CES - Must-see products

LAS VEGAS--If there's one name everyone knows for high-end gaming PCs, it's Alienware. The Dell sub-brand offers the latest components, imaginative designs, and often prices to match.

For CES 2011, Alienware has a new version of its 17-inch M17x laptop. It's called the M17x R3 (we assume it's the third revision of the M17x), and it has several GPU options, such as the 1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M, the 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6870M, and the 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6970M.

Besides HDMI-out, it also supports HDMI-in, which means you can hook … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Media streaming, both locally and online, has been getting more and more popular. It doesn't matter what service you use or what player you have, what you see on the TV or computer screen has to go through your home router.

D-Link has that in mind and announced at CES 2011 HD media routers that it claims offer much better audio and video streaming, even when dealing with huge files of 1080p content.

These routers are all DLNA certified and incorporate a Quality of Service (QoS) engine, called HD Fuel technology, that prioritizes high-definition video streaming with services … Read more

LAS VEGAS--These days, cloud services are all the rage for early adopters and business-minded individuals, but they haven't managed to make their way into the mainstream quite yet. However, companies like RealNetworks are banking on the fact that someday all consumers will want to store their content--media, in particular--up in the cloud.

Today, RealNetworks announced Unifi, a multimedia-centric cloud service that aggregates your photos, music, and video files from across multiple devices and online services. In other words, instead of having to keep track of multiple media libraries, you get a single online interface for organizing and accessing your … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Verizon at CES is showing off a home energy and security service it expects to roll out later this year priced for the "mass market."

Starting later this quarter, Verizon will start a trial of the Home Monitoring and Control service to its broadband customers in New Jersey, followed by a broader rollout, a company executive said here yesterday.

The company will offer a couple of starter kits, with one focused on home security and the other on energy. An associated monthly fee will be "nominal" and priced for broad usage, said Hassane Bouhia, group … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Every year at CES, there are the concept devices and out-on-a-limb concepts that inevitably grab headlines and rapt attention. The Razer Switchblade, announced today, is certainly one of these.

Described as a way to bring desktop PC gaming to a portable form factor, the concept device comes from Razer, a company known for making mice and computer peripherals. And yet, the Switchblade is a full Netbook of sorts, an actual PC product, albeit not one that's set for production yet.

The Switchblade is Intel Atom-based, with a touch screen and a dynamic tactile keyboard that adjusts its layout … Read more

LAS VEGAS--VoxOx debuted several years ago as a high-powered multi-protocol chat alternative that incorporated some nifty VoIP features thanks to its parent company, a small telecom outfit called TelCentris.

Today at CES 2011, TelCentris announces a revamped VoxOx with an emphasis on simplicity and messaging unification.

The big improvement to the latest version of the program, available for Windows and Mac, is the unified messaging window. People will be able to interact via instant message, SMS, VoIP phone calls, and social networking all from the same communications stream. This includes voice mail transcriptions similar to Google Voice, although TelCentris … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Motorola kicked off the Verizon 4G extravaganza that was promised this week when it introduced the Droid Bionic, one of the first few phones to run on Verizon's 4G LTE network. If that wasn't enough to have the tech enthusiasts drooling, it even boasts a dual-core processor, with each core running at 1GHz for a total of 2GHz. And from what little we saw of it, we have to say we're impressed.

The 4.3-inch qHD display, for example, was quite stunning from our brief moments with it. It's bright, crisp, and the viewing angle … Read more

Editors' Note Feb 4, 2011: Pricing has been revealed. Also, we have preliminary word that THX certification applies to 3D mode as well as 2D.

Editors' Note Jan 8, 2011: The Panasonic VT30 series was one of three nominees for CNET's Best of CES award in the TVs category.

LAS VEGAS--About this time last year we gave the Panasonic TC-PVT25 series of plasma TVs our Best in Show award as the most promising product at CES 2010. At the end of 2010 it still stood out as the overall best-performing HDTV we'd tested all year, and the second-best … Read more

Update Feb 4, 2011: Pricing and availability have been revealed along with preliminary word that THX certification also applies to 3D mode.

LAS VEGAS--THX Display certification has been one of the saving graces of higher-end Panasonic plasma TVs over the last few years, making up for the relatively inaccurate color and sparse picture settings available in other modes. Among the company's lineup of 2011 plasmas, THX is available starting on the GT30 series.

According to a trustworthy leak a THX picture setting is available in 3D as well as 2D modes, much like the PX950 series.. In any case … Read more