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Seen at CES: Warlock vehicle security is overpowered
We knew there wouldn't be much of anything Warcraft-related at CES 2008 worthy of coverage here on WoW Insider, but we kept our eyes open as we scoured the show floor and had a chuckle to stumble upon the Warlock vehicle security systems booth. We don't even want to know what it does to any intruders it detects. If more gratuitous gadgetry is your thing, hit up our sister site Engadget for a literal metric ton of CES news (including the best of the worst).
Keepin' it real fake, CES edition: Sony's NW-A800 has a secret admirer
Sony's been certainly making strides in its DAP lineup this year, and this here is just further proof of its success: a cheap knockoff version of the NW-A800. We've got nothing in the way of specs, other than the "Digital MP4 Player" title, which we're guessing means exactly what it says. Look how convenient that record button is, folks! Another shot (which we spotted at an entirely different distributor) is after the break.
CES 2008: HD booth tours
There aren't many thing more exciting to a geek, then walking around the show floor at the largest electronics show in the US of A, but unfortunately the consumer electronics show isn't for consumers. So we took the time to snap up as many pics as we could of every booth that we thought was interesting. While many of the booths are reused each year, the devices are not. Some of the booths are backed to the point that it's hard to walk around, while others are desolate. So if you want to live vicariously through us, click through and check out all the coolness.DISH Network's CES 2008 Booth tourNBC Universal's CES 2008 booth tourBlu-ray's CES 2008 booth tourHD DVD's CES 2008 booth tourSamsung's CES 2008 booth tourHP's CES 2008 booth tourSling Media's CES 2008 booth tourXStreamHD's CES 2008 booth tourMicrosoft's CES 2008 booth tourSony's CES 2008 booth tourPhilips's CES 2008 booth tourPioneer's CES 2008 booth tourLG's CES 2008 booth tourHitachi's CES 2008 booth tour
CES 2008: The best of set-top boxes
At this year's CES we saw what might be the end of set-top boxes, -- at least for cable boxes -- but there will always be some extra feature that isn't built into your HDTV that you want. The most exciting new set-top box at this year's CES is the Slingbox PRO HD, which means we can finally watch any HD content in our house wherever we want -- including via our high-speed internet connection. The new Moto boxes promise an MPEG-4 future for cable and the new Dish DVR should help bring their HD DVR prices down. Last up, was the VUDU LX, and while we weren't sure who'd pay $400 for such a device, we just can't imagine someone would pay $1000, but hey, at least it has an IR port now.Hands-on with the EchoStar TR-40 and TR-50 converter boxesSling Media's Slingbox PRO HD, SlingPlayer for BlackBerry announcedSling announces SlingCatcher (again), SlingPlayer 2.0 with Clip+Sling, and Sling Cable modemDish's new ViP612 - like the ViP622, but now with lessDirecTV intros dual ATSC tuner AM21 to piggyback HR21Hands-on with Motorola DCX series MPEG-4 cable STBHands-on with the pricey VUDU XL
Goodbye CES, hello Macworld
Our CES coverage is winding down and we're dribble out the last of our stories from the biggest consumer tech trade show of the year, which must mean it's time to get ready for Macworld Expo. It all goes down next week, so mark your calendars and warm up that F5 / Cmd+R key.Where you need to be:Live Steve Jobs Macworld keynoteAll Macworld 2008 coverage [RSS]What time to post the GO AWAY note on your door on Tuesday, the 15th:07:00AM - Hawaii09:00AM - Pacific10:00AM - Mountain11:00AM - Central12:00PM - Eastern05:00PM - GMT / London06:00PM - Paris02:00AM - Tokyo (January 16th)Leave more time zones in comments!
VIEVU PVR-PRO: the clip-on portable PVR
Sure, clip-on PVRs aren't exactly revolutionary, but the vast majority of 'em require you to don some pretty fugly headgear. The VIEVU PVR-PRO, however, can be placed most anywhere on your person, so long as you're satisfied with the angle at which it records. This little bugger isn't much larger than a traditional pager (remember those?) and can reportedly capture video at 640 x 480 (30 frames-per-second), and while we're not told how much internal capacity is housed, it can store some four hours of content before needing to be emptied. As expected, the rechargeable battery also provides around four hours of usage, and it's not scared to get thrown around / wet either. 'Course, this gem wasn't designed for the casual lifeblogger, as the vanilla model will run you some $500 while the "encrypted police version" goes for two bills more.
PMP51 "MP4 MP3 super game" does it all
While a bit vague in the whole naming department, this new no-name OEM PMP51 PMP is actually packing a quite a spec sheet. The primary focus of the handheld is supposedly 32 bit gaming, but sadly SNES is nowhere to be found. But lucky for us there's Game Boy Advance play, in addition to Game Boy, Game Boy Color and NES. The 3-inch screen should show off that emulated Advance Wars just nicely, and the addition of a 1.3 megapixel camera and support for plenty of audio and video formats round out the piece nicely. You can also add memory with miniSD and play your ROMs on the big screen with video out. No word on price or availability.%Gallery-13478%
The swappable GSM radio
While wandering around the "International" wing of this year's CES, we stumbled upon a number of questionable (and familiar) items. One line of products that stood out, however, was a company offering a modular solution for adding GSM capability to a wide variety of devices. Using what appears to be a proprietary type of connector, the SIM-ready card can imbue an assortment of gadgets (phone, e-book reader, GPS... teddy bear) with GSM functionality. It's unclear whether this technology is being deployed overseas (or at all), and whether or not we'll see it Stateside (doubtful), but it does take a novel approach to cell-ing up your gear.%Gallery-13481%
Hands-on with the Amtek U560 / Aigo UMPC
We got a chance to fondle the non-Menlow Amtek U560 / Aigo UMPC on the floor of this year's CES, and we've got the pictures to prove it. The XP-running portable had a solid build, though the mechanism for sliding the screen felt a bit janky, and the overall size is possibly more than you want, especially with all the Menlow hotness coming our way this year. Perhaps a gallery of photos might help? Yeah, we thought so.%Gallery-13479%
Jabra launches luxury JX20 Pura Titanium Edition
Jabra launched this sleek thing at CES this week, with a body crafted from Titanium and glossy black accents, it is definitely looking the business. This new offering was designed by Jacob Jensen, the same fella who created Jabra's JX10 headset -- though this venture has way less gold. The device's specs are posted as having up to 6-hour talk time, Bluetooth 2.0, auto pairing, USB charging -- this is a must in our opinion -- a couple ear hooks , and a goodly assortment of ear gels. Though, with an MSRP of $179, we're thinking this will find its way onto a limited collection of ears.[Via PhoneArena]
CES 2008 product names: Best of the worst
Perhaps they lacked a crackshot marketing team, the URL they wanted was camped by someone unreasonable, or -- sadly -- they just thought it was a good idea at the time. For whatever reason, these products and companies actually made it to fruition for our sheer enjoyment.%Gallery-13471% More Best of the Worst CES 2008 Adwatch: Best of the worst CES 2008 booth gimmickery: Best of the worst CES 2008 Crapgadget CES 2008: Fugliest headphones awards The fugliest laptop you'll see all day
Hands-on with Modelab's Hummer and Levi's handsets
We've seen both the Levi's and Hummer sets over the last few months, but haven't had opportunity to talk to the gents over at Modelabs or get a chance to see them in real life. While we weren't able to glean too much new info, we did hear that they do hope to see these things land over here but not with a carrier, these will simply be sold as unlocked handsets -- potentially through Hummer dealers and Levi's stores. Specs are sketch, but we do know neither sports 3G, WiFi or other high speed access technologies. Build quality is very nice on both handsets, but the Levi's set is actually pretty fantastic, we're not big on the Levi's branding, but the screen and device materials are jaw-droppingly fantastic. We only say the black iteration of the Levi's set, but the Hummer branded phone comes in yellow, and dark and light camo. Pics are just below.%Gallery-13467%
CES 2008 booth gimmickry: Best of the worst
We've herein rounded up our picks for some of the best of the worst booth displays and decorations, and a good smattering of booth gimmicks we couldn't decide whether to file under "best" or "worst" -- we'll leave it to you to arbitrate the true winners in the comments. For our part, we don't care how fracking big Bumblebee was -- our personal favorite in this category has to be the bowl of pretzels.%Gallery-13463%More Best of the Worst CES 2008 Adwatch: Best of the worst CES 2008 product names: Best of the worst CES 2008 Crapgadget CES 2008: Fugliest headphones awards The fugliest laptop you'll see all day
Video: iriver's wee CES 2008 booth tour
Besides having one of, if not, the best product showings at CES 2008, iriver also had one of the most high-tech booths. Gone were the booth babes and ignorant product hacks -- replaced instead by virgin-white cases and interactive displays which allowed their products to speak for themselves. Fortunately, we also had the chance to confirm one of the most peculiar icon choices in CE history: the raised-dog icon on their S7... yes, he's really treating the booth like his own personal fire hydrant. See a video tour of the booth after the break.%Gallery-13462%
An offset HDTV wall-mount
Mounting HDTVs on the wall is all the rage, but it isn't the easiest thing in the world and even when you employee a professional to run power and video cables up the wall, sometimes the structure of you wall just isn't right for the optimal placement. Cheif's new HDTV wall mount is designed for exactly that problem. Rather than install additional supports in the wall, the mount is designed to be mounted on the existing studs and then will slide in either direction so you can center the set in just the right spot. No word on the price, but it should be available this summer.
Hands flailing wildly with Toshiba's SpursEngine laptop
Toshiba's Cell processor-based SpursEngine B.E. was on full display at CES, with a variety of tech demos to show off its power. From HD video transcoding, facial recognition, or the always popular gesture-control Toshiba's baby went through a series of workouts, trying to be the third teammate, with your CPU & GPU, to speed heavy-duty processing. Featuring only four cores -- half the number found in the PS3 -- it handled all tasks thrown its way, check out the gallery to find out how the power of the Cell could help your PC in the future.%Gallery-13422%
iriver says iPhone-like interface just proof of concept
We hit the show floor excitedly looking for iriver's GSM phone which they showed off earlier in the week, but when we got to their booth, the little guy was nowhere to be found. We managed to wrangle a chat out of some of the company's product designers and marketing people, and they explained their hesitation at continuing to show the W7-cum-GSM-phone due to the similarities of the phones UI to an all-too-familiar device. According to the iriver people, the iPhone-like interface which was showcased originally was only meant to demonstrate what the phone was capable of, not a finalized version of the OS. Of course, it's little consolation to us, having seen a brief snippet of the phone, though we're assured that some new hotness -- or hot newness -- is on the way from the cats in Korea.
Video: iriver's Unit 2 hands-on
If you've been wondering how a portable media center, speaker dock, VoIP phone, and folding keyboard work together then you're in luck. We've got the elevator speech from iriver on what the Unit 2 is and how it works. Hitting the US in early 2009 for about $700. We ask you, can you wait? Video after the break.
Hands-on with a few Otterbox phone cases
We wandered past OtterBox during our aimless CES march and they had a couple fine cases on display so we just had to pop in for a look see. From BlackBerry cases to iPhone -- we're looking at those here -- cases, Otterbox brings the goods to wrap your dearly-loved nerd gear. We were particularly interested in a couple hard cases, one rugged, the other waterproof and looking bulletproof, too. Follow the link to the goodies.%Gallery-13412%
Envive announces simplified media server: The TheaterStation
Because you'll need somewhere to download/install those 1080p flicks from VideoGiants, Envive has announced its TheaterStation Media Server. Light on hardware details, Envive's focused on its Spin interface to ease content browsing via remote. The base model's hard drive reportedly holds at least 200 hours of DVD quality movies, and can be upgraded to hold ten times as much although that'll drive up the $2,495.99 starting price. Equipped with HDMI, component and DVI outs its available for preorder now, [Vie eHomeUpgrade]