CES - Cell phones and smartphones

Editors' note: This post was updated January 7, 2011, with new phones.

LAS VEGAS--CES doesn't begin for two days, but we know already that new 4G phones will take center stage at the annual gadget fest in Las Vegas. Sprint beat its rivals to the punch by announcing the HTC Evo Shift 4G this morning, but T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless will have grand unveiling events of their own. It's a good thing, too, considering that U.S. carriers now can really refer to their networks as "4G."

We'll be watching Big Red particularly closely … Read more

Streaming Web content to TVs is one theme we expect to see lots of at CES. In early December, we took an advance look at Snapstick, a new company that streams Web content on your TV using your mobile phone as the remote control. Today, the start-up is announcing that potential partner D-Link will begin trials that incorporate Snapstick's Web-to-TV "SplitMedia" technology.

If trials go well, D-Link and Snapstick may ink a more permanent deal. Snapstick isn't seeking to manufacture hardware itself (at least not at this stage in its life cycle), but it does hope … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Merely a formality at this point, what with all the leaks and all, Sprint officially introduced the HTC Evo Shift 4G on Tuesday along with a new MiFi 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot from Novatel Wireless.

The HTC Evo Shift 4G will be available starting January 9 for $149.99 with a two-year contract. It's the third 4G smartphone for Sprint, behind the HTC Evo 4G and Samsung Epic 4G, and offers mobile hot-spot capabilities (for up to eight devices), a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a 3.6-inch capacitive touch screen.

The handset will ship running Android 2.2 … Read more

LAS VEGAS--One oft-cited reason for the lack of cameras is that a lack of fast and easy wireless sharing capabilities keeps them from developing the ubiquity of a camera phone. Eye-Fi is planning on bridging the gap between traditional cameras and mobile devices like phones and tablets by adding a new capability, Direct Mode, to its existing Eye-Fi X2 product.

For the uninitiated, Eye-Fi's SD card line adds a variety of Wi-Fi file transfer capabilities (among other things) to any camera that uses SD cards. While the current generation allows for peer-to-peer connections between cameras and computers, Direct Mode … Read more

OnLive CEO Steve Perlman hinted this summer about his company's interest in integrating its cloud-gaming service directly into television. It seems OnLive has achieved that goal after this morning's announcement of a partnership with Vizio.

Previously confined to Macs and Windows systems through downloadable software, as well as its own dedicated MicroConsole set-top box, OnLive debuted last year as the first major cloud-gaming service. With its partnership with Vizio, the OnLive service will now extend to Vizio HDTVs, as well as Vizio's newly announced line of Via tablets, smartphones, and Blu-ray players.

Details in OnLive and Vizio'… Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you're the outdoorsy type, chances are that you've often found yourself off the beaten path and away from the safety of a strong wireless signal. What if you wanted to update your family with your location from the top of a mountain? What if you found yourself trapped under a rock in the middle of nowhere and needed help? The Spot product family of GPS-enabled satellite messengers is one solution to your lack of signal bars, with the newest of these devices being the smartphone-enhanced Spot Connect.

The Spot Connect interfaces with a Bluetooth-paired smartphone via … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Ever been in a situation in which your iPhone crashes (or mysteriously loses all of its information after a firmware update), and you resort to a backup within iTunes to get your data back just to realize that no recent backup had been successfully made? Well, I know a few who have suffered through this painful experience. It's obviously a little too late for them, but for the rest of you, there's now a way to avoid that.

Iomega today joins the long list of vendors that make accessories for the iPhone by announcing the Iomega SuperHero … Read more

More and more signs are pointing to the HTC Evo Shift 4G's imminent release. The Android-based smartphone has already received FCC approval, then there was the Radio Shack advert, and now Wal-Mart has gone ahead an published a full product page on its Web site.

The page provides numerous images (see below) and a full list of specs, though it looks like it needs a bit of editing since it notes both a 3.7-inch display and 4.3-inch screen. Based on Wal-Mart's information, the Sprint-bound Epic Shift 4G will run Android 2.2 and feature an 8-megapixel camera, WiMax, and 1GB of internal memory with an 8GB microSD card preinstalled.

Pricing and availability date were not published by Wal-Mart, but Radio Shack's ad listed the phone as being available on January 9 for $149.99.… Read more

Pico projectors haven't really taken off like some people thought they would, but this new one from Optoma looks interesting. That's because Optoma has combined an iPod/iPhone sound dock with a "tabletop" projector, which seems like the way to go with these sort of projectors.

Though the Neo-i, which was supposed to ship in mid-December, isn't cheap at $449, its specs are better than your typical pico projector. The company says the Neo-i is a 50 ANSI lumen DLP projector that offers WVGA (854x480 pixels) resolution in 16:9 format, with a "full-bodied&… Read more