ces2012

LAS VEGAS--Nintendo held a few behind-closed-door meetings with an up-close and personal demo of the Wii U at CES 2012.

While the vast majority of demos and presentations were mostly stuff I had heard before, I was able to put together what playing a Zelda game on the Wii U might look and play like.

I had seen this quick Zelda on Wii U teaser video before, but through some generous imagination, I was able to carefully piece together how it could potentially work.

The Wii U's tablet controller's screen is very impressive, and would be the perfect … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As I've said before, it's not often that I get to cover surf-related tech, so when CNET's Kent German told me Oregon Scientific had a new video camera for surfboards, you'd better believe I bolted over to the company's booth to check it out.

The ATCMini Action Video Camera is Oregon Scientific's latest action cam, and it's one of the lightest ones yet at just 2.3 ounces. This means it won't weigh you down when you're trying to capture all your thrills and spills as you're surfing, biking, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Admit it, sometimes you miss the days before smartphones came onto the scene.

Although there is no doubt that their features have improved our lives a thousand-fold, the days of simple clam shell or candy bar phones were altogether pleasant. Call it rose-tinted nostalgia, but these phones of yesteryear--sometime before touch screens, GPS, and apps, but definitely after the bag phone era--were simple and tough.

And even though there are a lot of people who are able to use smartphones, they aren't for everybody--especially when it comes to those on opposite ends of the age spectrum. These include … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Vizio is not a company that wants to be pigeonholed.

Best known for its TVs, the company threw us all a curveball at last year's Consumer Electronics Show when it showed off an Android tablet and Android phone, both of which doubled as universal remotes.

For CES 2012, Vizio's surprise announcement was a line of laptop computers. But the manufacturer is also quietly teasing its second Android tablet, the VTAB 3010 (also known as the M Series).

Unlike its first foray, the VTAB 1008, this new model has an iPad-like 10-inch screen instead of an 8-inch display. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--No matter how much you prepare for a trade show like CES, what you see on the floor never quite matches what news you get beforehand.

In the case of Samsung, we had a chance to look at the new Samsung Series 9 and Series 5 Ultra ultrabook, but were surprised by quite a few intriguing laptops at Samsung's booth, which we should expect to see later this year.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Romo, a playful robot that uses a smartphone as its brains, is on a roll.

The startup behind Romo, called Romotive, is just eight months old and investors have been eager to back it.

CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo told me that the company just closed its first major round of funding, taking an undisclosed amount from Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, the Stanford University endowment and several angel investors.

Romo uses the power of a smart phone's microprocessor. You dock one device--say, an iPod Touch--onto the base, turning it into the robot. Then, from a second device--say, your … Read more

LAS VEGAS--These are not your typical iPhone/iPod speakers, and that's the way Lanchiya, a Chinese digital audio company, likes it.

We're guessing you've probably never heard of Lanchiya, but you might already be familiar with one of its products, the iPig stereo dock. The cute pig-shaped iPod speaker is just one of those novelty products that make for fun gifts.

Lanchiya's whole goal is to make high-quality, great-sounding speakers at a fraction of the prices set by some of the other high-end home audio companies, such as Bose. And it's doing it with flair. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--At the start of 2012, CNET television editors David Katzmaier and Ty Pendlebury put forward their predictions for what we will see in the coming year.

Sadly jetpacks and metallic jumpsuits will have to wait till next year, but we will see the debut of big OLEDs and voice/gesture-based TV control.

So what did we learn from this year's show? Read our head-to-head CES 2012 wrap.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--CNET's team of crack technology editors argued long into the Vegas afternoon yesterday, painstakingly honing hundreds of cumulative man- and woman-hours of CES 2012 coverage into 10 category winners and, finally, one product sharp enough to earn Best in Show: the LG 55EM9600.

It's a TV. And its organic light-emitting diode display technology is the future of flat-panel tech. OLED promises better picture quality than either plasma or LCD/LED--thanks to effectively infinite contrast (for realzies this time!), wide viewing angles and lightning-fast response times--combined with an unbelievable form factor. The winning LG measures just 4mm in … Read more