New MediaFLO and WiMAX Devices from Samsung

Samsung also had some other new phones on display including of course their
MediaFLO phone, the SCH-u620.
It's a slider with long antenna that sticks out to the right. I don't think it's
as slick as LG's swivel screen
VX9400.



Mobile WiMAX Devices Soon to be Released in Korea




Samsung also had on hand some slick Mobile WiMAX devices such as this
folding ultra-mobile PC that runs Windows XP. It's an EV-DO / Mobile WiMAX
dual-mode device (the device behind it with the white top is what it looks like
folded up).




They also have this WiMAX PDA, the
SPH-M8100.
Both of these WiMAX devices will be commercial in Korea later this year.



 

Samsung Taking a Crack at QWERTY

Samsung unveiled two new phones that feature full QWERTY
keyboards. The phones are pretty darn compact and slick. Will they successfully
bring QWERTY to a phone near you?



First we have the

SCH-i760 which is a slider that slides to the side instead of up to reveal
the QWERTY keyboard.



This next one is even better - the

SCH-u740 is a flip phone that has a QWERTY keyboard.




Of course you may wonder how you are supposed to type with
the screen to the side of the keyboard. Well, the screen flips to the side (or
the top of the keyboard) when the phone is closed.

Found it: The Largest HD Display at CES

I finally found the largest 1080p HD display at this
year's CES - it turned out not to be the 100" LG or the 108" Sharp LCDs as
reported earlier. This is a 120" display projected by Optoma. Ok ok it's not a
backlit display but it does claim to be 1080p. To be fair the picture quality
was not as bright or sharp as an LCD (nor was it very flash resistant even
though I took the photo at quite an angle).

 

The Year of the Personal Navigation Device?

Here's another major theme at this year's CES: personal
navigation devices. Looks like TomTom
really started a trend with their touch-screen only form factor. Here are just
three of the many new offerings. These three are from
Sanyo (EasyStreet),
HP (it's actually just a new form factor iPaq)
and

Polaroid. They are usually Windows CE based.








 

Celebrity Sightings

Two celebrity sightings today!
Hulk Hogan and family were at the Polaroid booth promoting their reality TV
show.






I also spotted Gene Simmons of
KISS doing an interview on the exhibit
floor.




 

Tropos Networks Booth

Tropos Networks, a leader in muni-wifi equipment, was showing off its wares
including this utility-pole mounted mesh networking node.

Skype Me

There were a lot of

Skype phones on display from no-name and big names alike at this year's CES.
This new model from Netgear won an Innovations Award.

Fingerprint Scanning Phones

There was an NFC booth that had several phones from Asia embedded with
Authentec's fingerprint scanner.

 

Totally Ridiculous

Skinz Mobile Phone Protection protects your phone
from: water, dirt, mud, paint, sweat, blood, snow...etc.




This one gets my vote for most ridiculous booth and product at CES. So they have
a demonstration with a girl in a jacuzzi who takes a Treo from a daring
volunteer. The girl proceeds to apply the Skinz product - which
looks remarkably similar to a, well
you can see the picture below. After tying a knot she dunks the Treo in the
jacuzzi and viola! The Treo is safe and protected. This might be a good joke but
is certainly not a serious product.

Jangl - Anonymous Phone Numbers

Here is an interesting new company called
Jangl. They have a
service that allows people to share their phone numbers without revealing their
real phone numbers. Users share their Jangl ID, which is linked to a bogus phone
number that forwards to the Jangl user's real phone number.

RC Dragonfly

There are a lot of electronic toys trying to gain traction at CES. This

radio controlled flying dragonfly was pretty neat. It flies by flapping its
wings - just like a dragonfly. It was quite a sight to see it flying above the
exhibit floor.

Tuesday (January 9, 2007) - More from the Exhibit Floors

Aigo

Here is a Chinese CE manufacturer that was showing a pretty
nice line of digital cameras, personal media players and a portable GPS. Their
10mp compact digital camera would sell for about $200USD and looks very similar
to Canon and Pentax Optio compact offerings.








I had not seen a watch-sized media player before until I saw this one.





 

Explay

Explay has developed the
world's smallest projector, a revolutionary nano-projector
engine small enough to fit inside your pocket or be embedded in
your mobile device, allowing you to truly enjoy the big picture
wherever you are.

Here is some video of Explay in action.

QUALCOMM Booth

The QUALCOMM booth had a unique "archaeological dig"
theme to it. Yes, they were digging up old technology artifacts like movie
reels, black and white monitors, record players and other junk. I'm not sure
what this had to do with all the neat companies on display but maybe you can
figure it out. Also, the first person who can identify the two QUALCOMM
employees in PH who are dressed as archaeologists in the photo below wins a
prize.

Some companies we know well such as
EyeSpot,
JuiceCaster and
Mercora were on
display.

More from the LG Booth

Yesterday Verizon Wireless finally

made the official announcement for V CAST Mobile TV.

Following in those footsteps, LG had on display a
collection of "World's First" Mobile Broadcast phones (yes we are beginning to
see a pattern here).

LG will also be supplying Verizon with one of the first
FLO-enabled handsets and they were showing it off at CES. The LG VX9400 will
have a swivel-screen that rotates 90 degrees. The phones we saw were running the
new TV service and it works really well (as we know) and features a responsive
channel-guide. Check out the video below! The phones should be available in February.










LG also had several other phones on display such as the

Shine, which is part of a "Black Label" line (aka fancy-sounding upmarket
marketing lingo to try to justify charging the consumer a higher price).

It was also nice to see the AX490 on display that
features the Fastap keypad from our good friends at Digit Wireless.

LG was also showing off some OLED display technology for
mobiles. These working displays were QVGA, 262k colors, and a contrast ratio in
excess of 10,000:1 .





 

Monday (January 8, 2007) - CES Exhibit Floor Opens

At 10am on Monday the exhibit floors opened - and it was
a madhouse!




The masses pour onto the exhibit floor as the doors open.

One of the first things you notice is the number of flat
panels on display, especially this one from LG - the world's first 100" full
1080p HD LCD:






Although, what good is it to be the world's first monster-sized
LCD when someone else has the world's largest: behold Sharp's 108"
full 1080p HD LCD:






Not to be outdone, LG did have something pretty unique: a 3D LCD display. It's
hard to tell from this photo, but the 3D was pretty impressive and you didn't
need to use special glasses.

Sunday (January 7, 2007) - Bill Gates Opening Keynote

Not much happened today at CES except that Bill Gates gave his opening keynote speech this evening. You can view a recording of it here.

One of the key themes of his keynote was the need for connectivity and for devices to be able to communicate with each other (a la digital home). He also talked a lot about the new Windows Vista and even had someone give a demo of it.

Tomorrow the show floor opens and the real fun begins.

Introduction: Blogging LIVE! from CES

Greetings all! I will be posting blog entries that will include photos and videos from the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV. Stay tuned for future posts that will contain updates from the show.