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CES 2007: Viewsonic Throws Hat Into 1080p Ring, Loses Hat
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment,
Viewsonic has decided to enter the fray with their 1080p 42-inch LCD. The N4261w includes dual HDMI inputs, a 1,500:1 contrast ratio and a launch date in March with a price tag of $1,799. Low-priced 1080p might seem a bit anachronistic, but we’re glad to see them coming down the pipeline sooner rather than much later. Its 46-inch bigger brother, the N4661, will launch in Q2.)
Gallery: CES 2007: Viewsonic Throws Hat Into 1080p Ring, Loses Hat
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CES 2007: SanDisk’s Sweet Sansa View
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Portable Audio / Video,
SanDisk’s Sansa View comes with 8GB of flash memory and the ability to output at up to 1080i when it’s not playing back video (of various, capable codecs, though we don’t have specifics yet) on its 4-inch screen. Expect up to 4 hours of video playback and around 10 hours of audio, basic PlaysForSure support and a $299 price tag come later Q1 when it’s released.
We’ll try for some hands-on time if we can track one down on the show floor.
(Via Engadget)
Gallery: CES 2007: SanDisk’s Sweet Sansa View
CES 2007: HP Shows Off Child-Crushing VoodooPC Notebook
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, PC / Laptop,
Not much has been heard from the VoodooPC camp since they’ve been acquired by HP, but their announcement of their massive, visible-from-space desktop-replacement Voodoo Envy HW:201 notebook continued their practice of completely ridiculous specs in notebooks. Featuring a 20.1-inch display, two NVidia GeForce 7950’s running in SLI mode and up to 320GB of hard drive space, (and no battery capacity) I sincerely believe that it would actually crack the foundation of your house if you dropped it.
Gallery: CES 2007: HP Shows Off Child-Crushing VoodooPC Notebook
CES 2007: TiVo Plays Rhapsody
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Home Entertainment, Internet, Music,
Good news for Rhapsody subscribers: (Such as myself.) We’ll soon be able to play Rhapsody content through TiVo. This is actually really great for people who want to push every single one of Rhapsody’s 3 million song selection through to their home theatre system’s stereo. You’ll be able to access your shared library, so songs you flag on Rhapsody over Tivo will be automatically added to your PC song library. This will be available soon through Tivo and likely represents a huge potential gain for Rhapsody, since they’ll be getting a great deal of free advertising pushed straight to millions of Tivo subscriber households.
Now, let’s see a discounted Rhapsody rate with Tivo subscription, eh? (No firm release date, but we’ve heard Q2 2007 from the Rhapsody folks.)
Gallery: CES 2007: TiVo Plays Rhapsody
CES 2007: Finally, Something We Can Use—R2D2 DVD & Projector
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Design, Features, Home Entertainment,
Coming from borderline ridiculously awesome territory is Nikko Home Electronics’ R2D2 Projector. The sheer volume of “features” in R2’s shell is astounding: “Safety sensors,” sound effects, fully motorized and controlled by a, I kid you not, Millennium Falcon remote control. With a light-up propulsion system and cockpit light. Wow. Oh, and an integrated DVD player. (What, no Blu-Ray?)
And coming next? An R2 Skype phone.
Full feature diagram after the jump.
Click to continue reading CES 2007: Finally, Something We Can Use—R2D2 DVD & Projector
Gallery: CES 2007: Finally, Something We Can Use—R2D2 DVD & Projector
CES 2007: HP MediaSmart Server
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, PC / Laptop, Storage,
HP’s MediaSmart Server was announced as part of Bill Gates’ keynote last night. It looks rather dashing, and runs Windows Home Server, a variant of Windows Server 2003. The box has a few USB ports and a network port and that’s about it. It comes with an install disc that lets you interface to it through the network, allowing you to configure which media is shared, and how. It includes a neat psuedo-RAID, psuedo-JBOD (just a bunch of discs) approach, that allows file- and folder-specific replication at your choosing, and hot swapability, to boot. (Heh.) They don’t have the full launch config specs down, but we’re guessing 700+ GB, 2GB RAM and probably not terribly expensive, since you don’t have a pricey SLI graphics solution to include. It’s ready to launch, Q2 2007.
Gallery: CES 2007: HP MediaSmart Server
The Bleeding Edge 069: CES 2007 Video: A Look At The SanDisk V-mate
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, CES, CES 2007, Features, Home Entertainment, Movies, Portable Audio / Video, Videocasts, Videos,
|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| - Apple TV High Resolution
|Download| - MPEG-4
|Download| - Windows Media
Read More 
| The Bleeding Edge
Gallery: The Bleeding Edge 069: CES 2007 Video: A Look At The SanDisk V-mate
CES 2007: Gates Keynote Liveblog
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Microsoft,
We’re not going to lie. We’re in the comfort of a Bellagio suite with a 12 mbps down pipe, watching the Gates keynote stream on a pretty massive TV. And we’re liveblogging it. Some very cool things coming up, including Avalon applications, Xbox IPTV “channels” and hot, Bill Gates action. Stay tuned, refresh a lot, and have fun.
[6:48pm] We’re being welcomed to the social with a cool Vista-esque video showing off some of the new things we’ve seen this year.
[6:50pm] “Sure, I’ll keynote next year, but I’m not sure they’ll want me, because I’d likely talk about infectious diseases.” Oh, Bill.
[6:51pm] “Over 40% of US homes now have multiple computers.” Clearly, a large amount of credit due directly to Gates for this.
[6:52pm] He’s talking about the incredible increase in bandwidth, capabilities, high definition and all the fun we’re seeing lately. “The graphics revolution is letting us think about representing reality on the screen.”
Check the rest, after the jump:
Click to continue reading CES 2007: Gates Keynote Liveblog
Gallery: CES 2007: Gates Keynote Liveblog
CES 2007 Video: Shure Gives Us A Look At Their New SE210, SE310, SE420, and SE530 Earbuds
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Music, Portable Audio / Video, Videocasts, Videos,
We were able to stop by Shure’s booth at CES Unveiled, where Chris Lyons gave us a look at their newly announced line of in-ear headphones. Focusing on sound isolation, the four new models aim to heighten your listening experience through keeping outside noises away, letting you hear all the details of the music. We have the details of each product after the jump, along with the interview in the video above.
Here's how to get the show:|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| - Apple TV High Resolution
|Download| - MPEG-4
|Download| - Windows Media
Gallery: CES 2007 Video: Shure Gives Us A Look At Their New SE210, SE310, SE420, and SE530 Earbuds
CES 2007: Asus W5Fe Notebook First With SideShow, Not Sure Why
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, Microsoft,
One of Vista’s new features, in addition to superior power and boot management for notebooks, is the SideShow add-on. Asus’ W5Fe is the first to include the technology: An externally visible, cover-mounted display that sits quietly, looking forlorn while displaying information to you “at a glance” and asking you why you don’t just open it up and use the computer proper. (“Battery and convenience,” you say, trying to comfort it.) “I feel like you’re taking me for granted; toiling all day to provide you with occasional weather and email updates, on a tiny screen that should make you smile, but only makes you wax quizzical, curious and questioning how you ever let the salesman talk you into this upgrade.”
“We’ve had this discussion before, SideShow. I appreciate that I can play simple games and check RSS feeds and emails from you. I just wish that you would do something truly useful, like send this data to my cell phone.”
Fortunately, the SideShow platform allows for such possibilities, but until someone makes use of it, having an external display for something like this just seems silly, and the Asus W5Fe probably knows it.
