Eric Lin

Smartphones By Eric Lin

Sanyo @ CES - Phone pr0n IV, The W22SA Spacephone

There is a serious dearth of coverage about the new W22SA in English, however we've been able to catch the basic details. It has all the same features of the W21SA, including OCR translatation software that lets you take a picture of text in English and display the Japanese word. The 22 forgoes the 21's twist and flip screen in favor of a more traditional flip but it's still packed full of gadgety goodness. It has stereo speakers (for extra trick ringtones) and this crazy navigation pad that lets you control certain phone features with the lid closed. (those five little dots below Snow White). By using newer chips and giving up on the twist and flip design, the 22 is significantly lighter and smaller than the 21 without sacrificing any features. Just look at how Ryan has to cup the phone gently in his hand (after the break), it's so light and small you just have to cradle it.

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Smartphones By Eric Lin

Sanyo @ CES - Phone pr0n III, The W21SA Spacephone

It's just not fair. We've been in lust with the W21SA ever since KDDI unveiled it way last summer, and though they've come out with a few slimmer 3G phones since then, we still love the Spacephone's smooth white (iPod/iBook/iWhatever) lines and all its incredible features. When we picked it up, it was hard to keep the drool off the phone; every line, every button is so smooth and well placed, and the looks like a big white piece of chocolate with a luscious high tech LCD display. Oh, beloved ice cream bar... More luscious white 3G goodness after the break.

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Smartphones By Eric Lin

Sanyo @ CES - Phone pr0n II, The Talby

The Infobar was one of the most heralded phones in Japan and helped convince a lot of subscribers to switch to KDDI. The follow up, the Talby, is the Infobar re-imagined by designer Mark Newson. Not only is it beautiful but it's powerful too; designed for KDDI's 1x RTT network, the phone has the Opera web browser with a Flash Lite player, a 240 x 320 (QVGA) LCD, and a 1.3 MP camera with macro mode for snapping barcodes. Although we didn't get to play with it that much since the interface is only in Japanese, we can tell you after holding this phone, all you can say to yourself is "Why? Why can't any American phones look and feel half this good?" Once you pick it up, you don't want to put it down—EVAR. Click on for more pictures—and believe us, no matter how many we took we still wanted to keep snapping this thing.

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CES - On the show floor with Cat Schwartz, Part 1

We hit the show floor with Cat Schwartz as she immerses herself in the Spherex RX2, ohhs and ahhhs over these Sumiko turntables, and hooks you up with a reprise of the Motorola Burton Bluetooth Jacket just so she can ask if you took it off any sweet jumps, dude. Watch the Video (.wmv)

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Accessories By Eric Lin

Motorola @ CES - The HT820 Bluetooth stereo headset explained

Yesterday we thought the Moto Bluetooth stereo headset was interesting but we hadn't seen it and couldn't quite explain it. Today we have all the answers. (Ok, maybe not all the answers.) Here's how it really works. The HT820 supports both headset and hands-free to connect to a phone via Bluetooth. It also supports two new Bluetooth profiles for audio, one for receiving stereo broadcast and the other for controlling audio devices. If you have an audio device that supports the profiles, or you have an adapter—either one of Motorola's that we mentioned or even the naviPlay—the headset will be able to pause your music when you take an incoming call, and you can even skip tracks using buttons right on the headset. If, however you don't have a Bluetooth audio device or adapter, you can plug a player into the 'phones using a cable, in which case, the HT820 will mute the audio when you get a phone call, but won't be able to pause it. There's a few more pix below.

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Griffin AirClick remotes for iPod and iTunes

At Macworld Griffin will introduce a new wireless remote control with transmitter units for both the iPod and the Mac itself. The AirClick iPod will come in 4G and mini flavors, and will let you play, pause, and navigate through tracks as well as control the volume using a remote and a receiver that talk to each other over RF from up to 60 feet away. So you don't need line of sight to your iPod, hell you don't even need to be in the same room. You can also use the remote to click through slide shows if you have an iPod photo. (Take that, pt!) You can add an AirClick USB dongle to your Mac and use the remote to control iTunes, Keynote, DVD Player, VLC and other applications too. Since we live in a tiny apartment, we'll stick with our trusty Sony Ericsson phone and the Bluetooth remote profiles for now, but if we move someplace bigger, or someplace with more than one room, the extended reach of the AirClick could come in handy.

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Apps

Apps By Eric Lin

Skype 1.1 adds chats for up to 50 users

There's not even 50 people on our Skype buddy list, but in addition to clear voice chats, Skype is adding enough interesting features that we might have to start convincing our IM buddies to switch. Skype has launched an incremental upgrade to its Windows client that lets up to 50 people enter an IM chat room, in addition to its already secure IM chats and file transfers. They've also improved the interface with a better buddy list, avatars, and system tray notifications. Maybe they'll launch a Mac update soon.

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News By Eric Lin

Dolby: Holy 13.1 channels, Batman!

Dolby built a special theater in the middle of the CES floor to showcase Dolby Digital Plus, the next generation of Dolby home theatre protocols that starts at 7.1 and currently goes as high as 13.1 channels. Of course, they use all 13.1 channels in their booth. Not only does this one go to 13, but the audio is sampled at a much higher bit rate, for truer sound. Dolby bumped the sampling rate from 640 kbps to 6 Mbps. HD-DVD has already selected Dolby Digital Plus as its audio codec of choice. Of course that means that once you get an HD-DVD player and the accompanying receiver, you'll need enough cable to wrap around the earth's circumference just to wire a single room. Buy stock in Monster Cable.

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Sony @ CES - If the Sony P200 ain't broke, don't fix it

Sony unveiled the latest in its P series of Cybershot cameras, but we're wondering why they bothered. Not that there was anything wrong with its predecessor, the P150, but Sony literally didn't change a thing except for smoothing out the case a bit. It has the same Super HAD 7.2 Megapixel CCD, the same Real Image processor, the same lens and all the same functions. The P150 was pretty well received at its launch for being a powerful, solid, small camera, so it's not like the P200 stinks, or even lags behind the competitors for pocket-sized models. But please, Sony, was it really worth making a fuss and adding 50 to model number just to mellow the harsh lines of the P150?

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Smartphones By Eric Lin

N506iS, DoCoMo's new phone with no speaker

What's wrong with this picture? Doesn't the top half of the flip look a little bit funny? Maybe because there's no speaker there. Maybe because this phone is so trick that it doesn't even need a speaker, the whole LCD display is a speaker. Seriously, the entire display vibrates so that when you put your ear up against it, it works just like a speaker. The technology comes from a UK company called New Transducers Limited. Other than that, it's just a regular old 2G i-mode phone from NEC, except that it has video out to display photos or video from the phone on TV.

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Mobile

Mobile By Eric Lin

V CAST @ CES - When Verizon says Get It Now, they finally mean it

Verizon wireless has launched EV-DO in 11 new metro areas today. Subscribers in Chicago, Houston, Boston, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Columbus, Orlando, Jacksonville, Providence, Hartford and New Haven (shwew!) will all have access to Verizon's 3G network, as long as they have a PC Card or the VX6600 Pocket PC phone. Verizon continues to ignore the entire northwest quadrant of the country, because, you know, no one in say Seattle is on the leading edge of technology. However on February 1, everyone in a city with EV-DO will be able to get high speed access on 3 new clamshell handsets, which we've already told you about, the LG VX8000, Motorola Samsung A890, and the UT Starcom (nee Audiovox) 8940. The phones aren't the exciting part, the VCAST content is. The service will cost $15 per month for unlimited access to basic video clips and WAP content. Premium content like music downloads, 3D games, NBA, NASCAR and probably some exclusive video content will cost extra. All of the video content is produced specifically for the small screen, so it's not shmooshed TV clips but actual phone-centric video, and it looks sharp. Verizon won't just get exclusively formatted content, they'll also get exclusively produced content. Fox will create 3 new series specifically for the V CAST service, Love and Hate, 24 Conspiracy and Sunset Hotel. MTV and other broadcasters will also provide programs. We got a chance to play with the service today, and we can tell you it lives up to Verizon's "Broadband Access" brand name. Video clips buffer in about 10 seconds and playback at TV-quality framerates. Downloading a 3D game (Kingdom Hearts bay-bee) only took about four seconds — for the whole damn game. When these phones launch, you won't regret being the first in line for one at your local Verizon store.

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Laptops

Laptops By Eric Lin

X2 - Ladies love pink laptops (with matching bags!)

Taking a page from the Nokia 7200 playbook, X2 has created a small, light laptop aimed at women that will come with a matching laptop case designed to look like a "sheik" (we think they mean "chic") handbag. The laptops feature a 12.1 inch widescreen LCD, 802.11 b/g, and full size keyboard but still weighs under 4 pounds. It looks similar to an iBook (why, we've never...), but in easter egg pastels. Each laptop comes with its own special bag that will match or color coordinate in materials like suede and fake croc skin. Neither the laptops nor the bags are all that bad, but we suspect most fashionistas would rather buy her bag from Kate Spade or whoever and then get her laptop painted to match. It's already a booming business in Japan, so maybe someone will open up a shop to do it stateside?

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Samsung

Samsung By Eric Lin

Samsung shrinks the Duocam

Making a more serious effort to compete in the now blooming multi-format flash recorder world, Samsung has reduced the size of its dual lens/dual CCD Duocam by a whopping 40%, meaning it's finally almost pocketable. The video side of the SC-D6550 captures full motion movies with 10x zoom lens, image stabilization and an assist lamp. The still picture side now has a 5 MP sensor. Both sides can write to a multi format card slot that accepts memory stick, SD and MMC cards. Past models have looked a little too chunky and steampunk for our tastes, but we'll grab a picture as soon as one's up (or CES opens) to see whether a 40% reduction in size also yields a 40% increase in sleekness.

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Big Tech

Big Tech By Eric Lin

Everything old is new again at Panasonic

Panasonic announced four more rather diminutive audio players and two equally tiny flash based video recorder/still combo units. Though they're all new, the audio players are starting to get old. One of the new ones, the SV-SD100V (catchy name, yah?) even pays homage to Panasonic's first line of e-wear audio players with its square shape and monchrome OLED display embedded below the surface of the glass front. It has 256 MB, but the other models each feature 512 MB memory built in, and two also have FM Radios. Panasonic continues to differentiate its players with incredibly boring or incredibly wacky shapes, not with incredible technology. They apparently aren't that concerned either, as they've now admitted they won't even introduce hard drive based players until 2006. Ouch. Panasonic is finally getting some serious competition in the Flash based multimedia recorder field from the likes of JVC and Samsung (sorry we can't really call the Sanyo any competition). However unlike the audio players, Panasonic is actually making an effort to improve the shape and technology of the new flash recorders. Sadly the improvements don't really make them any better at recording (or playing back media) but they have made the new SV-AV25 and SV-AV50 more pocketable and more environmentally friendly. At least that's something.

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Wearables

Wearables By Eric Lin

Motorola introducing a new stereo Bluetooth headset

Motorola is hitting both music and Bluetooth hard at CES in addition to jackets and hats with Bluetooth stereo speakers, they're also talking up the HT820, a stereo Bluetooth headset. Since there are no pictures yet (and the CES show floor is closed for the night) we aren't quite sure exactly how it works, but Motorola claims it can connect to a music player and a phone separately and automatically pause the music when a phone call is answered on the headset. We would suspect they mean mute, not pause the music, however the headset has controls for play and pause as well as call controls according to Moto. Maybe those controls only work with Bluetooth enabled music players. For the wired players, there is a headset jack built into the HT820 or Motorola will also offer the DC800, which takes audio out and streams it over Bluetooth. [via Geekzone]

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Smartphones By Eric Lin

The Treo 600 gets WiFi old school style courtesy of Enfora

If palmOne won't step up to the plate and add WiFi to its handhelds, it's only natural that someone else would do it, right? Someone already hacked the drivers for palmOne's SD WiFi card so it'd work with the Treo 650, but we pretty much figured that the Treo 600 was a goner. Not so. It's not quite as svelte as getting down with a WiFi card, but Enfora is introducing a WiFi sled for adding 802.11b to the Treo 600. They'd already done one of these for the Tungsten E, and this one looks like it's along the same lines.

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CES - The Digital Experience with Cat Schwartz

We know she's slumming it by kicking it with us, but somehow we managed to convince the lovely and extremely talented Cat Schwartz, official Tech Chick and former host of TechTV's Call For Help, to host Engadget's video coverage of this week's Consumer Electronics Show. In this first installment Cat checks out Toshiba's new DVD recorder which lets you burn images onto the the top of the disc, BenQ's new wireless mouse, Panasonic's Toughbook Tablet PC, Motorola & Burton's new Bluetooth snowboarding jacket, and HP's EP9010 Instant Cinema Digital Projector. Watch the video here.

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naviPlay adds HP headphones for wire free iPod solution

TEN Technology had previously announced the naviPlay, a Bluetooth adapter for the iPod. Today they announced that when the unit finally ships, it'll be bundled with Bluetooth headphones from HP (which look exactly like the Toshiba ones we showed you earlier). The naviPlay itself still has all the same features as when we first reported on it. It will transmit audio from any iPod with a dock connector to Bluetooth audio devices as well as to a remote that can be used to control the iPod wirelessly as well as serve as a wired headphone jack. Unlike when we first reported on it, there's finally a picture.

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Audiovox makes iPod at home in your car

You no longer need to have a boomin' car system just to play your iPod through it. Audiovox is launching an iPod Mobile Interface Kit that should let you directly hook your iPod into a car stereo through its CD changer port (if it has one, which most current models do). Once the iPod is plugged in you can you your stereo's track selection and play/pause controls to control the iPod — even the ones integrated into the steering wheel. It will be available this month through dealers for installation or directly from Audiovox if you're willing to attempt installing it yourself for $200. [via iPod Lounge]

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EVs and Transportation

EVs and Transportation By Eric Lin

Pioneer @ CES - Pimpin' yo' ride

Pioneer is launching 3 different head units, and 5 types of accessories for them all for what they call the "tuner" market. We call them rice boys. First the head units: The Avic N2 is a single DIN body with a pull out and flip up screen, just like you see West Coast Customs put in all the beaters on MTV. It has GPS navigation with turn by turn directions. To further help you get around, the unit supports XM Navtraffic, which can update the GPS with traffic information and even re-route you around accidents or slow spots (more on that below). In addition to audio playback, including mp3 cds, the N2 also plays DVDs as well. There's an single DIN head unit, the AVH-P5700DVD, which pretty much has the same style but doesn't have built-in GPS navigation. So it starts out as pretty much just a CD/DVD player. The Avic D1 is a double DIN style head unit, for all those old GM trucks or for pretty much every new car or truck that comes with one of those huge control units for audio and/or GPS. It has the same features of the N2, except for DVD playback. Once you've pimped out your ride with a hot new head unit, then you can pimp out the head unit, of course. There's an iPod adapter for models with a dock connector that will give you control over the iPod, display information for the track playing, and even charge your little white friend. Or you could add a Sirius or XM receiver. If you have one of the Avic units, you could even add an XM receiver with Navtraffic. Navtraffic is an additional XM service available for 20 US metro areas that updates your GPS with accidents, freeway speeds and other useful local information. Finally you could opt for the rice boy's, oops we mean tuner's, dream accessory, the vehicle dynamics display. This accessory hooks into your car's systems and can display a speedo, tach, and even angular velocity and G-Forces. Of course the display can be customized to look like anything from a video game to an F-16a cockpit.

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Mobile

Mobile By Eric Lin

Creative adds more, and less storage to Zen Micro

In an effort to produce an army of mp3 players for its upcoming battle against Steve Jobs and the iPod, Creative has introduced 3 new Zen Micro models that aren't really new models at all. Instead, they're Micros with different size hard drives, but not *that* different. The 5 GB will be joined by a 6 GB, 4 GB and 1 GB model. The 1 Gig will cost $199 when it hits the shelves sometime in Q1. The 4 Gig will only cost 30 bucks more, $229, and the 6 will run $299. Both of those will be available later this month. Expect Creative to launch 2 and 3 Gig models later in the year in order to fill out the line up with 1 through 6. We bet they'd launch a 7 Gig one too, if only someone actually made a 1" 7 GB hard drive.

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LG @ CES - LCD TVs and components

In addition to a sick line up of new plasmas, LG is launching a slew of other TVs and boxes to go with them. There's new DLP rear projection TVs, but we don't know why LG even bothered when they said that those will be completely displaced by plasma by the end of 2005. Although plasma will continue to rule the larger displays, LCD will pick up the small and mid-sized categories. The flagship LCD will be a 55" model (pictured above) with 1920 x 1080p resolution and digital terrestrial as well as analog tuners. There are smaller HD models with dual tuners in 42, 37, and 30 inches. If you want something to show on your new HD flatscreen, the LDA-511 DVD player, will enhance the resolution of a standard DVD to 1080i - no need to wait for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or try to choose between the two. The LDA-511 has HDMI outputs, and a memory card reader to display photo files. LG will also bring out a DVD player recorder capable of playing or recording any DVD format, as well as a number of set top boxes and PVRs.

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LG @ CES - Killer plasma

LG is letting loose a barrage of plasma displays this spring, many of them are just bumps, but a few are setting some new benchmarks. In the ongoing war of "mine's bigger" between LG and Samsung, LG will launch (like honestly sell) a 71" plasma, the 71PY10 — seventy-bleepin-one inches! LG puts that mammoth size to good use with true 1080p (full Hi-Def) resolution of 1920 x 1080. But size and resolution like that demand a certain level of exclusivity. It will only be sold at selected locations, and for a whopping $75,000 — and they already have a couple hundred pre-orders at that price. LG's other big plasma introduction at two new models with a built in 160 GB DVR, the 60" (pictured above) and 50" PY2DR. The DVR can record both HD (max 14 hours) and standard (max 62 hours) programming, and uses GemStar's guide for both channel selection and programming. Not only do these models clear your component shelf of a DVR, they also eliminate a cable box. Both models have a CableCARD slot for digital cable decoding without a set top box. The 60" model will launch first and the 50-incher will follow soon after. LG will also launch 60, 50, and 42 inch HD plasmas with analog and terrestrial HD tuners as well CableCARD slots. All of LG's plasmas, from the 71" on down have an XD processor that adjusts color, contrast and scaling to make sure the picture looks good. And it has antiburn-in software as well as a bunch of new manufacturing processes to make sure the display lasts longer than any others — LG claims their new plasmas will look good for 60,000 hours.

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HP @ CES - HP Media Hub coming

At her keynote on Friday, Carly Fiorina is expected to announce an HP Media Hub, a new Linux-based (yes, we said Linux you /. fans) device that can record and playback TV as well as play pictures, music and video from a user's PC. Gee, we know of another Linux based device that does all that, it's called a TiVo, maybe you've heard of it? Carly may not remember, since she wasn't in charge back then, but HP already released a Linux-based media center before—way back in 2001, even, before anybody knew what a media center was. The Digital Entertainment Center could rip and play mp3s, stream music off the internet and playback photos and video. Carly is also expected to introduce a few Media Center PCs and 17, count 'em, 17 new high def TVs in LCD, plasma and rear-projection flavors.

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Laptops

Laptops By Eric Lin

Mobile PC: Dockable PC in a Tiny Box

People have tried this before- take the critical guts of a PC: the processor, hard drive, memory and video and audio card, and pack them into a tiny box with a dock connector. Mobile PC is trying again with a unit that packs a 1GHz Transmeta Crusoe, 20GB hard drive with shock protection and 512MB RAM. The unit has a proprietary dock connector (as if there's a non-proprietary one) so you could theoretically plug it into a desktop dock, a laptop or a mini-handheld form factor or anything else with the right connector. Of course whether there's anything to plug it into is always the problem. No doubt Mobile PC will convince some poor ODM somewhere to produce one or two of these form factors plus the head unit, and then, like all the others who have tried before them, Mobile PC will disappear into history. Not even Personal Mobile Gateway, which is actually based on a standard is having any luck with this idea.

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