Last year at CES, PowerCast really seemed to be the future. True wireless power… No pads, no adapters, no contacts, nothing at all. Just power getting sent straight through the air. Wouldn’t that be great? Like many things we saw last year at CES, though, the ultimate potential of this technology has not yet been realized. Powecast is making progress, however, and they were able to demo a few conceptual products to us. I say “conceptual” since although these things are fully functional prototypes, Powercast isn’t going to produce them directly… Rather, they’re looking to license their technology to manufacturers.
These Christmas ornaments are being lit up by a power transmitter plugged into the wall behind them. They stay lit even if you move them a meter or two away from the transmitter. Wunderlights, as they’re called, may possibly be available for Christmas 2009 at $35ish per ornament, or somewhere around $250-$300 for the kit pictured above with a transmitter included.
The actual “cast” part of Powercast technology, the ranged wireless power, is (sadly) really only practical for ultra low power applications like LEDs and sensors and stuff. For higher power electronics, the receiver needs to be a lot closer to (generally, in contact with) the charging surface. Powercast has put together some concepts for how this might work in the home, including this TV stand and lamp that charge remotes and stuff. Powecast says that using their continuous charging technology, you’ll have to replace the remote itself before you’ll have to change the batteries.
If you absolutely can’t wait to play around with Powecast tech, the only thing they’re actually selling right now is a development kit which contains everything you’ll need to create a Powercast enabled prototype… It’s $2000.
So, CES is over. Don’t cry, we’ve done enough of that for all of you over our battered feet and crooked backs in the last few days. Instead, cheer up because here is our super awesome collection of CES booth babes, available for your perusal and more importantly, your vote. Yes, not only can voting elect governments and decide between greasy pizza or nutritious McD’s for the office lunch, but it can now also get you some drool-worthy convention floor swag.
We were able to find 13 beautiful ladies willing to be photographed. But it wasn’t easy. Some were clearly used to this sort of thing while others had to be coaxed and convinced they wouldn’t be sharing space with anyone from the other show (NSFW). Some were easily available for the photo op, while yet others had to be fetched from their resting areas after lengthy discussions with careful executives (*cough*Casio*cough*). We wanted to tell you all this so you’re aware of the effort that goes into something like this. Yeah… It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.
So, now, hit the jump to see the girls, find out what you might win and vote!
We don’t spend all our time at the Convention Center, or inside hotels. No no… we also spend an ungodly amount of time getting to and from these places. Here’s what that looks like.
Samsung’s YP-Q1 personal media player comes in 4, 18 or 16GB sizes and boasts such features as a Rhythmizer screensaver that syncs to your music, an audio upscaler that restores higher frequencies lost when your music is converted to MP3 or WMA, playback speed control without pitch shifting and a text to speech converter for listening to text-based files. And I have to say, it’s refreshing to see a company not caught up in the whole “let’s make it as small as we can” mentality.
At CES last year, we saw a prototype of Microvision’s PicoP miniature laser-based projector. Back then, I was told that the production version would most likely use LEDs, instead. I guess they decided that lasers would just be that much more awesome, because we got a look at the production version of the Microvision PicoP yesterday, and it’s absolutely laserriffic.
The PicoP uses red, green, and blue lasers to project a WVGA (848 x 480) 16:9 widescreen image with 10 lumens of brightness and a contrast ratio of better than 5,000 to 1. It was adequately bright under ambient show floor lightning, and substantially brighter than any of the other micro projectors we’ve seen this week. In a dark room it projects a tolerable image up to a staggering 100 inches, but the best part is that since it uses lasers, it’s always inherently in focus. This is an important feature, since the whole point of a micro projector is that you can whip it out and use it anywhere.
The PicoP uses an integrated battery that gives is approximately 2 hours per charge. There’s a proprietary input jack that will accept (through included adapters) composite video or VGA inputs. Look for it in Q2 of this year for about $500.
Got $44k burning a hole in your pocket? Yeah, we bet you do, so that’s why you’ll be one of the first in line for the SC830 from SimCraft. It’s a racing simulator that features three degrees of freedom (roll 40° / pitch 25° / yaw 40°) and “High-fidelity motion actuators and “knuckles” for unsurpassed quick response, and smooth motion curves”. It also seems to come with three LCD screens configured in wraparound fashion, which completely helps to explain the pricetag. If I understood the rep correctly (at first I wasn’t paying attention, having gone to see him to ask him an unrelated stumper), the system will initially work with 18 gaming titles. The website mentions “supported titles” in their documentation, but nowhere can these titles actually be found, so I’m not too sure about this part.
Still, the line waiting to try it out seemed eager enough, and the gamers sufficiently rattled. And again, it’s only $44,000. A bargain in this economic climate.
When we talked about WildCharge last year, I commented that the practicality of WildCharge was questionable due to the lack of consumer devices directly incorporating the technology. And that’s kinda still true, unfortunately, with only a few exceptions. But WildCharge is tackling this problem head on by releasing a line of plug-in accessories designed to help your gadgets charge with surface induction technology as gracefully as possible.
Unlike eCoupled and Powermat, WildCharge uses electrical contacts to (safely) charge things through a physical connection, but without cables. All you have to do is set your WildCharge enabled gadget down on the pad, and it charges. So, WildCharge has come out with swap-in battery packs for some phones, with contacts on the outside that interface with the pad:
WildCharge also has solutions for cellphones, called the universal adapter. It plugs into the USB jack on the side of most cellphones, and connects to a charging pad underneath the phone, allowing for contact charging. It’s about $45, including one USB tip and one pad.
For everything else, you can get a dongle that connects via USB (mini) and has a little pad attached. It’s about $25, but since you have to plug it IN to your gadget to get it to work, it doesn’t seem that much easier than using the cord that came with your gadget in the first place.
And, if you have an iPhone, WildCharge is coming out with a case on Feb 15 that includes contacts on the back and an integrated dock connector. It’ll cost $35.
The actual charging pad itself, btw, is $50ish and available at Best Buy, Target, and places like that. Oh, and they also have a 90w laptop power pad in the works, with modified batteries with contacts designed to work with some major brands of laptops.
It’s a flash drive with a numeric keypad that contains software for writing a diary. I’d like to think it’ll attract a certain demographic and I’m also under the impression that this demographic is the tween girl. But here’s the thing: I don’t get these girls. I also don’t believe any tween gals read us, but maybe one of you knows one? So help me out. Do you think they’d like the following?
It’s a 1GB flash drive. It’s protected by a secret code that you have to enter on the numeric keypad before you actually plug the drive in. Once plugged, software is launched that lets the user not only write a diary, but do a bunch of things like: read fortune cookies, interpret dreams, help you get inspired to write, etc. The encryption is military grade and the internal chip covered in epoxy, making a physical break-in impossible. It’s $60 and available from a few retailers.
So… If this something tween girls will like, or just toss in a drawer after mom buys it for them excitedly next Christmas?
[Editor's Note: despite the claims in this article, OhGizmo does not condone smoking of any kind. As a matter of fact, we'd like to poll our audience on their knowledge of whether nicotine alone can be a health hazard or not. We're skeptical.]
By Evan Ackerman
This just in: smoking is good for you! E-Cig is an electronic cigarette that is able to duplicate the look, and in some cases the feel, of smoking. There’s a LED on the end, and a USB rechargeable vaporizer in the body. The bit where the filter would be is a disposable cartridge containing differing amounts of nicotine (if you’re trying to quit), or all kinds of other stuff like caffeine, flavorings, or even vitamins. The vaporizer turns the flavoring or whatever into steam when you inhale, and when you exhale it looks just like smoke.
The body is USB rechargeable, and will power through one and a half cartridges. Each cartridge is the equivalent of about a pack of regular cigarettes, and costs $5. The entire kit (including a pack of 4 cartridges) runs somewhere between $80 and $100.
Related Tags: CES2009, Innovation, Power
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