ces2012

It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.

The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.

The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away … Read more

LAS VEGAS--We've seen some pretty wacky and innovative technology here at CES, but 3D printers have really caught our attention.

These plastic weaving machines are finally coming down in price and flirting with affordability, but we thought it'd be fun to propose a 3D printer which, well, can print another 3D printer. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Who says CES is becoming irrelevant? Certainly not the wireless carriers.

At a time when some companies are scaling back or skipping CES altogether, the telecoms have actually stepped up their presence. AT&T bulked up its product line with the announcement of a slew of 4G LTE products. Verizon Wireless expanded the size of its booth this year and had a notable presence on a keynote panel. Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile both hosted parties at the conference.

The fact that the carriers have been upping their presence at CES illustrates the importance of having a voice … Read more

Relatively expensive flash memory keeps the cost of SSDs much higher than I'd prefer, but competition keeps everyone honest, so I'm glad to see Plextor announce its M3 Pro line of solid-state drives.

These 2.5-inch models, with a slim 7mm height suitable for thin notebooks, will ship in February in capacities of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB, the Japanese component maker said at CES this week. It didn't disclose pricing.

The new models step up from the existing MS3 products in data-transfer speed, the prime reason most folks pay the price premium and sacrifice the capacity compared … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Day two of CES 2012 is in the books, and it was another typical day of mingling with celebrities and spies for us here at Crave. (Yeah, we just roll like that.)

However, in between hobnobbing with our famous buddies, we saw some amazing tech that we must share with you, so without further ado, here are today's CES highlights.

• CNET announces the Best of CES finalists.

• Justin Bieber intros a dancing robot and reveals his favorite piece of tech.

• Talk about some good karma. Wayne Cunningham gets off the plane in Vegas and gets right into the most amazing hybrid we've ever seen. … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- Synology, the makers of the most robust and feature-rich NAS servers on the market, now looks to the sky, too.

Despite the fact that by the end of 2011, most NAS vendors used the "Cloud" designation for certain features of their products , Synology has refused to use it for its NAS servers which in fact have many Internet-based features. The company changed its mind today at CES 2012.

It showed off that the show the latest build of its Linux-based operating system for its DiskStation NAS servers, called Disk Station Manager (DSM). Version 3.2 … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you've been pining for a continuous heart rate monitor that doesn't strap onto (and continually pinch or slide down) your chest, the new company Basis Science may have just the solution for you, and it doubles as a sleek little watch.

The Basis Band, one of this year's dozen or so CES Health and Wellness Innovations Awards honorees, is equipped with multiple sensors that track not only heart rate (using optical blood flow sensors) but also activity level (via 3D accelerometer), calories burned, and temperature and galvanic skin response.

The water-resistant black or white band … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The days of standing on a scale with your baby and then without it and measuring the difference are over--if it's worth spending $150 on an Internet-connected scale built just for your little one.

So hopes Withings, the French design company that introduced a smart baby monitor last year and is unveiling its Smart Baby Scale--coming in the second quarter of 2012--at CES this week. Made for iPod, iPhone, and iPad, the scale is the first to use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Smart connectivity for tracking the weight of babies and toddlers.

The specs: at 3.3 … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The Google Chromebook will live on with a fresh chip upgrade, according to Samsung.

The next-gen Samsung Series 5 Chromebook gains a dual-core Intel Celeron processor and loses the slower Atom silicon, a Samsung representative on the CES show floor told CNET.

Other specs (see photo below) remain pretty much the same, including a 16GB solid-state drive.

Chromebooks aspire to run apps, documents, and settings in the cloud and thereby simplify the overall user experience. In practice, however, reviewers have found that cloud-based computing can be frustrating if the wireless connection is unreliable.

For that, and other reasons, the Chromebook has not sold in numbers comparable to mainstream Windows laptops.

The Series 5 is slated for release in the second quarter. Pricing has not been announced. … Read more