ces-2008
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Vonage updating V-Phone with Mac support, Bluetooth?
Embattled VoIP provider Vonage continues to push forward with plans for the future, first announcing the LCD-equipped V-Portal router, and soon -- if the company's booth reps know what they're talking about -- an update to the V-Phone USB dongle that will allegedly bring both Bluetooth and Mac support. Blogger Michael Puhala reportedly approached a Vonage employee on the show floor to inquire about the future of this VoIP-on-a-stick product, where he was informed that an OS X-friendly version would be introduced in Q2 -- surely good news for customers accustomed to using Boot Camp for getting their telephony on. Make sure to hit up the Read link for more info and a few additional claims.
Ears-on with Sony's MDR-NC500D noise cancelling headphones
We had to check out the potentially miraculous sound of digital noise cancelling in the Sony MDR-NC500D's -- what can we say? They cancel noise. Our finely honed audiophile ears could hear the U2 over the din of the show floor pretty darn well. Was it $400 worth of well? Depends on your annual salary.%Gallery-13343%
Sprint prepped to launch Samsung SPH-M800
Samsung is on a roll this morning, though this isn't as official as the SGH-F490 announced a few minutes ago, but the branding suggest this will show up at Sprint. Sadly, the word is that the 5 megapixel cam found in the F490 has been replaced here with a 2 megapixel shooter, but it does rock EV-DO, and for that we give thanks. No word on when this'll appear or how much it'll cost, but we expect we'll hear more soon.
iriver's CES tease-fest continues
iriver's favorite pastime is toying with our heartstrings, and while the latest barrage of fragmented, high-resolution images does just that, at least we've been able to wrap our paws around some of what we're seeing. Hit up the gallery below for today's pictorial treasures. %Gallery-13335%
Samsung surprises on the last day of CES with the SGH-F490
Looks like the folks at Samsung woke up on the right side of the bed this morning, and decided to gift us all with the SGH-F490. This handsome prada-esque set features full screen browsing on its 3.2 inch screen in both landscape and portrait mode, 5 mega pixel camera, 3.5 mm audio jack, 130 MB of internal storage, and memory expansion via microSD. The disappointing bit is that we're only getting tri-band GSM / EDGE and HSDPA in the European 2100 MHz band. Price is set for about €530 (roughly $780) and is expected to ship in February.
CES 2008: NATAS honors Stormfront for original Neverwinter Nights
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, or NATAS for those short of breath, has given us reason to pause and wax nostalgic over our gaming past by honoring the first graphical MMO, Stormfront Studios' original Neverwinter Nights, which ran over America Online from 1991 through 1997. The game is positively archaic by today's standards, but nonetheless laid the groundwork for much of what we know as MMORPGS today, and of course went on to inspire BioWare's own Neverwinter Nights franchise as well. Bugbears, they would be proud.The nod was made during the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards ceremony at the CES in Las Vegas, an event which also tipped its hat to Everquest's Sony Online Entertainment and World of Warcraft's Blizzard for helping to spearhead the MMO genre. Don Daglow, who led Neverwinter Nights' design, accepted the award, and commented that "these games are not just entertainment...they build new kinds of communities and create deep people-to-people relationships." Or, you know, furry-to-people, for those who swing that way.
Hands-on with the ASUS M50 and M70 terabyte laptops
After we heard ASUS stepped into Crazytown with two new terabyte-capacity laptops, we knew we had to swing by the booth and bust out our cameras. It seems like the company has really been stepping up its game both on the design and spec front, with a solid build from the sleek black top and touchpad-integrated media controller, straight on down to the Core 2 Duo CPUs and -- of course -- the ultra-gigantic storage space. Peep the gallery below for a full on tour of the two systems.%Gallery-13313%
Hands-on with Age of Conan's Dark Templar class
The Consumer Electronics Show has hit Las Vegas in full force. The Massively team is here to roam the corridors of shiny, shiny, shiny gadgetry and ignore it all to to focus entirely on the content that is important to you. And that would be the shininess of Age of Conan. Funcom is on hand with live connections to their AoC beta servers and two classes available for demo play. Before diving in, you should check out Michael Zenke's hands-on post he wrote for our mother site, Joystiq. It explains how combat works. Then come back here to read about my experiences with the Dark Templar. And a little later, I'll have another post detailing my Barbarian play.Video of Dark Templar gameplay and Talent descriptions after the jump!%Gallery-13299%
Actiontec's zControl home automation gateways get official
Seeking to "change the way people manage their household electronics," Actiontec is getting set to unleash an outpouring of zControl products. We'd briefly heard about the firm's standalone unit that connects to the home router a few months back, but here at CES even more details are starting to flow. Apparently, Actiontec will be pushing out an entire series of Z-Wave-based wares "designed to centrally manage household electronics such as lights, security cameras, thermostats, motion detectors, garage door openers, motorized shades and automatic sprinklers through the home network." Furthermore, zControl will give owners the ability to dictate connected items remotely, and while we've no room to mention every piece of the forthcoming lineup, you should know that the zControl Starter Kit -- which includes a zControl unit, one indoor camera with motion detector, one lighting control module, and a remote control -- will be available next month for $399. Hit the read link for lots, lots more. [Via eHomeUpgrade]
Hands-on with the ASUS R50A
It's been a real MID / UMPC bonanza at CES this year, and we're not done quite yet. We got to handle the ASUS R50A at the company's small -- yet crowded -- booth, and we've brought back pictures for the gang. While the design is fairly solid on the device, the unit feels a bit slippery to the touch. The button / navigation placement works, though coming to grips with everything wasn't exactly a smooth transition. Once again, we're seeing that miniaturized Vista, and honestly, we're not totally convinced this is the platform of choice for these pixel-dense screens. Check out the gallery and see the little guy in action.%Gallery-13312%
Hands-on with an HD Radio prototype phone
During a brief booth visit at iBiquity, we had opportunity to see what's coming for the HD-Radio people, and the future does include mobile. We've no details to offer here as there were really none to get, but hey, pics are at least something. The device is a bit weak in the knees, but we think the HD Radio types will likely bust out some nice sets, perhaps we'll even see something from partner Samsung.%Gallery-13281%
Bumblebee spotted on CES floor
The Transformers' Bumblebee showed up on the CES show floor this year, though we have to say he was more than a little worse for wear. According to reports, he'd been out drinking all night with David Caruso at the Bellagio, and couldn't find his keys when he woke up... which we're sure you can imagine is a major problem for him. When we requested an interview, the alien robot claimed he wasn't feeling too well, and asked if we had a swimming pool and two gigantic Alka-Seltzer tablets.
UTStarcom's CES 2008 booth tour
In terms of layout, UTStarcom's booth is close to a dead ringer for its showing at last year's CES; just the promos and handsets have changed, basically. The darlings of the show have to be the HSM180, an absolutely bizarre HSDPA candybar featuring two circles for a keypad, and the TXT8010, a QWERTY slider with an attitude for CDMA networks. Check 'em out, yo.%Gallery-13264%
Hands-on with the LimePC
THTF (which stands for Tsinghua Tongfang, if you must know) is at CES showing its LimePC series of simple, lightweight computers, and we took a particular interest in three of 'em, ordered by size from largest to smallest: the UMPC, HandheldPC, and PalmPC (pictured) models. All three pack an uber-low power mobileGT core from Freescale, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, and touchscreen displays; the Palm PC and HandheldPC feature either 8 or 16GB of Flash, while the UMPC upgrades to a hard drive between 30 and 100GB in capacity. Though both the hardware and the Linux-based software were extremely raw here, we see promise in these totally hackable little beasts -- particularly in the smaller of the two, both of which are totally pocketable. Check out the gallery to see all three doing their thing.%Gallery-13271%
THX's CES 2008 booth tour
We took a stroll through the THX booth, where they were showing off all sorts of audio Jedi magic. In-car audio got some attention, evidenced by the Lincoln MKS at the booth featuring THX tech. Worry not, though, the living room experience hasn't been forgotten.%Gallery-13255%
Butt-on with the ButtKicker
Let's be honest, gaming chairs in all flavors of "enhancement" from vibration to sound to cup holders and beyond are quickly becoming a dime a dozen -- but the ButtKicker not only takes a different approach to vibration enhancement than other options but also wins the "most notable name" award in the arena. For one thing, it's not a chair -- it's a device you can install on any office chair to add vibration experience to not just gaming but anything producing sound on your computer including music and other media players. There are also two other versions of the device for use in home theater and auto installations (you can retrofit pretty much any old Lazy-boy in your living room). At $99 the gaming-focused version of the ButtKicker is cheaper than a lot of all-in-one gaming chair solutions as well. Oh, and how does the thing feel? Let's just say it tickled us in many nuanced ways.%Gallery-13283%
Video: eCoupled not demoing its wireless power system
We were totally stoked to see eCoupled's "Intelligent Wireless Power" system in action -- the rep even said they'd try and cook us a burger on their wireless Foreman grill -- but when Veronica got there, "power fluctuations" kept them from demoing anything more than a Zune that lit up when placed directly on a charging pad. VB was way too nice to call them out on video, but come on -- you don't run around promising wireless burgers and then barely compete with a WildCharger. Check out Veronica's barely-concealed boredom after the break.
Samsung's CES 2008 booth tour
Despite the shadow of justifiable hype cast by Panasonic's 150-inch TV, Pioneer's 9-mm thin and "extreme contrast" prototype plasmas, Samsung still managed to make a respectable (yet quiet) showing at CES 2008. After all, it's not every day we see a pair of 31- and 14-inch OLED TVs, a touch-screen RTS-A1100 Media Center beauty, and 82-inch quadHD and 52-inch Ultra Slim LCDs. They've even tamed their usual push of "world's first, fastest, biggest, etc." boasting... a bit. But hey, it wouldn't be Samsung if they didn't crow a little.%Gallery-13272%
CES 2008: Most random booth gimmick award
Mind you, we've seen no shortage of crazy antics to grab attendee attention out on the show floor (P.T. Barnum would be very, very proud), but this year's award for randomest booth gimmick goes to wall mounting solutions company Vantage Point, who (rather successfully) drew their flock via this oxygen bar in their booth. We did overhear them get a lot of product inquiries out of the deal... about where to buy an oxygen bar (but we're sure the mental road to wall mounting curiosity is super short).
Hands-on with Samsung's Q1 Ultra UMPC
Meet the WiBrain B1's bigger, meaner brother -- the Samsung Q1 Ultra. We've been lovingly gazing at pictures of this behemoth for some time now, but we finally got a chance to toss it around at ye old CES this year. Truth? It's kind of messed up looking, and that keypad isn't any easier to use than it looks. For some reason, Samsung thought the layout should slant downward, but we can't say why. At any rate, the model we had was running Vista -- if a bit slowly -- and had a pretty nice looking display. Hit the gallery and see the goods for yourself. %Gallery-13260%