Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been hearing a fair amount about the Sifteo Cubes over the past couple of years, but we haven’t had nearly enough opportunities to actually see the things in action. The company’s president and co-founder Dave Merrill will be kicking off the second day of our CES stage by taking the unique and uniquely adorable gaming platforms for a spin.

Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!

Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Sifteo’s Dave Merrill

Filed under: Gaming

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More than a few companies are taking up the fight against waterlogged gadgets (heck, there was one at ShowStoppers last night) but California-based Liquipel has quickly become one of the most interesting.

The company announced yesterday that it tweaked its formula to create an even more effective 2.0 version of its water-resistant nanocoating, but they’ve done much more than just that. What seems way more compelling is that the company unveiled its 4′x 4′ Liquipod treatment machine, which is small enough to nanocoat people’s hardware just about anywhere.

Liquipel already has a bit of experience with this sort of thing — in addition to treating devices at its home base in Santa Ana, California, it opened up its own retail location in Hong Kong back in September at which a much larger version of the nanocoating device is the star of the show. The first Liquipod is slated to make its debut in yet another Liquipel-branded store that’s slated to open its doors in February in the West Edmonton Mall in Canada. With any luck that’s only the beginning — CEO Kevin Bacon (yes, really) intimated to TechCrunch at a small event earlier this year that the company was working on a slew of retail partnerships as well.

Sure, a key part of Liquipel’s retail push will be its own retail outlets, but the small size of the new Liquipod makes the notion of opening up standalone kiosks inside malls and other stores surprisingly feasible. Though Bacon wouldn’t talk much about the nature of the talks he’s been having (or, naturally, who he’s been having them with), the general concept is that interested stores will be able to lease a Liquipod from the company and charge consumers roughly $60 to have their devices treated right in front of them. All after-care will be handled by Liquipel directly, and they’ve got quite a warranty here — they’ll replace any treated device that gets fouled up by liquid. Representatives on the floor here at CES admitted that the company was looking to be in “hundreds of stores” in the United States in 2014, with the first of those stores getting Liquipods in late 2013.

Of course, there are some caveats. For all the upgrades that Liquipel has made to its coating, they still won’t treat any ol’ device the coating can’t reliably be applied to devices with physical keyboards (sorry BlackBerry fans), and it doesn’t magically turn your iPhone into a submarine capable of long-term jaunts undersea. All that said though, this could prove to be a very lucrative turn for Liquipel… so long as they strike the right retail deals.

Archos first announced its TV Connect ahead of CES 2013, which detailed a two-device approach to bringing the Android experience to televisions. On one end is an HD camera mounted either to the top of your television or set up as a stand, and at the other end is an enormous remote control — what Archos is calling the “TV Touch remote.” The camera end of things also contains a 1.5GHz “multi-core” CPU, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage, all of which powers the experience. Sadly, with a mess of WiFi signals and Bluetooth devices at the Las Vegas Convention Center (TV Connect included), navigating TV Connect’s Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean interface could only be done via physical buttons — the TV Touch remote is otherwise advertised to interact with the camera by placing a cursor on screen, navigable by physically pointing the giant remote at your screen.

In our hands-on time, not only was the cursor bugging out, but the Bluetooth connection dropped altogether at one point. It’s possible that this was just a measure of the demo area’s constraints, of course; we’re reserving judgment until we can test it in our own homes. When it was working, it operated like you’d expect Android to operate. We were able to jump quickly from Google Maps to a game just as easily as you would on any standard Android device, albeit on the big screen. And that’s quite a promising concept — pushing not only apps like YouTube and Netflix to the TV, but more importantly, Google’s Play store. That means games (controllable with the TV Touch remote), media, and more. Whether it’s as exciting as it sounds remains to be seen, but we’ll be sure to find out before it arrives at retail this February for $130. Take a peek at TV Connect in use in our hands-on video, just below.

Continue reading Hands-on with Archos TV Connect (video)

Filed under: Displays, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Household, Peripherals, HD

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When it comes to launching a groundbreaking flagship video camera at CES, JVC’s got previous. The company has outed the Procision GC-PX100, a 1,920 x 1,080 camcorder that shoots at 36Mbps, a bit-rate that the company claims makes it perfect for slow-motion and special effects work. Light will be pouring forth into a F/1.2 lens, a 1/2.3-inch 12.8-megapixel backside illuminated CMOS censor with optical image stabilization. JVC is claiming that it’s capable of cranking out 600 frames per second and shoot still images in bursts of nine frames a second — although not at the same time. When you’re done, you can push the footage straight to your smartphone or tablet over WiFi and the company is also offering a mobile app that’ll let sports coaches analyze their players movement in staggering detail. It’ll be available in March, but you’d better all of that athletic scrutiny is worth it, as it’ll set you back $1,000.

At the same time, the company’s outing a game of Everio camcorders, with the entry-level GX-E100 setting you back $230 for the most basic model the company can offer. At the other end of the range, the $500 GZ-VX815 offers a f/1.2 lens, a 12.8-megapixel sensor and WiFi when it goes on sale in March.

Continue reading JVC launches Procision slow-mo HD camcorder, refreshed Everio line at CES

Filed under: Cameras

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Sure, CES isn’t all fun and games, but, well, sometimes it’s exactly that. Like when Stern Pinball CEO Gary Stern pays a visit to our CES stage and brings along his company’s latest, the Transformers Pin. This isn’t just any old pinball machine — it’s a home unit, aimed at the large portion of the pinball-buying audience looking to bring silver ball to their humble abodes, available though outlets like Amazon with a price tag well under those of the company’s pro units.

It’s also noticeably smaller than those machines — in fact, if you give it a bit of the old body English during play, you can actually scoot the machine a bit. The back glass is also not quite as grand as those on its professional siblings, but it’s still got a working display for scrolls and the requisite text crawl. The playfield, meanwhile, is pretty close to the real deal. Stern’s clearly expert in making flippers, bumpers and the like, and many of those components went into the making of this machine.

Continue reading Stern Pinball’s Transformers Pin home game hands-on (video)

Filed under: Gaming

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