Tag: CES-2009-TOP

We've seen personal sized eco-friendly gadget chargers before, but few have been as well designed or affordable as the new line of wind and solar chargers that MINIWIZ unveiled last week at CES. The first is the HYmini, a hand-held -- but not quite pocketable -- power generator activated by the wind. It has an internal battery that can hold a charge for powering devices later or it can be be ...

For every hit to be found at CES, there are at least a half dozen failures. But there is perhaps no greater miss than the lowly, pathetic Cell-Mate. This headgear-looking contraption is really just a piece of metal and velcro that keeps your cell phone near your ear for as long as you want. Designed to compete with Bluetooth and other hands-free options in terms of cost and reception ...

Every year at the CES, new trends quietly percolate up among the product displays. One thing that stuck out was the proliferation of soundbars, those long, sleek speaker systems that typically claim to produce simulated surround sound despite having only 2.1 capability (that's "2" for the number of side speakers channels and "1" for the bass). Click through to see some of the soundbars that ...

We're not big divers over here at Switched, but we were still quite intrigued by the new line up of video recording dive masks from Liquid Image. The company is at CES this week showing off three new masks that can record high quality video at up to 330 feet below the surface. The top of the line Pro HD350 doesn't have a price yet, but can record 720p HD video onto SD cards down to 330 feet and ...

Motorola is jumping on the green bandwagon in a big way with its recently announced "Renew" phone, billed as the world's first carbon-neutral phone. The company teamed up with CarbonFund.org to help offset the energy cost for the new device, whose shell is made entirely of recycled water bottles. Included in the packaging for the phone is a recycling envelope so you can send it back to Motorola at ...

Coby calls this iPhone and iPod touch dock the "Vitruvian," for Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing of the perfect human form. As a design piece we expected the price to be a little high but we were pleasantly surprised to learn it will carry a $79 tag when it hits store shelves sometime this summer. The dock rotates to take advantage of the iPhone and Touch's position sensor – so if you're ...

CES is closed, and while we still have some news to clean up and hit after the doors have been locked and the sidewalks rolled up, let's give you a roundup of the notables from the last day of the show. CES Booth Tours - CES is a lot of news and announcements, sure, but it's also a lot of opulence. If you couldn't make it to this year's show in sunny (but cold) Las Vegas, check out this series ...

Saturday, hoping to give our aching heads a brief respite from the more complex tech items on display at CES, we headed on over to the Gibson tent, looking forward to idly strumming a few digital-ready guitars and spacing out. Really, what could be all that complicated about a guitar? In the case of the new Gibson Dark Fire, a whole hell of a lot, apparently. We had the chance to sit down with ...

Last week at CES, advocates for the blind -- music icon Stevie Wonder among them -- discussed the future of blind-accessible electronics, according to a Reuters report. While Wonder cited an iPod and BlackBerry as gadgets he regularly uses and enjoys, he still finds plenty of room for improvement in regards to gadgets' becoming more accessible to blind consumers. "If you can take those few steps ...

Walking around CES this year, one thing quickly became abundantly clear: There were far fewer companies on hand hocking their wares. Even more surprising many companies coughed up the cash to rent the floor space, but then failed to show up to staff and stock their booths. Not surprisingly, there also seemed to be far fewer people on hand to gawk at the shiniest and newest gadgets than in years ...

Mobile TV hasn't even taken off in the cellphone market, but it's already looking to take another sector by storm. AT&T has announced here at CES that its CruiseCast in-car satellite TV service will be launching this Spring, and we're told to expect 22 channels initially and 20 sat radio stations to boot. Not surprisingly, the system will set you back somethin' fierce: it'll cost $1,299 for ...

Last year we had to run all over CES to find paper shredders to satiate our fetish. This year the shredders came to us! There were probably more paper shredders on the show floor, and don't worry we'll bring them to you, but we couldn't resist a quick stop at the Staples booth that was literally in the center of the press lounge here. Oddly enough, Staples actually put some fairly unique ...

While CES is primarily about pushing new products that consumers can actually purchase (hence the title Consumer Electronics Show), a big part of the allure for us is seeing where these companies plan to go a few years into the future. We swung through the Toshiba booth and got a look at its line of concept devices that make the current generation of MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and smart ...

Yet another truly innovative iPhone app is being smothered by Apple and the company behind the application, 'Newber,' has taken to CES to publicize its fight to get a spot in the iPhone app store. Newber (whose logo is very similar to a certain Linux distribution's) is similar in many respects to Google's GrandCentral, in that it gives you a special phone number, separate from your cell and ...

Azentek's SmartMirror is a combination rearview mirror and GPS unit – an obvious marriage of old and new in-car tools that is so obvious we wonder why more companies aren't bringing these to market. The GPS software is by Navigon, so you've got a fairly well-respected navigation device maker's know-how in the product. We wonder if the SmartView will be appealing to crooks who want ...