technologizer

Some had Lycra-bathed women. Some had frantic presenters. Some had brochures, samples, salespeople, three-point shot competitions, and Marilyn Monroe.

But there was (at least) one booth at CES that appeared to have precisely nothing.

Just nothing.

Empty chairs, empty shelves, a blank TV screen, no salespeople, no dancing girls.

This was the booth belonging to Lanyuan Electronics Technology, which appears to be a China-based company that sells very fine cables.

Here, there were no cables to be seen. There were no persuasions to be had. There was just an empty space.

Naturally, I contacted Lanyuan Electronics Technology's reseller in … Read more

LAS VEGAS--No need go into freak-out mode next time your favorite animal goes astray. Tracker Technologies is offering a handy locator solution with its MSP340 pet tracker.

We've seen other trackers before, such as Tagg, but this collar-based tracker, also known as the tbpt Tracker, works with an Android app that the company is showing off at CES 2013.

You attach the waterproof GPS/GSM collar to your pooch, and then forget about it.

If Rover bolts from the yard, activate the free app to figure out where he is.

Using the map function on the app, you can … Read more

LAS VEGAS--No one has ever met Dr. X.

And even though he claims to have created breakthrough medical technology and powerful cures with the help of alien beings, Dr. X won't show at CES.

But his QuantumMan app is here. It supposedly diagnoses and heals your ailments with the simple touch of a smartphone, a few ounces of faith, and some good old cash.

At a small booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center's mile-long South Hall, somewhere between Wacom Technology and VistaQuest, Extraterrestrial Technology is pushing QuantumMan medical treatments at CES 2013. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Call it a minor upgrade, but that's what G-Technology has to offer this year at CES.

The storage vendor, which is now part of Western Digital, announced at CES 2013 that it now ships all of its popular G-Technology G-Drive Mini and G-RAID Mini external storage products with high-speed 1TB, 2.5-inch 7,200rpm hard drives.

Thanks to this, the G-Drive Mini, a compact single-volume external drive, now offers up to 136MBps performance speed. The drive offers both USB 3.0 and FireWire 8000 connection types and is bus-powered. It's preformatted for Mac and is now available … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Personal fitness company Fitbit has just jumped further into the wearable tech market. The company unveiled its $99.95 Fitbit Flex device, an activity tracker designed to be worn all day and monitor movement, sleep, and calories burned.

Design The Flex is similar to other competing products in the growing personal fitness category such as the Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone Up. Built to be worn all day long, the appropriately named Flex is a soft bracelet encased in a rubbery skin. The idea is that it's malleable enough to stay firmly wrapped around your wrist but be comfortable … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It seems that many companies want in on the wearable fitness tracker craze, and Withings is no exception. Its new Smart Activity Tracker is a small, light, 8-gram device that records user activity, sleep, and even measures heart rate in real time.

About the size of a USB stick, the Smart Activity Tracker can handle all the typical pedometer duties such as logging the steps you take, stairs climbed, and calories burned. What sets this gadget apart, though, is its heart rate sensor located on back. Just place your finger tip in the right spot and the Tracker will … Read more

iPhone users wondering whether their wine or breath have gone bad may soon have help from a chip designed to identify nearby aromas and flavors.

Adamant Technologies has created a processor for iPhones that "can take the sense of smell and taste and digitize them," Adamant founder and CEO Sam Khamis tells Business Insider. Khamis says his company's product is fairly sophisticated, employing roughly 2,000 sensors to identify smells compared with the about 400 sensors in the average human nose.

The San Francisco startup, which is backed by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, has begun producing chips … Read more

As the father of 9-year-old twins, I often find myself telling them about tech products and innovations that I didn't have growing up. All parents do it: trying to get their kids to understand how much tougher life was in the old days.

In my case, the old days were in the 1980s -- not that long ago. But the range of change in our lives continues to impress me and make my children roll their eyes.

Yesterday, I posted a photo on Instagram (see above and on my Sreenet account), saying the NYC subway's next-train arrival guides … Read more

I worked as a high-end audio salesman for 16 years and spent another 16 reviewing audio products. Here's what I learned: The very best gear is always expensive. Sure, there are occasional examples of affordable products that are remarkable, but they never get remotely close to what true high-end gear can offer. Beyond price the main thing that separates high-end companies from mass-market brands is high-end designers are all about maximizing performance. Mainstream audio companies rarely try to make the best possible sounding gear. They know that features, wireless connectivity, styling, compact size, cheap pricing, marketing, distribution, etc. -- … Read more