Jan 10

Gearlog’s Top Gadget of CES 2011

Posted in: Today's Chili
ces_logo.jpeg

It was a long week. Long but fulfilling, full of those sort of days where you fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow. We walked the entire show floor once again this year, in search of the coolest, most cutting edge, and most life changing gadgets–and we saw plenty. We saw phones and laptops and music players and cameras–and so, so many tablets.

Honestly, it was tough to narrow the list down to a single product in such a big show so jam-packed with awesome technology. But somehow we managed. 
After the jump, check out our pick for the Top Gadget of CES
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Jan 10

The Nabaztag Gets New Life at CES as The Karotz

Posted in: Robots, Tech Toys, Today's Chili, Toys

KarotzRemember Nabaztag? He’s the adorable digital rabbit that sits on your desk, changes color with the weather, reads your RSS feeds aloud to you, and can even let you know when there’s new e-mail or messages in your inbox waiting for you. 

At CES this year, the makers of Nabaztag unveiled a new sibling for the rabbit called Karotz, which has most of the same features, but this model can communicate directly to other Karotz rabbits elsewhere in the world via phone call. 
Karotz also has an app store so you can add new features to him, and an open API that you can use to develop your own apps. He’s not available just yet, but when he is he’ll set you back $130 list price.
 
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Jan 10

Cambridge Unveils the iD100 iPhone and iPad Dock

Posted in: ipad, iPhone, MP3 Digital Audio, Today's Chili

Cambridge iD100

CES 2011 may be over, but the product releases are still going strong, with new products slated to hit the market later in the year making their appearances. Among them is the new Cambridge iD100 iPhone and iPad Dock, which Cambridge can “transform the iPad into a true audiophile device.” 
The iD100 is a docking station that will support the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch when it’s released later this spring, and is designed to provide clear audio and video out from your device to your home theater or HDTV. 
The iD100 will feature S/P-DIF outputs, optical audio, and digital audio outputs, and component, composite, and S-video video outputs on the back, as well as and IR input for remote controls and a USB port to sync your docked iOS device with your PC or Mac. When it’s available, Cambridge says it will retail for $279.
 
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Jan 10

CES 2011: Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, Tablets, and Tablets

Posted in: tablets, Today's Chili
moto tablet finger.jpg
As predicted, 2011 was there year of the tablet at CES. So, so many tablets. Just a staggeringly huge, ungodly number of tablets. Just before the show officially started on Thursday, the Consumer Electronics Association, the organization behind the show, issued a release stating that some 80 tablets were set to be launched at the show. Having walked the floor of the entire thing over the past few days, I think it’s safe to say that the association was low balling that number.
After 2010 proved a giant year for Apple’s iPad (becoming, really, the first hugely commercially successful consumer tablet), a number of high profile companies rushed to provide an competitor. Here at Gearlog, we’ve already shown you new tablets from Samsung, RIM (BlackBerry), Motorola, ASUS, Lenovo, MSI, Creative, Coby, Toshiba, E Fun, AHX, a gaming tablet from Cosmos, a baby tablet by Rullingnet, Motion Computing, and a dual-boot device from a company called Azpen.
But believe it or not, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I saw so many more tablets in Vegas last week, that it’s frankly a bit impossible to keep track of them all. In fact, there are too many to fit into a single post. After the jump, you’ll find a huge cross section of the tablets I saw–not all of the, however. After all, many of them really looked identical to the iPad–particularly in the International Hall. I suppose there’s only so much companies can do with a slate form factor.
That said, there are still plenty of interesting entries after the jump.
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Jan 10

Motorola Xoom Tablet: Shipping As Many as 800,000 in First Quarter

Posted in: motorola, Today's Chili, xoom

moto tablet point.jpg

Motorola’s scored all manner of accolades last week with the introduction of the Xoom tablet. Even during a show in which some 80 different iPad competitors were launched, the company garnered all manner of buzz and took home a handful of Best of Show awards over the course of the week.

According to a new report from Taipei-based tech rumor source DigiTimes, the company is expected to ship between 700,000 and 800,000 of its Honeycomb-based Android tablet in the first quarter of the year. The site hasn’t named any sources, but suppliers Catcher, Apple contributor Foxconn, Taiwan Chi Cheng, and Silitech are all said to be involved in the manufacturing process.

Motorola’s tablet will hit store shelves in the first quarter of this year. It features a 10.1 inch screen, front and rear facing cameras, and packs an Nvidia Tegra 2: 1 GHz dual-core processor inside.

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Jan 09

MSI WinPad Close Up

Posted in: msi, tablets, Today's Chili

msiw_wind_tablet.jpg

As my flight back from Las Vegas begins its initial descent into New York, it’s time for one final (I hope!) tablet for the weekend. The semi-dubious honor hoes to MSI, which showed off two new WinPad tablets–the 100W and 100A–that’s “W” for Windows 7 and “A” for Android.
The tablets still have a bit of time before hitting the market–look for them in about three months to go before release. The 100W sports a 1.66GHz Atom Menlow Z530 CPU, 32GB of storage, and 2GB of RAM. The Android device, meanwhile, has an ARM Cortex A8 1GB of RAM.
 Check out some fingerprint smudged close up shots of the 100W, after the jump.

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Jan 09

Creative Ziio Tablet Up Close

Posted in: tablet, Today's Chili

ziio7full.jpg

What, you thought the folks at Creative were going to sit out tablet mania? Heck no. The company joined just about every other consumer electronics manufacturer around with the recent introduction of two new tablets–a 10- and 7 inch Ziio.
The above shot is the seven inch. The tablet is available in 8- and 16GB capacities for $250 and $270. The seven inch screen is a resistive 800×480 touchscreen. There’s an HDMI out, so you can stream 1080p video from the device.

We played around with the Ziio a bit at the show, and it really feels like a fairly low end device–something that cheap price point reflects. The Ziio is shipping now. Check out some more shots of the device, after the jump.

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Jan 07

CES: HyperMac Starts Selling Batteries Again with Connector Kits for Mac

Posted in: Apple, lawsuit, Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

CES - HyperMac - iPod Battery

The HyperMac/HyperJuice legal saga started in September when Apple sued the company for using and selling its MagSafe and iPod Dock Connector power adapters with their external battery packs. Things got interesting when, as part of a deal to avoid a drawn-out legal battle with Apple, the company decided to rebrand to HyperJuice instead and stop selling the battery packs entirely in November. 
Today, Sanho Corporation (parent company of HyperMac) CEO Daniel Chin announced that HyperMac is back, selling their external battery packs again, and offering two new ways for buyers to connect their battery packs to their MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air. 
First, each HyperMac battery will include an airline/auto adapter for charging. The adapter will plug directly into Apple’s own airline MagSafe adapter, which users will have to buy directly from Apple if they want to use this method. The second option is to purchase a HyperMac battery with a DIY kit that allows you to transform an Apple power adapter into one that can be used to connect the battery to your Mac. Both versions, along with HyperMac’s range of external battery packs, are available for purchase now at HyperMac’s Web site.
 
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Jan 07

Chumby 8 Debuts

Posted in: Today's Chili

chumby.JPG

Meet the new Chumby — slightly better than the old Chumby. The latest model in the line of adorable personal Internet devices features a larger eight-inch (hence the “8” in the name) 800-by-600 resistive touchscreen and a revamped user interface.
The picture frame-looking device makes it easier for users to discover content like music and apps from the homepage. The device currently has access to more than 1,500 apps, including e-mail, weather, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, plus media like Pandora, The New York Times, and podcasts from CBS.
The device sports 2GB of memory 128MG of RAM, an 800MHz Marvell ARMADA, 802.11b/g, and a dimmable backlight.
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Jan 06

A Tablet! For Babies!

Posted in: tablets, Today's Chili

Baby Tablet.JPG

Hey, it’s yet another tablet. Of course, this one has a very important distinction–it’s for those tiny humans we call babies. The above tablet is a prototype of the Vinci, a forthcoming tablet aimed firmly at people with soft spots in their developing skulls.
The device was designed by a company called Rullingnet. It’s a pretty standard looking tablet surrounded by a silicon guard. The Vinci comes pre-loaded with games for babies–educational ones designed to “inspire the genius in our children.” The game I saw demoed taught kids not to eat teddybears (seriously). Genius? Maybe not, but certainly a valueable lesson for those who don’t want to end up with a face full of stuffing.
The company is trying to get the product out in the first half of this year. No word on price, but a rep told me that they’re gunning for between $300 and $500. A pretty pricey teething ring, no doubt.
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