By Andrew Liszewski

CES might appear to be a non-stop good time, but in reality, trying to cover as much stuff as you can while still getting enough sleep each night to remember your own name the next day can be a real challenge. But what keeps you running around the convention floor are the occasional opportunities to see or do things that very few have done before. Case in point, at another ‘off-floor’ event, Schwinn not only had their Tailwind Electric eBikes on display, but they had reserved the next door ballroom so people could actually take them for a test ride.

And in case you were wondering, the answer is no, that’s not me in the photos. But I’d like to thank that unknown member of the press for serving as our bike model.

By Evan Ackerman

I guess I must have found the Greener Gadgets section of CES, because Solio and PowerFilm were right next to each other. How convenient. Solio’s new Mono is basically just one single leaf of their hybrid charger that I reviewed back in April. So it works exactly the same way, with an onboard battery charged by the sun or a wall jack (or car or USB port) depending on how green you’re feeling and how much time you’ve got. A set of adapters gets power from the Solio into your device. Solio suggests that you use the Mono as an emergency power supply (it’s got enough power to fully charge the average cell phone once), and you can buy a little LED flashlight that plugs right into it, too.

The Solio Mono is $60, and the light tip is $20, available now online and at places like REI.

[ Solio ]

By Evan Ackerman

PowerFilm makes a wide array of rollable and foldable solar panels that are easy to take with you to power your gadgets when you’re in the middle of nowhere communing with nature. Their newest chargers are designed specifically to charge AA batteries, and one of them even comes with an integrated USB charging port. You can charge 4 AA batteries at up to 0.4 amps in direct sunlight, or plug your USB stuff in directly, or charge via USB using the batteries. The PowerFilm USB AA solar charger weighs under 5 ounces and will retail for about $100 “shortly.” The version that charges just 4 AAs will cost about $80.

PowerFilm also has products designed for, shall we say, more power intensive consumers. Like the military, for example, or emergency services. The Solar Quad is a 10 foot square, 190 watt foldable panel array that can put out 12 amps at over 15 volts, which is a lot of juice from a bunch of tiny little photons. The big size comes with a big pricetag, of course: $2000.

[ PowerFilm ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Samsung announced their P3 touch-screen portable media player at their press conference yesterday, but the only unit they had on hand at the time had a dead battery. Thankfully their booth had a small collection of them on display this morning, and I got to spend a few minutes playing around with it and snapped a couple of photos; though apparently that was a big no-no. Oh well. The P3 comes in 4, 8, 16 and 32GB capacities and features a 16:9, 3-inch WQVGA touch screen with Samsung’s EmoTure touch interface plus haptic feedback. In other words, it vibrates in response to certain button presses.

The die-cast metal housing comes in silver or black matte finishes, and like most touch-screen devices, the screen collects more fingerprints than a CSI. (As is apparent in the photos I took.) It’s also got an FM tuner and a voice recorder, and for some reason it can connect to a mobile phone over bluetooth and be used to answer calls. Not really sure why though. But the feature that Samsung was really pushing at their press conference (and another ‘CES2009 buzzword’) was the P3′s widgets. This includes touch-friendly mini-apps like a calendar, world clocks and games, but the ones they had running at the booth were kind of lame. You see that mini-gingerbread man? When you touch him he breaks up like a shattered cookie, and then resets. Hopefully that’s not as good as it gets, but with no wi-fi, it’s not like you’ll be downloading new ones every day. The UI however was rather nice, if a bit slow, and if you’re looking for an alternative to something like the iPod Touch, you can get your hands on the P3 sometime in the first half of 2009.

By David Ponce

S1 Audio, a new company with no actual product on the market yet (this comes in Q1 ’09) makes a set of headphones that are interesting for all sorts of reasons. I’ll focus here on two. First, the good (pictured above).

The BudBud headphones feature some really innovative design. They allow you to share your music easily by virtue of the fact that each bud carries… another bud within it. Should your friend want to listen in on your stuff, just detach each of the conjoined buds and hand them over. The device even features separate volume controls. If my memory is correct, this goes for $40 (like a dumbass, I lost my notes. I’ll update later with correct pricing if I’m wrong).

The not so good now. The NxSET series of headphones are meant to wrap around your neck, and project your music up to your ears. Sure, it lets you still hear your environment, reducing your odds of an unpleasant car-face encounter… But they do increase your odds of a fist-face encounter dramatically. Especially if you plan on listening to this on a crowded public transport vehicle. Don’t get me wrong, there definitely is a market for these, I just don’t know that I want to hang with that crowd. Prices vary depending on what options they have, which are all clearly explained in one of the two press releases I’m pasting after the jump.

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By Andrew Liszewski

Samsung had one of these ‘uVending’ machines on display at their booth, and while the coolest part was the free aluminum Coke bottles they were dispensing (completely ‘sold out’ 2 seconds before I got there) the concept of a ‘smart vending machine’ does show some promise. The large touch screen display provides a far better way to show off the product you’re selling, or to grab someone’s attention, and it even facilitates more advanced purchasing options like credit or debit cards via on-screen keypads and keyboards. The uVending machines are also network and wifi enabled, which means you can monitor stock before the machine runs out of product or update the information and GUI on the display remotely. I particularly like the anti-vandalism features which include a shock sensor which will project a warning if it detects a disturbance, and a built-in camera to capture potential vandals in the act.

By Andrew Liszewski

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jeopardy, Sony will actually be taping a series of special episodes at their booth at CES. Well, the set they’ve constructed is actually just off to the side of their booth, but it’s a fully working TV studio and the episodes will air sometime in March, which is cool because I forgot to add them to my PVR before I left. The studio is mostly open too (when not in use) and while they don’t let you go up on stage or touch anything, it’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to an actual Jeopardy game board.

This is that table you never get to see where the judges sit, and since it’s CES, every single seat is equipped with one of Sony’s XEL-1 OLED displays. Something tells me they’re not standard issue. And if you’ve ever wondered what a temporary version of the Jeopardy set might look like, I’ve included a few more photos after the jump.

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By Evan Ackerman

LG Objet 15″ AMOLED TV, 720p resolution, 0.85 millimeter thick (!) and super bright. It’ll be showing up in the US, but there’s no price or timeframe yet.

LG Prada cellphone controlled by matching watch via Bluetooth. 600 Euros for the phone, another 300 for the watch.

LG digital TV chip, watch DTV on your phone in realtime. Works in mobile devices without a significant cost increase, 4+ hour battery life in cellphones. Will be available in LG phones in September, after the US transitions to digital TV from analog.

By Evan Ackerman

The Motorola rep wouldn’t give me any specifics, but the company is “exploring” a potential partnership with wireless power products from eCoupled which would allow for wireless charging of your cellphone. The big barrier (one of them) to the introduction of wireless power is that people won’t use it if you have to buy a whole bunch of complicated accessories to get it to work. Motorola and eCoupled have been working on a replacement battery back and induction coil that’s a direct replacement for the Motorola extended battery. The only tradeoff is a decrease in the capacity of the battery to make room for the coil: 1200 mAh instead of 1800 mAh.

This is exactly what needs to happen: the introduction of wireless charging solutions that can be integrated seamlessly with existing products, allowing consumers to experience the advantages and make the transition.

[ eCoupled ]