Tech & Biz

Tiny Gadgets Dominating CES 2009

by Jordan Yerman | January 8, 2009 at 07:57 am

632 views | 19 Recommendations | 4 comments

Sure enough, a cavalcade of tiny gadgets is dominating CES 2009. Not just netbooks, but tiny-sized laptops with more power and connectivity, such as Sony's latest offering. It looks like a netbook from the outside, but its specs (and price) suggest otherwise.

Two hands would just about cover the Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC, the notebook the size and shape of the sort of clutch fancy ladies might carry around Vegas nightclubs on the weekend. (Could it be a coincidence that one of the Lifestyle sleeves on display could pass as an evening bag?)

The Walkman is dead... long live the Walkman! No longer a colorful device connected to headphones(my old-school tape player was bright yellow in the eighties), the newly-reborn Walkman is the headphones. (I guess "... is the headphone set" would be grammatically correct, but whatevs)

But every so often, old and new make magic -- and it happened tonight at the Walkman booth. Really, the Walkman booth.

The latest attempt to resurrect the once-ubiquitous name for music players may just have found the right form factor in the NWZ-W202BLK, most easily described as a pair of very intelligent headphones.

iRiver also presented some media players... a slew of them, in fact.

There are two MP4 players in the lineup, the E100 Season2 and the E50. Both are flash memory-based. The Season2, which comes in 2-, 4- and 8 GB versions, incorporates a speaker and microphone and a 2.4" LCD screen. The smaller E50, which iRiver says can play for up to 52 hours on a charge, has a 1.8" LCD screen and comes in 2- and 4 GB models.

Also, Polaroid introduced an instant camera for the digital age...

Sure, the new Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera can print 2 x 3-inch photos in 60 seconds. That's moreless what it took for the Instamatic images to appear.

Polaroid PoGo™ Instant Digital Camera uses ZINK Photo Paper™ and ZINK™ Zero Ink™ Printing Technology from ZINK Imaging. ZINK™ Zero Ink™ is an ink-free printing technology which replaces ink cartridges or ribbons with ZINK Photo Paper™ – a composite material that has embedded, heat-activated dye crystals.

The ink is not activated by shaking the photo, in other words.

(I still prefer the old-school, though I can no longer afford the film)

However, Sharp went big... maybe a bit too big, considering the drop-off in big-ol'-TV sales last year; the company presented its new line of Aquos flat-screens, the lowest-end of which is over $1000.

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Karenke4

at 13:04 on January 8th, 2009

Woah, i want a Pogo!

mdamatas

at 18:35 on January 8th, 2009

I just know that the iPod Touch is among the best gadgets I've had, well, maybe it is the best... For those who might not know, it is even compatible with headsets with mic, so, yes, you can have a VoIP iPhone... iLuv iPod Touch :)

mdamatas has contributed a photo to this story.

Paschen

at 21:27 on January 8th, 2009

I though Polaroid is done and domed? And the two hand lab top may look good, but pencil typing, I don't know about that. Would they allow such a device in a Casino?

colllab

at 21:34 on January 9th, 2009

I labeled my SD cards with sticky-back prints from the new Polaroid Pogo printer. I easily cut .7 x .7 inch squares out of the prints with the "Fiskars Squeeze Punch Medium, Block Party," which I bought at Michael's Art Store. Then I work the sticky-back off with an X-acto knife. This size fits perfectly on the SD card, with enough room leftover to stick a small blank label underneath, where I hand print the title of the SD card. Of course, I first laid out 6 small squares on a 2x3 inch (300dpi) jpeg in Photoshop Elements, and then sent the image file to the Polaroid Pogo via bluetooth on my netbook. I now have so many SD cards that I store the labeled cards in plastic slide sheets (made for old photographic slides) which fit in a 3-ring binder. SD cards are cheap enough these days to store music, writings or any other information I need quick and small access to.

colllab has contributed a photo to this story.