Posts tagged CES

Device-to-device wireless charging shown as CES.

Fulton Innovation’s technology allows wireless charging between portable devices, handy for those who carry multiple devices such as a smartphone and tablet.

By placing two Qi-enabled devices back-to-back, a tablet charged up a phone at the show. Other than preventing a dead phone, another scenario would be a tablet user wanting to extend the power of the mobile device to finish work under way and pulling extra power, to make sure the work gets done, from a smartphone.

Shipping dates announced for Pebble watch.

The Pebble E-Paper watch, which raised over US$10 million on KickStarter has finally begun mass production and the makers have anounced shipping dates.. If you got in early on KickStarter, shipping begins Jan 23. If you got in later and pre-ordered through their website, shipping begins from March 18, with free worldwide shipping as a “thank you for your patience”.

Also announced was that the watch can now also show SMS messages from an iPhone, a feature which was previously limited to Android devices.

Innovega to demonstrate contact lens display today at CES.

I covered the Innovega contact lens here after they revealed details of the product at CES last year. Now the company has announced that a working version of the HUD contact lens will be shown at CES from today.

From January 8th to 11th, Innovega will demonstrate eyewear that offers a clear and simultaneous view of a wearer’s rich media and of their immediate surroundings”.

The Innovega iOptik™ video eyewear is transparent and its ‘virtual canvas’ on which digital content is placed, is the largest anticipated in the industry. Compared to a conventional 42 inch flat-panel television that consumers buy for their living rooms, Innovega’s mobile eyewear accessory will deliver the equivalent of a 240 inch, HD, 3D experience.

Will Apple TV use Samsung’s new concept?

Samsung unveiled a new TV line at CES this week - one with upgradeable modules. Their Smart Evolution line will feature an upgrade slot which users can easily slot in new modules to give improved video or processing power.

Now a report from Cult of Mac suggests that could be the sort of feature the rumoured Apple TV will use, which certainly makes sense.

So imagine this. You spend $2,000 on an Apple iTV with a top-of-the-line A6 processor, but when Apple announces the iTV 2, it’s not an upgrade to the display: it’s an affordable upgrade to the iTV A6 module that gives any iTV out there the same core processing and video power as the latest model.

This system would allow Apple to create the hype for a new TV product every year in the same way as their phones and tablets. Releasing an entire new TV every year would be unlikely to have the same effect, as most consumers would not have the cash to buy a new TV yearly - especially at the higher end of the price range which Apple would likely occupy.

There was much speculation that Apple’s big point of difference in TV would be voice recognition (SIRI) capability, but with most major manufacturers already unveiling similar voice recognition TVs at CES this week, the modular idea would help Apple differentiate itself. Of course with Samsung now having beat Apple to the idea, yet another round of copyright lawsuits may be inevitable.

LG unveils super thin TV.

The new 55 inch TV will be shown of at this weeks CES 2012 show in Las Vegas.

Despite its huge 55 inch size, it is only 4mm thick and weighs 7.5kg. It uses organic light emitting diode (OLED) technology, with pixels that are each capable of displaying red, green, blue and white colours. Normal LED pixels can only display one colour per pixel, so the new TV is able to display a much better resolution.

The new TV also claims to have refresh rates 1000 times better than LCD or plasma screens, although no content is likely to be widely available to take advantage of that feature for a while yet.

CES 2012 about to begin.

The Consumer Electronics Show 2012 is about to begin in Las Vegas, running January 10 - 13. Last years show attracted over 128,000 people, and introduced such gadgets as the Motorola Xoom tables, Android 3.0, Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion CPUs, along with many new 3D TVs and 3D gadgets such as the LG Optimus 3D.

This year an initial highlight looks like being a new Lenovo TV featuring Android 4.0, or Ice Cream sandwich. The next generation Intel chip will also feature prominently in many new ultrabooks, which are likely to be released in the second half of this year. This will also be the last year that Microsoft attends the event.

Roomba-type robot for your windows.

Not content with sitting around waiting for the North to attack again, South Korea has developed a window washing robot. The Windoro “uses distance sensors, attitude adjustment, and obstacle detection while doing its little window waltz, employing detergent and a series of spinning pads to wash up as it goes.”

Augmented reality glasses shown off at CES.

From Technology Review:

Augmented Reality (AR), which overlays virtual information on top of the real world, is a tantalizing concept, but the technology is still a bit complicated. To see virtual directions float in front of you, you have to either look at the world through the screen of a smart phone, or don a pair of bulky, goofy video goggles. Many experts have questioned whether AR will ever catch on in the consumer market.

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas hardware company Vuzix has revealed the first clear AR glasses for consumers. The glasses, called Raptyr, use holographic optics instead of video screens to make digital objects appear in mid-air. The approach is challenging, not least the interface has to compensate for (or compete with) natural light. For this reason the lenses can electronically darken to compensate for brighter or darker environments.

The Raptyr glasses, which have won a CES Innovation Award, feature a 6-megapixel camera, a microphone, headphones and a motion tracking system. They could be plugged into a PC, smart phone, or gaming system.