January 7, 2010
After a pretty late night out, I woke up approximately 8am in order to get ready for the long day of technology and gadgets ahead of me.
Upon pickup of my badge, I proceeded into the Las Vegas Convention Center and first entered the International Technology section. The first incredible device I came across was called the X-Mini. It’s basically an Mp3 player/speaker hybrid device. It’s an egg-shaped, collapsible device that plays incredibly clear and loud audio which surprised me coming from such a small device. Probably one of the most amazing things about this tiny thing is the ability to daisy chain as many of them as possible. It’s incredible how clearer the sound gets with more of them connected. It also has an SD slot for up to 16GB of music and can be connected to a computer through USB. Overall, it is an amazing device that will come in second quarter 2010 at around $80.
Another innovative device I saw that I took note of comes from MiMo, a beautiful 7 inch external monitor that connects to a computer through USB. They have been around for a few years now and I have been following them since their start, and the way their technology has advanced has been exponential. They came in with a nice extension of the user’s desktop, but since then, they moved to make it more portable and now they’ve made it to display any content to be 3D without the use of glasses! And the toggle to move between 2D and 3D is a simple switch on the back of it. It’s truly an amazing piece of hardware. I highly recommend it for extra desk space for the cramped desktop and we’ll see the 3D version come to market 3rd quarter 2010.
In the presentation technologies section, I came across a couple interesting presentation devices that definitely show off today’s move towards changing the way people view content. First off is the Greenboard. Simply put, it is a gigantic 65″ touchscreen display with proprietary software that recognizes handwriting and shapes and colors. It can run in Windows 7. It would be a perfect presentation tool on showing new applications, training new employees, or having workers interact with presentations in a fun, new way. The other device was the laser Pico Projector by Microvision. It showed video very sharply from any distance and was quite small; almost the size of an iPhone. The price point for it, however, will be around $500. For a projector that isn’t guaranteed to be used on a daily basis for some users, that is a steep price compared to the other pico projectors that come in around $200- $300.
After taking a break and having a quick bite, we headed over to the Hilton Center to sit in on the Intel Keynote with Intel CEO Paul Otellini. They unvieled some new tech as well as some already mentioned tech, but nothing really stood out. They had some 3D footage shown, some cool wireless TV technologies, and something called AppUp which is Intel’s app store entry for Intel-powered notebooks. Other than that, the presentation was not ground-breaking.
As the night winds down and the Alabama Crimson Tide try to close out Texas, I start to plan out tomorrow’s attack on CES.