The Las Vegas Convention Center has slid open it's doors and here is a taste of what we are already seeing before any conferences even begin. CES doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but displays are already showing and many of the major companies at the show are sneaking a peak at new hardware and stealing eyeballs while they still can. Let me give you a taste of some of the more interesting peaces. Read on...
So let me tell you what seems to be flooding the show already, and then I will go in depth for some more specific pieces of tech. Just as expected a lot of TVs, tablets, and ultrabooks seem to be flooding the tech blogs. Lenovo, Samsung, LG, Acer, and some smaller guys have already been showing off some hardware. Let me just say it has been a little interesting, but mostly boring.
In the tablet market lots of Gingerbread Android tablets have been shown off all under $500 with the side item explained by every pitch man that Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 will be coming soon. ASUS leaked that there already released Transformer Prime will be upgraded shortly after January 12th, why that date I don't know. So for now, we still haven't seen anything new with software. Something I'm really bored of hearing already at CES is that all these tablets are dual-core, and in most cases Tegra 2. That is so last year with Tegra 3 already available in the Transformer Prime, so yours truly can't really recommend any of the tablets I have seen so far, except maybe this interesting little guy.
OLPC's XO 3.0
What is that you say? Don't worry I said the same thing. So OLPC invents low cost power efficient computers mostly for the education field. When you hear about a school district giving kids laptops that don't have an Apple on them, this is the company they go to. XO 3.0 is the latest iteration which is the first tablet they have put out. Although this piece of hardware is not finalized, it is close to release. They are hoping to cut the cost to just $100. Yeah, I know right what a steal, but what else do we get?
Well, as you can see this thing has a solar panel built into it's casing. Since this kind of device will be pitched for children, you gotta make it last and be easy to use. This device is sporting a 4 watt panel to charge a 2 watt tablet, so you can actually run this thing while it's charging off solar power. XO has made this thing compatible with any and all types of power sources as well. There is all kinds of ports on this thing, including a positive and a negative metal contact on each side that can take anywhere from 2 - 25 V so get those car battery connectors and keep em warm.
If you notice the screen is sporting some weird OS on it. This thing is running a customized skin of Linux built by OLPC as well with their own app store. Their app store is mostly just learning, education, and testing type stuff. OLPC is nice enough to let us know that you should be able to order with an Android kernel on it or another version of Linux if you would like. Hooray for consumer choice! They cannot however get an x86 OS like Windows on it though because that would consume more than the 4 watt target they would be looking to beat. Currently they can only get Windows down to 5 watts, I was quite surprised to hear they got it that far down.
Next, let's skip over to something that has nothing to do with computers. I'm talking stove tops now. Yeah I have gone crazy, I'm talking stove tops. Look below:
The company Thermador is displaying something called an inductive cooktop. Above you will notice a completely flat glass like top. Below is a series of heat pads all connected. At the bottom of the surface sports a small touchscreen that constantly feeds you data. As you place a pot on the surface you will see a ring show up to indicate the size of the pot, and a color of blue for cold or red for hot. As you move the pots on the surface the ring moves as well. Touch the ring and you can set the temperature going from 1-10 or the amount of time you wish to cook on that pot. Absolutely brilliant and sleek to look at.
Below I show you the guts of the cooktop. Don't think this tech comes cheap. It can drain energy up to 4600 watts, that's a lot of light bulbs. If you have a spare $5000 and are looking to remake your kitchen, this would be a nice start for ya.
Alright enough of odd kitchen tech let's get back to laptops. There are actually two laptops I want to bring to your attention.
First, I will quickly show you this new laptop from Acer called the S5 Ultrabook. This thing is ridiculous thin and made out of magnesium and aluminium. This model is just 13.3 diagonal screen, but Acer will make a cheaper plastic variant just a little thicker at 15 inches. Not much else has been released yet, so I would expect more details once CES truly kicks off. Enjoy the pics below.
Just one more laptop I wanted to show you by Lenovo called the X1 Hybrid laptop. Lenovo has been displaying a whole new lineup of colorful laptops, but this however is not one of them. What makes this guy standout is it's ability to run Android and Windows together in a relatively fast and nice package. The X1 is an already made laptop in the ThinkPad series at Lenovo, but they have enhanced it with a dual core 1.2 GHz snapdragon processor that you would see in some Android smartphones and tablets. This allows the laptop to put the Intel running x86 architecture into sleep mode and run ARM on the snapdragon to load their own Android skin.
This is not a full android OS like you are used to like on a phone. It seems they want to use the Android hybrid for basic tasks like media or email. Lenovo has made it so easy to switch between the two though, and also very fast, which makes me wonder if many other laptop rigs will start doing the same thing. Here is the best part, when a PC goes on battery power it's usually 2-4 hours, but this laptop if flipped onto it's ARM base Android platform will run for 10 hours. Well done Lenovo.
Last, I am going to show you something that I don't really want you to think of buying yet. I am showing this off to just give you a taste of something that will flood the market this year. Video conferencing on the TV is hitting big time this year. Now that Microsoft has purchased Skype they are wanting to push it to everyone. Below you will see a Samsung add-on for $150 that will connect to any TV with an HDMI input.
This is called the InTouch Wi-Fi camera. It gives you 720p resolution and a host of online apps to use on your TV such as YouTube, weather widget, and Google news. Not bad for someone with an older HDTV trying to add a couple more years to it's life. For now though, I urge you to think before you buy. The Kinect for $100 is a much better option if you have an Xbox 360, or wait a little while for the price to drop. I would also bet this isn't the last plug-and-play camera we see at CES. Wait a little while and let's see if anyone drops a 1080p camera add on, or I will give you a little spoiler. Lots of TVs are just going to come with cameras built in soon.
That's all for day 1 folks. I will be back again to give you the scoop on CES goodies. Check back tomorrow.
