ce

At the CeBit 2009 trade show taking place this week in Hannover, Germany, Asus showed off its Eee PCs, including touch-screen models that can be used like the iPhone, with finger gestures. Our colleagues at ZDNet Germany snapped some pictures of the computers; scroll through the gallery below to see what Asus has up its sleeve.

Mio isn't the only one making GPS news at CeBIT 2009. Garmin also got in on the action and introduced its new Nuvi 1200 and 1300 series of portable navigation devices on Tuesday. The new products sport thinner designs and are the first to offer the option of enhanced pedestrian navigation through CityXplorer maps.

Realizing that portable navigation devices are no longer restricted to just the car and hoping to reach new customers, Garmin wanted to provide an option for those exploring new cities by foot. Slimming down the size of the GPS was one solution and CityXplorer was … Read more

Back at GSMA 2009, I spotted a mysterious Mio GPS Phone (pictured below) at the Microsoft booth but couldn't find much information on the device other than what was printed on the spec card. Well, it looks the mystery smartphone had its official coming-out party on the opening day of the CeBIT 2009.

On Tuesday, Mio Technology took the wraps off its Mio Explora K70 GPS Phone, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with an integrated Qualcomm gpsOne chipset. The handset offers turn-by-turn navigation and quad-band connectivity (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) with 3.5G support (HSDPA/HSUPDA 850/… Read more

HANNOVER, Germany--Asus is to phase out its 7-inch-screen Eee PC Netbooks in mature markets, company chairman Jonney Shih said on Tuesday.

During a press conference at the CeBit technology show here, Shih told ZDNet UK that the manufacturer would concentrate on its 10-inch Netbooks, which he said customers preferred. He denied recent reports that Asus would phase out its 8.9-inch Netbooks. However, he did say that it would cut 7-inch Eee PCs--the original size for the line--from its catalog.

"It seems that customers prefer to have a greater screen, which also means a larger keyboard," Shih said. "I still believe we have a good opportunity in 8.9-inch for kids, telecoms (providers) or emerging markets. The 7-inch (Netbook) is going to be phased out, although some emerging countries may still have some demand."

Asus has previously had to deny rumors that it would remove all its sub-10-inch Netbooks from its range. In November, it said both its 8.9-inch and 7-inch Netbooks would survive with refreshed specifications.

At CeBit, the annual spring tech show, Asus showed off a variety of new and recently announced products. It offered up an Eee videophone, an Eee NAS PC, and several new notebooks, including the Eee PC "Seashell" 1008HA, which is a one-inch-thick, 10-inch-screen version of the Eee Netbook design. … Read more

Today Nvidia unveiled the GeForce G102M, a new laptop GPU that will debut in a new 14-inch notebook from Asus called the K401N. The announcement was made at the CeBIT trade show in Germany.

According to Nvidia:

The new GPU has 16 processor cores which provide up to 4 times faster graphics performance than Centrino 2 systems1. The GeForce G102M includes up to 512MB of dedicated graphics memory to accelerate … Read more

Spotted at the German CeBit 2009 show was this interesting concept piece from Asus. It's a laptop with two displays, instead of a traditional screen and keyboard. The company calls it "a revolutionary dual-panel concept notebook," and says the design was inspired by "ideas contributed from users from around the world."

Using a Web site called WePC.com, consumers could submit and discuss ideas for innovative laptops, and many of the submitted ideas seem to revolve around multiple displays in a single unit.

These photos represent a stab at bringing one of these crowd-sourced ideas to life, but Asus warns that "the concept is still a work-in-progress which requires continued feedback."

This is how Asus describes the system:

Through hand gestures, handwriting recognition, and multitouch, users are presented with a control surface that is both flexible and intuitive. Users can use the dual-panel concept in a myriad of usage scenarios, for example as a conventional notebook with multitouch screens, a virtual keyboard and touchpad; a multimedia hub, in which both dual panels could combine to form a larger display for widescreen entertainment; or an E-book mode in which users can hold the dual panel concept notebook just like they would a conventional book while flipping pages through intuitive gestures or by touch.

These concepts aim to bring convenience to the user through technological innovations and user-centric design.

More pics after the break.… Read more

Philip Schoonover, chairman, president, and CEO of embattled electronics retailer Circuit City, resigned Monday, the company announced.

His resignation is effective immediately, and he will be replaced by James Marcum as president and CEO, and by Allen King as chairman of the board of directors.

Marcum joined Circuit City's board in June and was elected vice chairman in August. His specialty is electronics retail--he was selected in order to help the struggling retailer while it tries to right itself. He has helped several other specialty retailers while in the midst of their own turnarounds.

Newly installed chairman King said … Read more

The roughly two-month shopping period before school starts is typically fruitful for consumer electronics retailers. Not this year.

All categories combined showed minimal growth. Although notebook sales increased 10 percent over the same period the year before, desktops were down 3 percent. And products that have been guaranteed big sellers in past years continue to lose momentum: digital-camera sales were down 1 percent, printer sales were even, and MP3 player sales were up 7 percent.

This is especially concerning to electronics retailers, since the all-important holiday shopping season is approaching, a time when they typically can expect to play catch-up … Read more

The New York Times has a cool visualization chart on its site Wednesday showing how the world population spends its discretionary income.

It highlights per capita spending on clothing and footwear, electronics, alcohol and tobacco, household goods, and recreation. At Crave, we obviously zeroed in on electronics spending, and the results seemed predictable at first: the U.S. spends an ungodly amount of money on electronics: $162 billion a year. "Electronics, " by the way, are defined here as PCs, TVs, stereos, and camera equipment. Cell phones, notably, are not included.

The U.K., France, Germany, and Russia also … Read more