Found at CES: ... a sewing machine?

Sure there are flashy tvs, phones that vie for the iPhone's status, more flat screens than you can shake a stick at, but at today's CES sneak-peak, I noticed some of the more random things at CES 2008 that caught my attention:

Juice This!

Duracell, battery manufacturer galore, is making plugging in easier with these plug-in-able packs. Maybe it's me, but with brown-outs, black-outs and white-outs lately, it may be worthwhile to think about.

Sew This!

Maybe it's Project Runway's fault, but I even saw Brother sewing machines at CES. Maybe they're Wi-Fi enabled … Read more

Shenzhen Shazam!!!

As a fellow CNET blogger found, security at the CES shooed us looky-loos away before we had time to poke around too much. There are, however, some observations to be gleaned from today's teasers. We'll all be treated with gadget after gadget starting tomorrow: I've seen devices like HDTV's that massage your back while it makes you a sandwich (no, not really), phones deaf people (yes, really), toys galore (lead-free let's hope) to name a few. But for now, out of the 700+ exhibitors, about 80+ are from, or list Shenzhen in their company's … Read more

Pre-CES: Virgin America - where else can your seat be rebooted?

On the way to the CES I took Virgin America, the new airline venture from Virgin, and had the bizarre experience of having my seat re-booted, no, not rebooked, but re-booted because the remote control unit for my seat wasn't working.

How apt, I thought, that on the way to the geekiest, techiest place on Earth (at least for the next few days), that the plane carrying me there featured touchscreen entertainment center controls for on-demand food, music videos, tv, and mp3s.

The whole experience was, like most products these days getting our attention, was slick. The plane's … Read more

RenGen: a generation of cultural consumers?

Isn't it interesting how trends are made? "One of the things I like about trends is that they seem so easy -- Blue is the color of 2008! GenY likes health food!" observes Stacey Gillar. Coupling the disparate ("Chic Trash"), pushing an already extreme concept to the extreme ("Radical Transparency"), or simply announcing the advent of something "new" ("Nouvelle Vague," "Nouveau Niche," etc.) are some of the flourishing categories. Or you simply repackage an old concept.

"RenGen," short for Renaissance Generation and the title of … Read more

Update 1.1.1.2.3.4.5.6... What gives?

It has been a while since Apple tinkered with the iPhone and its firmware. While the developer pack applications and free-for-all rages (For example, this week I saw a neat app that allows you to call internationally via VoIP-like interface; stay tuned), I keep getting notifications from fellow-iPhoners of leaks and teaser shots. Considering that the firmware update would be only a "1.1.3," all the screenshots and anticipation that have been featured by bloggerswho know a whole lot more than me, I still wonder (and am skeptical) if these features are forthcoming. I'd guess … Read more

Geeks in Sin City: This iPhoner hits the CES

If dust could ever gather on a blog, Living with the iPhone would probably be a prime candidate. However, the good folks at CNET have made sure the dust is blown off by sending yours truly to the CES--Consumer Electronics Show--in Las Vegas. One of the directives to the cadre of bloggers fortunate enough to go was to blog excessively, but also not to go wildly afield from my blog's purpose.

So, rather than taking pictures of the iPhone next to neat gadgets (maybe I'll use the iPhone to take pictures of the gadgets I see), the … Read more

Will OLPC be the TiVo of PCs for emerging markets?

With the dust-up this week about Intel leaving the fold of OLPC, it got me to thinking: Will One Laptop Per Child become the TiVo of PCs for emerging markets? In other words, they spark the revolution but gain relatively little from it.

TiVo of course almost single-handidly created the DVR category and market. Their technology was very well executed, they created a user experience that is still unparalleled in terms of ease and joy of use, and with continual roll-out of innovative capabilities that kept stretching the definition of the product.

But ultimately their business model proved insufficient to … Read more

Relive glory days with your own drive-in speakers

Now this is what we call retro chic. Forget those boombox remakes and arcade replicas--we're talking drive-in movie memorabilia here.

You too can own your own pair of free-standing speakers that look just like the kind we used to wedge into the fog-shrouded windows oif our misspent youth. All that's missing are the beat-up station wagon, decaying intermission hot dogs, and a cheap date.

Sure, $330 is a bit steep to bring back some teenage memories, as OhGizmo observes, but no one ever said the price of a midlife crisis would be a bargain. As for the … Read more

MacHeist II uncovers more great Mac deals

Last year about this time, several independent Mac software developers teamed up to put together a bundle of nine award-winning Mac apps for the vastly reduced price of $49--with 25 percent of the purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (chosen from a list). The whole thing took place at a very well-designed site called MacHeist.com and more than 16,000 users snapped up the limited time offer--it was really a great deal! The fun part about the offer was that the developers of MacHeist made it into a kind of scavenger hunt by letting users search … Read more