CES News News

Sony has introduces their own take on wireless technology by introducing it’s own short-range Wi-Fi, in an attempt to challenge the new wireless USB standard and to, just for the hell of it, stir things up.

Sony’s TransferJet theoretically offers a maximum data-transfer rate of 560Mbps in the 4.48GHz band — though rates would probably be closer to 375Mbps. It also only operates at a distance of 3cm or less — so tall people are severely hindered by the device.

Bill Gates, the nerdiest and richest man in America gave what he said was his last keynote address at CES.

Gates is stepping away from his full-time work at Microsoft later this year in order to pursue other, world-changing paths, like building a giant laser gun to defend against alien invaders (yet another idea he stole from Steve Jobs, oddly enough.)

The world needs saving but, more importantly, it needs entertaining — which is why Philips announced its Eco TV. A 42-inch HDTV that’s chalk full of power-saving features.

What’s one of the features? The ability to save a tree every time you watch American Gladiators.

Eye-Fi Inc.’s wireless card has won the biggest prize in tech — the Last Gadget Standing cession, held at CES by Yahoo. Oh, and by biggest prize in tech, we mean it won a cute little prize that no one really cares about.

Still, you can’t beat a wireless SD card — which is why the CES audience used their raucous applause to wirelessly cheer the SD card to victory above nine other contenders.

According to VOIP News Sony will be announcing a version of Skype for its best selling PSP unit.

The PSP happens to be the current champion of handheld game units and has been racing past its rivals like the Nintendo DS.

Full details are expected to be announced at the CES 2008 in Vegas, on the 7th of Jan. We’ll have them as soon as they’re released to the press.

Panasonic, who have been using CES very effectively to launch the biggest LCD screen every year, have outdone themselves this year with a whopping 150" LCD screen - big enough for someone to stand in!

The TV’s dimensions are sized at approximately 138" x 79".

There is some speculation that the boffins over Panasonic might have glued together 4 smaller screens to get to these dimensions.

Regardless, expect this to cost more than most small and medium sized houses or apartments, when its made commercially available in 2009.

Lets hope we don’t see a Dot-Com crash by then!

Garmin used the Pre-CES announcement fest to announce an update to one of its best selling lineups - the Nuvi.

The newly announced Nuvi 780 features a 4.3 inch screen, MSN Direct (3 month subscription included) and highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps. The device is compatible with audible.com’s subscription service, allowing for easy downloads to the device.

Additional features include:

Warner Brothers, the largest seller of DVDs (15-20% market share) has announced that they will be backing Sony’s Blu-Ray technology over HD-DVD which is backed by Toshiba and Microsoft.

This announcement was followed by the cancellation of the HD-DVD press conference which was scheduled on Friday in the pre-CES announcement fest.

We look at several issues related to the format wars which are affected by this announcement.