Electronic Toy World

What could be hotter than CES booth babes this year? The ultra-cool Sony XEL-1 LED TV! Yes, I did just do that.

This candy for your eyes is the first available LED TV in the United States and will cost early adopters a cool $2500 for an 11″ high definition screen. This new entrant into the US market signifies the beginning of the end for the old school LCDs and older school plasma that will quickly fade out of the market as additional LEDs come out at cheaper and cheaper prices. This geek’s estimate… OLEDs will outsell LCD and plasma TVs in 2011.

You want some specs on the XEL-1, well at 3mm thick it’s a bit hard to watch from the side. The OLED picture has a contrast ration of 1,000,000:1 which provide the deepest black levels on the market. If you’re green, you’ll be happy to learn that the OLED technology is 40% more efficient than traditional LCD panels and does not require the use of harmful mercury during it’s manufacturing process.

The Geeks have been following this emerging technology and are excited that it has finally come to market.

With the new partnership between major music label Sony BMG and online retail giant Amazon.com, music fanatics can download the songs of Justin Timberlake, Santana, Bruce Springsteen and many other famous artists at Amazon MP3 starting next month.

This is a very significant milestone because Amazon MP3 becomes the online music retailer to carry all four major labels as well as more than 33,000 independent labels. Now, the war is on against the dominant market leader, Apple’s iTunes.

This partnership is part of a bigger effort to loosen the tight grip of iTunes in this industry. Selling more than 3 billion songs since its inception, the iTunes online retail store dictates pricing and distribution. Major music labels see Amazon MP3 as the tool to neutralize the leverage of iTunes and regain control of the industry.

The main difference is that songs downloaded from Amazon MP3 are compatible with PCs, iPod, BlackBerry, iPhone, Zune, Zen and almost all music-capable devices. Conversely, songs downloaded via iTunes are playable only on Apple devices.

In terms of pricing, most songs in Amazon MP3 cost from 89 cents to 99 cents, giving music labels some flexibility to charge whatever they deem reasonable. On the other hand, iTunes maintains a parity pricing of 99 cents per song.

Read [BusinessWire]

Posted Jan 12th 2008 2:05PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Handhelds
Sign language pocket tools aren’t all that uncommon, but Krown’s latest just exemplifies utility. This relatively low-fi device can reportedly display “short video clips showing how to sign any of 4,500 stored words in US sign language.” Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of details beyond that right now, but the firm is aiming to launch it in approximately three to four months at around $180.

At CES, Magellan released more information on their RoadMate 1400, which one of the three announced in the new RoadMate series, the others being the RoadMate 1412 and the RoadMate 1430. 

The RoadMate 1400 comes with a 4.3 inch touch screen, preloaded Navteq maps of continental U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Additionally, it comes with 1.3 million POI’s and is priced at $300, a very crowded price point.  It’s features should make it a stand out.

And those features are:

• 4.3-inch WQVGA full-color, anti-glare touch-screen display
• Centrality Atlas III GPS chipset
• 2-D and 3-D map views with auto day/night mode switching
• Trip computer and trip planner
• QuickSpell intelligently searches and checks spelling when entering addresses
• SmartDetour prompts drivers to route around heavy or stationary traffic
• SD card slot for maps
• USB port for PC connection and in-vehicle power

Via [NaviGadget]

It’s 2007 and cell phones can already do the following: access your e-mail, act as a pager, instant message, text message, take pictures and videos, play video games, browse the Web, play back music, videos and radio, wake you up, be your addressbook, be a map, with built-in GPS figure out where you are and give you directions, and there’s even one that has a built-in breathalyzer.

Nokia is already testing using phones as payment systems and electronic wallets. How long before our phones also act as your biometric ID or more? How about those keyless entry systems that are now common in cars and also available integrated into home security systems? Why can’t those be integrated into phones too?

People are turning more and more to smartphones that act more like computers than just phones. All of this sounds great, and while I look forward to integrating more of my life into fewer devices and having it at my fingertips constantly, I worry about losing this all important mobile device. What can, nay do, we do to protect against loss? Here’s one rough idea: embed an RFID (or similar tech) chip into your skin that is uniquely tied to your mobile. When your mobile gets out of some predefined range of your body, either the embedded chip or your phone will sound an audible warning.

Now what if this doesn’t work and you are unavoidably separated from your mobile; let’s say you were walking over a bridge and dropped your phone through the grates and it plunged to a watery death or you are robbed? Well I’m not too worried about first situation, as I’ll just get a new mobile and restore my settings from my backup. The second scenario worries me. How do I zap my phone remotely so that all of my data is destroyed and safe from prying eyes? A local password can be a pain to use on a constant basis and potentially hacked. I want to be able to call my cell provider and have them immediately send a signal to wipe my mobile. Note to vendors and service providers - get on that, would ya?

Speaking of backups, one more important request to mobile makers. You make enough drool-inducing products to make people keep switching their mobiles constantly. However, people typically have to go through a significant amount of pain to get their data transferred over to their new gadgets. When are you all going to get together and set up a standard data format (exportable to XML will be fine) so that this process as well as backing up will be standardized and easy? PS> No matter how many good products you make, people being what they are, they’re going to switch vendors from time to time.

Posted Jan 12th 2008 8:15AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: CES, Portable Audio
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 distributer) is after the break.

Now that CES 2008 has ended, it is time to look back and check the products that won awards. The Omnistat2 isn’t your normal thermostat, because it can even help you pay the energy bills.

Since it is a high-tech thermostat, the Omnistat2 can control with exaction two details of your home: temperature, and humidity. Afterwards, it is able to make adjustments in order to gain more efficiency, which in the end translates into less money for energy bills.

Sadly there is no information about the price, mostly because it is hot at CES. Expectations for the launch are on the 2Q.

PS - It was the Honoree Award for Design and Engineering in Home Appliances.

Via SlashGear

Posted Jan 12th 2008 9:03AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Portable Video, Wearables
It’s not often that we see a pair of new wearable PVRs within the span of 24 hours, but sure enough, Ajoka is launching its Belt Buckle DVR just after we peeked the VIEVU PVR-PRO. ‘Course, we’re fairly certain this one’s arriving a little late to be an official member of the “multifaceted belt buckle” fad, but with all the utility crammed into this one, it’s got a fair shot at gaining traction, regardless. As for specs, this hidden camera can record video at a paltry 176 x 144 resolution, and considering that no built-in memory is included, you better bring your own SD card. Also, you can transfer captures and recharge the battery via the USB port, but sadly, no price is disclosed.

Posted Jan 12th 2008 4:22AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Storage
According to excited rumblings emanating from “undisclosed sources,” drive-maker Hitachi is in talks with Fujitsu and Toshiba over the formation of new joint-company dedicated to hard drives and other storage systems. Apparently, Hitachi has had early discussions with the equity firm Silver Lake over spinning off its recently-troubled hard drive unit, though apparently the conversations haven’t exactly been fruitful. Silver Lake has long-standing ties to Seagate, and observers (again, unnamed) have alleged that the company doesn’t understand a traditional Japanese business. If the deal is going down, “sources” and “observers” say it’s likely to happen no later than April 1st, though we officially cock one eyebrow, prop our elbows onto the dinner table, and declare, “Oh really?”

Posted Jan 12th 2008 5:58AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: CES
The Tole Pure is alright, but the live demo was pretty awkward.