It also has a 1.3MP camera with a snapshot key (so you don’t have to stab the screen and mess up your shot to capture it). It also has 802.11b/g and GPS so you can connect wirelessly and use this thing for directions.

Its small, the camera is front mounted so you can do video conferencing, and I presume it runs some version of Windows, but there is no mention of it. There is also no mention of price or when you’ll be able to get one.

It won an iF award and apparently I am not the first to think of sushi at its sight since it has already earned the nickname of “sushi roller”. Due to the flexibility of this thing you can do more than lay it flat and set your notebook on it.

For instance you could partially fold one end and set the back of your notebook on it to get better air flow to the fans and ducts on the bottom of your notebook and to angle it for easier typing, or you could fold it up a bunch and use it as a platform to raise your notebook a couple of inches, its pretty versatile. There are two models, one for 12 and 13 inch notebooks and one for 14 and 15 inch notebooks, no word on price or availability though.

It has a 3MP camera on the back and a 300k pixel camera for video conferencing as well. It has a slide out QWERTY keyboard for input.

You also get GPS and some sort of wireless connectivity that isn’t mentioned, although I am sure it’s at least 802.11b maybe more. No word on price or availability, but it looks like it was made to compete with the Nokia N800 and N810.

All of the other outlets are controlled by a wireless power switch allowing you to eliminate the phantom power consumed by a lot of today’s gadgets that never really shut off. That means you could use this to turn off your monitor, speakers, external hard drives, computer, and printer, but leave your modem and router on for the other users that want to connect.

Or you could use it to turn off all your home theater components leaving on only your cable box and TiVo so your shows still record but the large amount of phantom power your large LCD TV steals won’t be lost anymore. The uses are nearly endless, and the best part is the switch isn’t some little keychain remote that you are likely to lose, it’s a fairly large, mountable, switch that looks fashionable and would actually be kind of hard to lose, no word on price or availability as its not out yet, but hopefully they start producing them soon.

It’s available in 2 different color combinations, the chocolate/tourmaline pictured and a khaki/tarragon combo. It holds up to 15.4” notebook with either widescreen or letterbox and has a separate compartment for all your other electronic garbage.

It looks to be for sale now ranging from $43 to $65 each depending on where you buy it. Personally, it’s too girlish, and doesn’t have enough practical use for me to even consider paying that kind of price for it, but that’s just me.

There are 15 programmable keys, an 8-way thumb pad with a removable joystick, and improved tactile feedback and faster button responsiveness. You also get the ability to toggle between 3 different key maps using just the buttons on the SpeedPad and then the ability to set up multiple player profiles to save your key maps using the included software.

You also get the Razer Synapse technology which integrates all the drivers and software into on-board chips meaning no software installation is needed. It costs 70 dollars and is available now.

One more thing it has going for it is the ability to switch between up to 6 different devices. It can even transmit uncompressed 1080p content over the 5GHz wireless band.

It comes in a kit with both the transmitter and receiver and will probably be a lot easier to set up and definitely cheaper than a custom installation involving HDMI switches and extenders and all that jazz. Once again, no word on price or availability as this is the other brand new product they were showing off at CeBIT this year.

It has a built in microphone and speaker so you can playback what you just recorded. It has two channels, an XLR and a quarter-inch. The whole system is also battery powered so you don’t have to plug it in and you could podcast on the bus ride home if you wanted to.

Since it records directly on the iPod, everything is almost guaranteed to work because it automatically uses iPod compatible recording formats. The only downside is the limited number of iPods that it works with, really its just the 5th Gen iPod, the new Classics (oxymoron?), and the 3rd gen Nano, sadly, no price or availability right now as this is one of their newest devices.

It has ClearScan technology built in which means with the touch of a button it will scan all the channels and find the one that has the highest possibility of going uninterrupted and giving you the best quality. No more picking a random station and hoping it works, it’ll all be done for you.

Furthermore, it has semi-rigid arm that allows you to position the iPod or iPhone wherever its most convenient for you so you can check on the weather, or your stocks while your driving, or just change what you’re listening to. Lastly, for the best audio quality there is a plain and simply line-out jack to plug directly into your car’s stereo if you have the ability to, if you want one, its 99 Euro, or about $150 USD, and they are available now, even in the US.

This unit doesn’t just stop at providing communications services, it even optimizes them for you. It also allows you to connect SIP services through and Internet Telephony Service Provider should you choose to, which if you are dealing with equipment like this, it’d probably be a good idea.

Once again, it supports SIP phones, soft phones, and many hybrid technologies as well, it also offers easy migration from TDA to TDE or hybrid to pure IP technology. It seems to be available now, and this thing has got to be hitting at least the 5 digit price mark so your pockets better be deep if you want one.

You can use it for messaging and mobile devices as well. The system works with all sorts of SIP devices, IP-based telephones, DECT phones, IP soft phones or you can even set it up to work with standard analog telephones.

I don’t know why you’d waste a system like this with old-school analog phones, but I could see the cost savings of implementing VoIP at core immediately and then slowly phasing out the old analog devices. Again, I have no clue on price, but if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it as networking equipment of this caliber is generally not cheap, but its probably available whenever you cut the check.

It has a frequency range that you’d expect from some better audio equipment which means you’ll be able to more clearly hear all the highs and lows that normally get toned down or distorted. The setup on this unit was designed with the intention of not having to call one of your IT lackeys every time you want to place a call.

Lastly, this is such a great device that it won the iF award for Product Design for this year. No word on price, but it looks like its available now, so if your company has been looking at upgrading to VoIP for a while, this might be among your considerations.

Technically the OS runs on top of Windows CE 6.0, but it looks, and works, just like the OS X Mobile interface on the iPhone, even the finger flicks are the same. They don’t currently have a fully functional handset, they have a handset that can display 4 different images, and then they have a prototype board that has a fully functional OS.

Once they get everything figured out and working in a handset, it will have a 3.4” touchscreen with a 720×480 resolution, a 3MP camera, and GPRS/EDGE (even the good knockoffs can’t give us a 3G iPhone) it also has TV-out and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. It will be launching in 6 months, hopefully.

[via PhoneMag]

Not only is that external screen 2.22 inches, but it’s a touchscreen, meaning unless you need the keypad or you are talking, you shouldn’t ever have to open up the handset. Should you go ahead and decide to open the handset, ther is a fairly large screen inside as well, a 5MP camera, and a really flat low-profile keypad.

You also get GSM and 7.2Mbps HSDPA radios as well as Bluetooth 2.0 and a USB 2.0 connection. Its expected to drop in Europe in June, but I want one here, now, so we have a launch date, but that’s it, no price, sorry.

[via PhoneMag]

I’ll admit, some of the other models look cool and useful, and there is a model like the one pictured that actually goes around your waist (I still can’t decide whether the chick is wearing it wrong or if it’s the other model that looks the same) that doesn’t look too terribly bad. However this particular model, would definitely make you look like a tool.

Their site is in all german, and I don’t have too much info coming back from CeBit where these pictures were just taken, but if this is the basicHolster (programmers ought to like the naming convention) it costs 35.90 Euros with their most expensive holster being 49.90 Euro. They are available now, from their website, but you have to speak German.

The only other upgrade our own Milena was able to report on was an increase in touch-pad size. Still, a larger screen for many is just enough to push them over the tipping point into purchasing an Eee PC so that’s a pretty major upgrade. If you didn’t notice already, look at the pic below and you’ll see that another difference is that the thick black bezel is gone from the new larger model.

Personally its still a toss up between this and the CloudBook, I’ll have to wait until I’m able to get both of them in my grasp before I make a decision though. What about our readers though? How many of you now have intentions to purchase one of the new 9” Eee PC’s?

With this headset, you can move up to 33 feet, or 10 meters, away from the USB dongle allowing you to do other things while listening to music or chatting with your mum who’s a few thousand miles away. With the small size of the headset and the adapter, you aren’t limited to using it only at home either, you can take the pair with you on the road.

It works with Skype, Windows Live, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and AIM proven, there are probably more that it works with as well. They will be selling the headset starting in May for $99.99, not a bad price for the convenience of wireless.

Thermaltake is also offering, for the first time, the NVIDIA ESA certified trifecta, power, liquid cooling, and case. The power is their Toughpower PSU 850W, the liquid cooling is their Bigwater 780e, and my personal favorite is the case which is the Armor+ case which they are showing off at the show. The new version of the Armor+ case is below and includes 10 PCI slots now as well as upgrades in smart cable management, independent thermal management, and a sliding motherboard tray.

There were also several other cases from Thermaltake at the show. As per the usual they were slathered in mesh grills, ports, windows on the side, and big enough, and quantity enough fans to nearly make the case levitate. I also like the way they integrate the ports into not only a convenient location, but an aesthetically pleasing one as well.

Lastly, for a new up and coming market, they have a few different Home Theater PC (HTPC) cases. Ranging in size from something that just looks like another receiver or component to your stereo all the way up to a couple models that look like mid-tower cases turned on their sides. On of the latter even has an LCD touch-screen built into the front of it, meaning you wouldn’t have to turn on your TV if you were just playing music.

This interesting case you see on the CloudBook is called “PhotoFair.” Essentially what you have is a clear plastic case that goes over your UMPC of choice. You can slip a photo of your loved ones, or really anything else that you can fit on a sheet of paper.

While some may think this to be just a simple gimmick, it really makes customizing your CloudBook easy as pie. We don’t have any word on pricing or availability, but we’re hoping to hear more later this week while at CeBIT.

It appears to have a 15.4” screen, and look like a standard laptop, just with extra coatings of bamboo. No word on details of the specs, anywhere, but I have seen guess of a ULV processor, and others say it uses Core 2 Duo, the latter seems more likely.

So, like I said, I can’t find any more details on this notebook anywhere, but, as soon as I get them, I’ll let you know. For now, just gawk at the amazing beauty.

You also get GPS, WiFi, a 3MP cam with AF, and a second VGA camera for video conferencing. There is 256MB of flash memory, 128MB of SDRAM, and a microSD card slot to expand that storage space.

It connects to your other devices via either USB 2.0 or Bluetooth and you should get about 5 hours of talk time or 200 hours of standby time from the battery. It has quad-band GSM and tri-band WCDMA radios inside and you also get GPRS, EDGE, and 3.6Mbps HSPA for connectivity. It will hit Europe first, but when it does land, you can likely expect a price equivalent to a thousand euros or more.

Its kind of sad that its Europe only, but that’s just about the only place that the new TMC Pro traffic congestion data collection will work. That means this unit can redirect you around traffic jams when they occur along your route, and the access to the TMC Pro info is completely free.

You also get a 3D Panorama View, Lane Assistant Pro, Reality View Pro, Picture Viewer, MP3 Player, FM Radio, Voice Recognition Pro, and a PIN code safety function. All that for a mere 449 Euro, that includes VAT, not a bad deal.

Existing TomTom functionality such as Map Share, a large 4.3-inch touchscreen, voice address input, text-to-speech for announcing road names, an FM transmitter and Bluetooth for using the units as a handsfree are all included.  The GO 930 has 4GB of internal memory while the GO 730 and 530 have 2GB and 1GB respectively; this can be augmented via an SD card slot.  Battery life is rated at 5 hours.

The High Definition (HD) Traffic Receiver, meanwhile, joins the TMC Traffic Receiver in bringing real-time road congestion data to TomTom GPS units.  Plugging directly into the cigarette lighter socket to recharge its Li-Ion battery, the HD uses the GPRS network to receive traffic data for a larger number of roads than the TMC unit.  Currently the HD service is available in the Netherlands, will be rolled out in Germany and the UK this year, and available in France come 2009.  

The HD Traffic Receiver will be included with certain GO models or available as a standalone accessory for the 930, 730, 530, 920, 720 and 520 devices, priced at €99.95 ($152) with six months of traffic service included; further subscriptions will be priced around €60 for six months.

You can get up to 2 hard drives which currently means a max of 400GB of storage, although I’m sure a max of 1TB is coming soon with the new 2.5” 500GB HDD’s out there. It also utilizes Nvidia’s mobile SLI setup using two GeForce 8700M GS cards.

Personally I like the bright color the chassis of the laptop comes in. There are also several buttons to the left side that are either media controls or they can likely be programmed for gaming uses.

The R70 has 3.5G, a fingerprint reader and a webcam as well as a track ball and left and right mouse click buttons. There are a few other shortcut buttons but it looks as though the keyboard must be on the screen like ASUS’ previous UMPCs. It does have a 1.6GHz processor, Vista, GPS, and I heard somewhere that it might get a 120GB HDD, which would suck for battery life, but would be great for in-car use.

The R50 appears to have similar navigational controls and a fingerprint reader. It has an Intel Silverthorne (Atom?) processor running at 1330MHz, a gig of RAM, a 32GB SSD drive, Bluetooth 2.0, wifi b and g, HSDPA, GPS, and front and rear cameras. It runs Windows Vista using the Intel Poulsbo graphics.

It has a Core 2 Extreme processor, up to 8GB of DDR3, NVIDIA 3-way SLI and 4 terabytes of HDD storage space. This is stacking up to be less of a gaming computer and more of a supercomputer within a gaming case, that’s amazing.

There are also Dual Power power modules, and liquid cooling build in. Best of all, its covered in Armor and menacing red lights.

Engadget was able to get a shot of the new hotness in its bright white (can we call it Crest?) glory. They said that the Asus rep was pretty tight-lipped with any other details or new features other than reminding them about the press event tomorrow.

Personally I expect them to finally offer a model with either an SSD or a traditional HDD, but maybe not since they mentioned the upgrade to a 12GB flash drive by mid 2008. Regardless, what are you, the readers, expecting to see when we hear from Asus tomorrow?

[via engadget]

DTS Connect allows other audio technologies to be connected to the DTS ones and them to work together, such as S/PDIF, or encoding/decoding. That combined with DTS Surround Sensation should be bringing you up to 7.1 audio for your aural pleasure.

Soon your pre-built PCs that you pickup from your local retailer will have this new DTS technology included. That means it might no longer be mandatory to purchase a new sound card along with your new computer.

So basically, we need to start finding the real John Connor now, or we’re all screwed. The robot (or the software, or both) is called Zeno.

In case you are thinking that you’ve never heard of or seen Massive’s works before, you are wrong if you’ve seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, Happy Feet, Ratatouille, or any one of the other films they’ve applied their AI technology to. So its nice to see that the end is upon us and this anime looking robot is the one that’s going to start it, sure he looks harmless, but looks can be deceiving.

Midrange, the VHD 400 has the same physical specs as the 600 but bridges up to four parties, while the VHD 100 is a single point-to-point conferencing unit that can also join a video meeting hosted by a VHD 600.  Each system can automatically adjust video and audio quality to take into account available bandwidth.

The VHD range will be available by the end of April 2008, priced from €6,499 ($9,871) for the VHD 100.  Siemens have also launched a Voice package offering least-cost routing, and a software Voice UC application that integrates UC into existing systems.

The Asus VX3 is build using Aluminium-magnesium allow and the glossy top cover makes it looks very sexy. If you think the VX3 looks strikingly similar to Asus U6, you are not alone. Still no word on availability and pricing yet for US market.

ASUS-LAMBORGHINI VX3 Specification

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9300
Chipset – Intel PM965
WLAN – Intel Next-Gen wireless N (4965ABGN 802.11N)
Windows Vista Ultimate
NVIDIA GeForce 9300 / 256MB video memory
Up to 320GB – 5400rpm
Up to 4GB DDR2 – 667 MHz
12.1″ WXGA with Crystal Shine
Built-in 3.5G & Webcam
DVD-S-Multi Double Layer LightScribe

We have just arrived in Hannover! SlashGear’s team will starts running around the hall to hunt for cool and hip gears. To keep up with our Cebit 2008 coverage, bookmark the coverage tag.