Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve been listening to the Engadget Podcast, you know that Taiwan’s Dr. Mobile is our new favorite fly-by-night Asian netbook vendor, and VIA’s showing off its Nano-powered Freestyle Mini here at CES in a darkened restaurant. (Seriously!) Internally, it’s basically a smaller version of the 11.6-inch Freestyle we played with a few days ago, but it’s in a more traditional netbook package with an 8.9-inch screen. We were pretty blunt in asking the VIA rep why the Nano’s basically been a no-show during 2008’s Atom explosion, and while we didn’t get a straight answer, it sounds like 2009 might be the year the battle for netbook platform dominance is finally joined — the Freestyle and the Freestyle Mini should be available in the next few months. Dr. Mobile, paging Dr. Mobile.

Filed under: Laptops

VIA shows off Nano-powered Dr. Mobile Freestyle Mini originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Victorinox — makers of the original Swiss Army knife — made its first trek to CES with this, its new Presentation Pro. Tucked away with insane precision are a removable 32GB USB drive with fingerprint authentication, laser pointer, and Bluetooth remote control for your Windows-only PC or laptop presentations. Yep, key ring and scissors too. It even features a blade to fight off your enemies and a file to scrape away any fingerprints after the deed is done. We went hands on with the device and were truly impressed with the build quality. Here’s the rub: it’ll cost you $330 when it ships in May. Did we say it had a laser?

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

Victorinox Presentation Pro floated by the Swiss army originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We stopped by Creative’s booth to see what the haps was with the Zii earlier, and… well, there wasn’t a ton going on there, but we wanted to document the experience for you anyway. What we saw didn’t enhance our knowledge of what we learned earlier in the day: the system-on-chip architecture for media applications (the first part being the ZMO5 Media-Rich System-On-Chip which is apparently a newer version of 3DLABS’s DMS-02 chip) is touted as a springboard for commercial applications — and we hear that at least PowerLinux has signed on to use the platform for an advanced video conferencing system. Sounds exhaustingly exciting right? And it was. Creative doesn’t want anyone getting too close to their components — they were all encased in glass — but check the gallery after the break for what we did see.

Filed under: CES, Desktops

Eyes-on the Creative Zii (or parts of it, anyway) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was just a short year ago that we went to Fulton Innovation’s tiny booth at CES and failed to get a working wireless power demo, but a lot’s happened since then — the company is at CES 2009 in force, with a much larger, swanker booth, partners like Energizer and Motorola demoing working products, and tons of working real-world examples of the tech in action. We were particularly taken with the modded Dish DVR that automatically turned itself on and off when the remote was placed on top of it to charge up — oh, and the remote featured super-capacitors instead of batteries that charge fully in 10 seconds. There were also a ton of cell phones (including a modded iPhone, of course), new cooking demos featuring a blender, and a super cool Leggett & Pratt power tool charging workbench. Extremely impressive, all in all — we’re starting to think that 2009 could be the year that wireless power could really take off. Gallery below, video after the break!

P.S.- We asked if Fulton had anything to do with the Palm Pre’s sexy Touchstone wireless charger, but the guys in the booth didn’t know. We’ll let you know if we find anything out.

Continue reading Fulton Innovation has a wireless power coming out party at CES

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Fulton Innovation has a wireless power coming out party at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was at last year’s CES that we first got our hands on iRobot’s Looj, and while easy gutter cleaning is something most homeowners can appreciate, the thing did have some issues that left many users tossing the things out with the decomposing crud it was supposed to fling. Enter the Looj second generation, which includes a flexible auger that should keep the thing from flipping itself over, a tool-free battery door, and a faster reverse speed to get the thing back to your ladder in half the time. Nothing revolutionary, but some much-needed updates that will be available this spring for $129, and we were impressed with the sheer spite the thing displayed against a mock gutter full of faux leaves. Video below — user discretion advised.

Continue reading Video: iRobot Looj hands on shows improved leaf carnage

Filed under: CES, Household

Video: iRobot Looj hands on shows improved leaf carnage originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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