By Andrew Liszewski

Even though it looks, feels and mostly functions like the digital picture frames you can buy anywhere these days, the people at the ALBUM booth tried to convince me their photo viewing device was in fact NOT a digital picture frame. And you know what? I kind of believe them. The ALBUM is just a half-inch thin, and features a postcard-sized 7-inch LCD display with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. It’s designed to be easily passed around and shared, just like a stack of printed photos, and in order to allow others standing nearby to see the photo you’re looking at, the company didn’t skimp on the LCD display.

And it shows. The viewing angle on the ALBUM is fantastic. It’s almost as good as the top of the line Dell LCD I use for graphics and photography work, and it’s probably the only reason I stayed at the booth to listen to their spiel. But the device also benefits from a well-polished UI, and the 3 large buttons camouflaged into the edge of the screen’s bezel make navigation really easy. It’s also got 4GB of storage on board, an SD card slot and can even be connected to your digital camera via USB and used as a remote viewer for the images stored in its memory card. The company is currently looking for a brick and mortar store to distribute the ALBUM in North America, but you can actually buy one now from their website for about $200.

[ ALBUM Portable Digital Photogallery ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I desperately want an eBook reader, but so far I’ve been foiled by terrible PDF support on Sony’s offerings, and the fact that the Amazon Kindle isn’t available in Canada. (And is barely available in the US.) But when Foxit, the company behind my favorite PDF editing application, announced that they’d be entering the eBook market, I was cautiously optimistic that they’d finally do PDF support right. And after playing with their eSlick reader in person today, I think I’ve found me a winner.

The device is roughly the size of Sony’s Reader and is just as thin, if not thinner, but feels lighter thanks to its all-plastic case. And the 6-inch e-ink Vizplex screen is comparable in quality to the one used in Sony’s original Reader model. Viewing PDFs in portrait or landscape orientations worked well, and the Foxit software allows you to remove the white space around the edges of a PDF with intelligent zooming, so the text or images fill out the screen as much as possible. It also includes a reflow option which basically completely reformats the PDF content making it easier to read on the eSlick’s screen. In terms of wireless connectivity there’s basically none, but it has a USB port for charging and syncing content, as well as an SD slot for storing your tomes. My only complaint right now would be the eSlick’s software and UI which is a bit rough around the edges, but I was assured it’s still in development, and should be considerably improved by the time the reader launches.

When it comes to innovation the eSlick is definitely not the leader of the pack, but with a pre-order price tag of just $229, I’m already sold.

[ Foxit eSlick ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’ve ever wondered what’s happening around the house while you’re away, but don’t know the first thing about setting up a remote webcam, the Vue system will be right up your alley. It consists of small, battery-powered wireless cameras that you can pretty much stick anywhere you want to monitor thanks to a built-in magnet and a mountable base. The cameras use a proprietary wireless network technology to increase their battery life (they’re good for capturing about a million frames on what appeared to be a single CR2-sized battery) and send their streams to a central hub which you connect directly to the router in your home. And they have a range of about 300 feet, but that can easily be extended with optional repeaters.

And that’s it. There’s no software to install since everything is handled through the company’s VueZone website where you can access and manage the feeds from every camera in your home once you’ve setup a private account. The feeds can also be recorded, scheduled and even shared with family or friends which makes setting up a teleconference as easy as logging into the site. The Vue system is about to go into a beta period in a month, but what I saw at their stand was already very polished. Since it features a flash UI, the site feels and functions like a standalone app with plenty of drag-and-drop action, but it also means you can’t access it from a flash-less smartphone. However, I apparently wasn’t the first person to visit their booth and suggest they look into creating a dedicated iPhone app.

There’s no word right now on when the Vue System will actually be available for purchase, but an official announcement should come sometime in April.

[ Vue Personal Video Network ]

By Andrew Liszewski

From the guys who brought you the Live Dream Gerbil-Sized Rock Band Stage (at least I assume they’re the same guys since they were at the same booth) comes this ridiculously tiny, but elaborate, self-playing piano. Perfect for Schroeder fans, or those who really love terrible, terrible MIDI music.

By Andrew Liszewski

Luke already covered the Cell-Mate cellphone headset yesterday, but today I managed to force my way through the crowds to get a hands-on with the device. Yep… It’s a metal headband with a velcro mount for holding a cellphone… Thankfully even the guy manning the booth didn’t take it too seriously.

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m not the partying type, so I let Evan and David take care of the ‘schmoozing’ part of CES. But when a party is thrown at the Las Vegas Atomic Testing Museum, how can I not attend? The museum was opened in March of 2005 and documents the history of the atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site starting in January of 1951. They’ve got some great artifacts in their collection, including an actual nuclear bomb pictured above (minus the explody bits of course) and if you’re a fan of mushroom clouds, it’s probably worth stopping by on your next visit to Las Vegas.

And I’ve included a few more pics after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

It’s funny how this thing is supposed to be some kind of anachronism, with a CD player built into a phonograph case. The little sensor-arm thingy with the laser in it is a nice touch. (Yes, I know it’s not actually called a “sensor-arm thingy,” but it’s ancient technology, give me a break.) Anyway, what I found funny is that I’d say CDs are also a dead medium, making the entire thing pretty much useless. Look for it in 6 months for about $150.

By Andrew Liszewski

Besides jumping on the netbook bandwagon, at their press conference on Wednesday Sony announced that they’d be entering the cheap and easy-to-use hi-def web video camcorder market with their new ‘Webbie’ cameras. Both models capture high-def MPEG4 video or 5 megapixel photos and come with “PMB portable software” making it easy to upload your shots or clips to online sharing services like YouTube. The MHS-PM1 Webbie pictured above (available in April for about $170) has a vertically oriented body and a rotating swivel lens making it easy to take self shots, while the MHS-CM1 pictured below (about $200 available now) has a more traditional camcorder body with a 5x optical zoom and a 2.5-inch swivel LCD screen. And both are available in your choice of orange, eggplant or silver color schemes.

By Andrew Liszewski

The classic Polaroid might be dead, but the company still feels there’s a demand for a quick and easy way to spit out a hard copy of a photo, even if taken on a digital camera. And that’s basically what the Polaroid Pogo is, and does. On the digital camera side of things it’s pretty basic with a 5 megapixel sensor, 3-inch LCD display, SD card slot and a handful of software post-processing options like cropping, color corrections and red-eye reduction. But instead of only being able to view your shots on the LCD display or a computer, you can actually print out a copy right from the camera thanks to its built-in ZINK printer.

The ZINK paper refills used by the Polaroid PoGo camera are roughly the size of a business card, 2×3 inches, and have an adhesive backing allowing you to use them as stickers, which apparently boosts the ‘fun factor.’ The paper is an advanced composite material that’s embedded with color dye crystals that are heat activated. Depending on the temperature and length of the heat applied, the crystals will turn either cyan, yellow or magenta which end up producing a color photo. While the prints apparently have a life of about 10 years, they’re not ‘set’ when they come out of the camera which means you can actually do additional post processing and experimentation by throwing it an oven or microwave.

I can’t say I was that impressed with the sample that Polaroid printed for us at the booth, but I think an over-zealous flash on the camera resulted in a photo that wasn’t that great to begin width. So I’m going to hold off on a verdict until I see a few more printouts.