z00pster’s gadget blog

Filed under: CES, Misc. Gadgets

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We’d put this in the "yet another Skype-certified" category except the Jawbone PC Edition is
the only one that adjusts the sound quality 868 times per second. We caught up with Aliph, the company that makes this
yapper, over at Showstoppers here in Vegas. The award-winning design was updated since we last saw it as evidenced by our pic above of the
Jawbone on one of the Aliph peeps. We got a chance to give it a listen as well and the clarity was indescribable. $80
later this month gets you the Jawbone PC Edition with USB 1.1 and 2.0 support.

D2Audio and Geneva Lab have taken the extra step and developed awesome speaker systems that not only dock your iPod like you’ve never docked before, but give you a set of extra features as well.

Sling Media has recently announced that within their popular internet tv broadcaster will soon be available in PAL format. What does this mean? It means that consumers in countries running the PAL standard will now enjoy their TV anywhere as well.

Very cool stuff.

Sling Media’s Slingbox

I hear a lot of people complaining about the fact that the Motorola ROKR E2 is not iTunes compatible, but why not look at the RAZR V3i instead? It’s a much better looking phone than the ROKR and it works perfectly with iTunes. The number of song is still limited to 100, just like the original ROKR. Assuming that you sync your phone every day or two, you might be OK (unless you’re like my friend Joe and you can listen to the same tune for a month). The 320×240 screen is very nice and it’s a good viewfinder for the 1.23 Megapixel camera. If you can’t live without iTunes, the RAZR V3i is for you.

Blu-Ray was presented by many manufacturers. For example, this HP Media Center PC features a PC version of a Blu-Ray drive. In this instance it was a rewriteable Blu-Ray drive. It’s funny because many people were recently swearing that HP would not support Blu-Ray. The bottom-line is that no-one is going to take chances and bet the farm on a single horse. We’ve found the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD drama ridiculous for a while. It might one day prove as ridiculous as the DVD “minus” versus “plus” war, which arguably, nobody cares about today. Oh, lastly, we’ve learned that this Rewritable drive will cost around $1000 when it comes out “this year” (yeah, that’s real useful information, huh?)

Some sad lonely Mac fanboy, who happens to be a superb 3D modeler, has began the now-annual “design a mockup of the next iPod” competition. Only thing is, no prize, and no glory. This one is a little bit too square for my taste, although the bigger screen is definitely a plus. Here is a quick spec rundown of this fake: Bluetooth, integrated camera, microphone, user-replaceable battery, voice-to-text translation, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and a variety of screen display options. Keep dreaming, folks.

6th generation iPod mock up by md3d [dl:mag]

IPEVO, the bastard consumer electronics offspring of the Taiwanese Internet portal PChome, showed off its Skype-friendly cordless handset and speakerphone at CES Unveiled this evening. This is one of many products Skype is showing off in its bid to move out of the PC and into that tangle of cables I call a desk. Great form factor in this angled USB “Fly-1″ cordless handset that also has a speakerphone and is Windows and Mac compatible. The X-shaped “Xing” USB teleconferencing phone has four speakers—but no telling the sound quality of this thing because of the noisy room. Great looking, though. Available Q1.

Product Page

Snapped a few pics with the Kodak V570 this evening. The news of this dual-lens camera broke earlier, and it’s worth a second look. Each lens is paired with a 5 megapixel CCD image sensor. One lens is a 23mm ultra-wide angle, and the other is a 39-117mm optical zoom. The wide lens gives you 70% more width than an average camera. As you zoom in and out, the V570 seamlessly switches between the two lenses—so you never have to think about whether you are in wide angle or not. That wide angle lens is accompanied by a panoramic stitching feature that will let you take a 180 degree photo in three shots.

Otherwise this has got the same features, from LCD screen size to the SD card slot, as most other digi-cams on the market and Kodak’s pocket series. It will cost $399, no word on release date.

Never one to disappoint, LG had some fun gear on hand at Unveiled. The Bluetooth Style-i is best described as a remote control for your handset. It’s an earpiece and keypad without any of the innards—it just connects to the phone for that stuff. It doesn’t clip on the ear, but it’s about the size and weight (.79 oz.) of a fountain pen. There is an OLED display for caller ID and redial. It supports three-way and call waiting. And it gets 8 hours of talk time. There is even a headset jack in case you want to just use it like that.

The Bluetooth Speakerphone is a portable device that could be good for the car or maybe an office (but that’s a bit of a stretch I think). There is no speaker grill on the thing, and it was light as a feather in that way that makes you wonder: what’s inside?

LG also had their new UTMS “Sassy Slider” CU320 phone on display. It’s got a beautiful 262K color screen, 1.3 MP camera, TransFlash memory port, and it slides vertically to reveal the keypad. Expect to see more photos of this one later today after LG’s press conference. And it will go on sale later this month from Cingular.

Here’s another feather in Garmin’s GPS cap. The iQue 3000 rounds out the company’s iQue Palm OS PDA product line and is being marketed as an entry level PDA offering fully integrated GPS technology. Includes Garmin’s “where to” or “view maps” interface and once you put in a destination, the 3000 will calculate the shortest and quickest route for you to take. In the event that you can’t take directions, it will also recalculate a route if you miss a turn. Other features include complete integration between organization and GPS navigation functions, so it connects the Palm Address Book and Date Book to the GPS electronic map, letting you navigate directly to a specific address from your contact database or date book. Not a bad little trick. Retails at $400 and comes with a mini-USB synchronization cable, AC wall charger, suction cup mount auto cradle, microSD Card, 12-volt car charger, companion CD or DVD (US only) with owner’s manual, City Navigator North America NT CD, and quick-reference guide.

Garmin’s iQue 3000: GPS Power in the Palm of Your Hand [Garmin]