In case you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to take the cart from Central Hall to North Hall (I think that’s where I was going), now you have a chance.
Click on for the speed and the glory of the CES golf ride. For the extremely lazy or fatigued only.
We were actually really nice to people at CES, mostly because we were mostly drunk, but Ben Hoffman did the hard work of calling CE people out on their bull.
CES is over, but I’m still finding things on my camera that I never got to report. For instance, I saw the Silverstone booth and thought they might be showing their Raven mouse. Its most obvious feature is that enormous scrolling thumb-wheel, which few if any mice have something comparable to. I gave it a quick spin while on the lookout for booth babes.
We’re all officially home; safe and sound, tired and broken. Another year of not eating all day following by drinking all night, backpacks never leaving our shoulders, our fingers still involuntarily typing even though our notebooks have been shut down for hours.
All in all, it was a good CES this year.
The theme of this years CES seems to have been connectivity. Between Netflix being in everything, and the Palm Pre, it seems like the major focus is connecting your gadgets together, and doing it well. Along that vein, JVC has announced several new products with integrated connectivity options.
Here’s a quick glance at IOGEAR’s Wireless USB-to-VGA kit. It consists of an ultra wideband (UWB) USB adapter that plugs into your computer and a VGA receiver that mounts behind your TV.
Here’s Mattel’s “Barbie Digital Nail Printer” due out in August for an undetermined price. Which design will I choose for my own nail? Find out after the jump…
Greg and I got a chance to flail about on ION’s premium Rock Band drum set in the final hours of CES. Greg played Bad Reputation as though he’d been secretly having an affair with Joan Jett for years and I paid homage to my home city of Boston by tearing through Where’d You Go? by the Bosstones.
Long day at work? Rock Band in a truck. Pre-wedding jitters? Rock Band in a truck. Hanging out in a big open field before a Phish concert? Rock Band in a truck + grilled cheese sandwiches.
Want to get people to your CES booth? Rock Band in a truck.
Although CES is generously provided with outlets for our charging needs, I decided that the power that comes out of them, like everything else in Vegas, is dirty. So Doug and I headed over to the SkyCharger, a big solar- and wind-powered charging facility housed in a tent outside the central hall.
Who would have thought that one of the coolest things we’ve seen at CES would be hidden in a 10×10 booth at the very back of the South Hall? Like a diamond in the rough, there sat the PQ Labs iTablet.
They’ve essentially taken the idea behind the Microsoft Surface and have done it better in every way. It’s cheaper, it’s gorgeous, and perhaps most notably, it’s not a hulking monster.
CES was alive that day, my friends. The show-goers were itching for something new, something more, something raw. Enough gadgets, enough booths, enough walking. What we all needed was some good, old-fashioned rock and/or roll.
I’ve been thinking of you, dear reader, and that’s why I custom-designed a pair of CrunchGear-colored headphones from iFrogz. I stopped by the booth to pick them up (for you) and found a few new things. They now have fluffy earpieces, which is kind of awesome (and warm), and they are also making a cool little attachment for your iPod so kids can use it without breaking the thing. Having been a preschool teacher for a couple years, I can say that I think it might actually work. Parents, take note.
And everyone else, check inside for details on how to win a pair of CG-colored headphones! (bumped, and updated with a pic of the headphones)
I had a long and interesting chat with Razer’s president about the development of the first wireless mouse the company has put out. Of course, it’s not just wireless, it’s also wired, making it what he termed the first “convertible” mouse. At last, you can use a mouse while it’s charging!
Click on for pictures and video of what is likely to be my new favorite mouse.
I found this abomination in the North Hall at CES. I don’t know what the hell it is nor what random company commissioned this disaster. I was too dumbstruck to get any details. Who care anyway? Gallery after the jump.
If you’re not familiar with “Survivorman,” shame on you. Survival expert Les Stroud has stranded himself for a week in a ton of godforsaken (but beautiful) places with nothing but a multitool and a bunch of camera gear (unlike that other guy). The result is an extremely good show called “Survivorman.” Les was here at CES to talk up Sony’s equipment, which he’s used exclusively on his shows and which he believes is the best stuff on the market for the kind of dirty, dangerous guerilla filming he has to do.
Les does all his own shooting and is doing a lot of editing as well. We talked about what he needs out of his equipment, what could be improved, and what you can expect to face if you decide you want to film yourself surviving in a rainforest for a week.
Earlier today we got a bit of face time with HP’s 13-pound prototype laptop dubbed Firefly. This large monstrosity packs a heap of goods like an Intel quad-core proc, secondary screen, dual graphics cards and ‘5.1 sound’. The Firefly has four speakers plus a subwoofer that is placed under the wrist rest. Strange, I know. Sound quality was pretty good but the bass coming out of the wrist rest was weird.
This Beertube was given to us by a charming young lady at the Burger Braisserie in the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. We reviewed it by emptying it of beer. There’s a little bit of salty language in there, be warned.
Video after the jump.
After a few weeks of exciting lead-up we finally see the Adamo, a Dell laptop. It has a screen, keyboard, and touchpad and is clearly so fierce that it must be held at arms length for fear of it exploding on your chest.
Do you hear me, fabulous! I found Shapeways, the online marketplace for 3D objects and models, rocking a booth full of little things their community had designed. This service is really cool, and if you’re a crafty type or decent in Maya or Blender, you should check it out. There are a couple options for materials, and the sort of amber-colored hard plastic, as you see with the face-bowl, looks beautiful when polished (plus it’s super strong). Unfortunately they don’t polish it for you, but you got two good hands, why don’t you use ‘em?
