to Wi-Fi networks.
Wired.com tried to get some hands-on time with the Dash, but Sony was only playing a demo video on the device due to a lack of consistent Wi-Fi connection in the conference room. We can tell you this much: The screen looks nice, but we can’t imagine this will pose as competition to Apple’s touchscreen tablet, rumored for an announcement Jan. 27.
Sony is marketing the Dash as a “personal application viewer.” Surprisingly the company did not call the Dash a “slate,” like Steve Ballmer did with a Windows 7 tablet he introduced Wednesday playing off rumors that the Apple tablet is called iSlate. And here we thought Sony was trying to reclaim its coolness.
Shipping in April, the Dash costs $200.
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Photo: Sony
LAS VEGAS — Along with the tiny, powerful Alienware M11X, Dell has also updated the Mini 10 netbook, proving the company’s CES PR spin that it is obsessed with cramming hot tech into tiny boxes.
The new Mini 10 comes with the usual netbook accouterments: an Atom N450 processor, a gig of RAM, up to 250GB of HD space and a small ten-inch screen. What is new, though, is the souped-up high-def hardware.
Being a Dell, the hardware is almost infinitely customizable at point-of-sale, so we’ll talk about the hypothetical best configuration, which is the one Dell wants you to buy. The tiny screen can playback 720p movies (1366×768 pixels) and the machine has an HD processor chip in there to handle it. Also inside is a hi-def TV tuner, and GPS for location services.
I took a look at the new machine, in fetching hot pink, at Dell’s CES lounge, located out in the wilds of Vegas at the Palms Resort Hotel (it feels like the low-rent casino in Swingers). Windows 7 choked on a weirdly encoded video, but once working it looked great. I thought HD on a ten-inch screen was a waste of time, but it is actually a nice way to watch video, and with the nine hour battery life, a good companion on a plane or train.
This unit had a Dell sound-bar running along the top, to boost the sound. It boosted it indeed, making the thin, hissing, music thinner, hissier and louder. It beats the standard netbook speaker setup, but you’d do better plugging in a pair of headphones.
Available this month, prices rise from $300 as soon as you add any useful features.
When the lights went out at Microsoft’s CES keynote Wednesday, wags quickly dubbed it the “Black Stage of Doom” — a reference to the so-called black screen of death glitch that reportedly affected a small number of Windows 7 users last year.
Lights at the conference were quickly restored, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s presentation went off without another glitch, but that didn’t stop some audience members from having a field day.
“Massively underwhelming,” commented one Wired.com reader of the keynote, posting under the handle RabidAppleFanboi. “But I liked the melodramatic Black Stage of Doom, as some have described it. It added an edginess, a steely tension to the entire presentation. Would the stage be plunged into darkness again? Would this new and previously unseen form of BSOD strike twice at the very heart of CES?”
Microsoft has fended off criticism over catastrophic OS failures since the mid-1990s, though the occurrences are far less common these days. The original BSOD was the “blue screen of death,” a notorious operating system crash prevalent in earlier versions of Windows. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates even saw Windows 98 crash during one of his presentations on live TV.
The company told Wired.com the temporary blackout at CES was unrelated to Microsoft’s products.
“It was a problem with the hotel’s HVAC system,” a Microsoft representative said. “It was a silly, non-Microsoft problem that had a pretty big ramification for the keynote. That’s really all it was.”
Read more: Microsoft Touts Home Entertainment at CES Keynote
Wired.com’s Brian X. Chen contributed to this report.
A Microsoft employee works to restore power after the lights went out just prior to CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote presentation at CES on Jan. 6, 2010.
Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com
Top photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com
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