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Every January the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas, where new technologies and products to be shipped in the new year are announced. Here are some of the products that have won awards or are breakthroughs in various categories.
Panasonic VT25
The latest TV from Panasonic not only won the Best Television award, it also claimed the Best of CES award, becoming the most innovative product at the show. Among its many rich features are 3D HD capability, online connectivity, and a built-in hard drive for storing shows, pictures, and music. The unit will be available for shipping in spring and will includes a pair of 3D glasses, which doesn't normally ship with other 3D TVs. As a side note, ESPN announced earlier in January that they'll start broadcasting in 3D in June, starting with the World Cup of Soccer. Such broadcasts will be more common as 3D content becomes available.
Eye-Fi Pro X2
Eye-Fi makes SD memory cards with integrated WiFi capability for digital cameras, relieving you of the hassle of carrying and connecting cables when transferring photos from your camera. Their latest product boasts 8GB of storage plus the latest WiFi technology (802.11n) for lower power consumption and better reception. What's coolest about the Eye-Fi Pro X2 is its capability to automatically move photos from the card to a predesignated online storage so that you never run out of room on the card.
Intel's Wireless Display
Intel announced a technology, dubbed WiDi (or Wireless Display) that allows the display of a laptop to be wirelessly transmitted to an external display, TV, or projector. If you've ever tried connecting your laptop to a TV, or fiddled around with cables and display settings at a meeting just to show a presentation, you'd appreciate this technology. Starting with this year's models of Intel's Core processors, the technology will be included in select systems. You'd also need the receiver box, what receives the wireless signal and connects to a display using HDMI.
Control4 EMS 100
Control4 is a company that makes products for home automation, allowing control of a home's lighting, entertainment, temperature, and security through a centralized system. Given their experience in home automation, they have been approached by several utility companies to create a product to help display and manage the energy consumption of a home. They revealed their Energy Management System (EMS) 100 device at CES, which is supposed to be available through utility companies later this year. The device allows monitoring of energy consumption of various devices throughout the home, and makes suggestions about how to reduce your energy consumption and cost.
Lenovo IdeaPad U1Hybrid Notebook
Maybe one of the most innovative and versatile products announced at CES is a laptop with full functionality and keyboard, while also allowing detaching of the display, making it a tablet computer for displaying images, videos, and surfing the web. As a tablet, it functions on a Linux operating system with a rich multi-touch interface with full scroll and zoom/pan capability.
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