CES 2009

Westinghouse Digital unveiled full a range of LCD TVs and monitor displays at CES last week, ranging from 60 to 120Hz Full HDTVs, to WXGA and WUXGA resolution LCD monitors. These, together with a number of digital signage displays and Westinghouse Digital's proprietary custom ad-builder applications, were hosted inside the private showroom at the Sterling Club, behind the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, and SlashGear was invited along to take a look.

[more product images after the cut]

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If you've spent any time here at SlashGear you'll probably know that we're big fans of Sleek Audio.  We rated their SA6 in-ear monitor earphones highly, then their W-1 Kleer wireless adapter took a successful product and cut the cord.  At CES last week we stopped by the Sleek stand to check out their Customs, individually made based on silicon moulds of your ears, for a perfect fit.  At $300 they're the current pinnacle of the Sleek Audio range; after the cut, we let the company fire gunk into our ears.

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Your cellphone is great, and with the latest breed of smartphones you're not just making calls but messaging, surfing the net, downloading and sharing photos.  All that is dependent on catching a decent signal, however, and a weak connection adds up to call failures, poor data speeds and overall frustration.  That's why Wilson Electronics' MobilePro Cellphone Amplifier is so tempting.  Promised to reduce dropped calls, increase data rates and open up what previously were "dead spots", we picked up the MobilePro at CES this past week and have been testing it out.

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pureSilicon might not be a name you're currently all that familiar with, but expect to hear plenty more from this company in 2009.  They brought along a 1TB SSD, the Nitro, to CES last week; the highest-density solid-state drive available on the market today.  As well as high-capacity, the 1TB Nitro offers low power demands, 300MB/s SATA-II connectivity and 240MB/s sustained read rates.

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Palm just won Best In Show as well as the People’s Voice Award over Sony’s new Vaio P at he Consumer Electronics Expo (CES) on Sunday with the announcement of the new Palm Pre. This new smartphone runs the new webOS operating system that Palm has been working on recently.

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We know that people are widely giving up their landlines for mobile phones these days, but we happened upon a cordless phone that was just too beautiful to pass up. The VTech LS6245 is the first cordless phone for 2009 that features the DECT 6.0 technology complete with Bluetooth capabilities.

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Newber is a new iPhone application that allows users to transfer calls to a landline for instances such as the phone dying. This application acts as a second business line for those who really get a lot of use out of their phones.

Using GPS this application can determine the pre-programmed number that you are closest to and transfer the call to that number, or if you would like you may also choose another number from the list.

Coincidentally this application was submitted to Apple back on October 15th with no word on availability or even an approval. If you are interested in trying it out now you can head over toMynewber.com to sign up for a beta test.

We kicked off the week with our yearly visit to Macworld, finding a slightly subdued show floor but plenty of excitement about Apple's final keynote address at the conference.  Anticipation was high, with several new products expected to launch; instead, however, the only hardware news was a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro.  No Mac mini update, no iPhone nano, no new iMac, and certainly no new iTouch tablet.  Phil Schiller attempted to channel some Jobsian enthusiasm over iLife '09 and iWork '09, which are certainly adept pieces of software, and the price changes for iTunes could shake up the download world a little, but it wasn't the "going out with a bang" for Macworld that many expected.

After that, it was CES 2009, and the SlashGear team decamped to Las Vegas to cover the best-known consumer electronics show on the calendar.  The impact of the recession has certainly made its mark on CES, with what looked to be a lower attendee turnout and several booth cancellations.  Headline gadgets were also fewer and further between, though there were still a few notable announcements.

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Routon have brought their latest Mobile Internet Device (MID), the P760, to CES this week, complete with a 4.8-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, ARM11 processor and optional mobile broadband. The P760 is based on Linux and has either 4GB or 8GB of solid-state storage, 128MB of RAM and a 2-megapixel camera.

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DigiFi's first-generation Digital Opera headphones have only just gone on sale in the US, but the company has brought their replacement to CES this week. As well as that, they've also unveiled a set of over-the-air headphones and a PMP watch with an integrated Kleer wireless transmitter.

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WowWee have announced a new range of pico-projectors, based on Texas Instruments' DLP chipset.  The three new products range from straightforward projector handsets, as already on-sale, to a combination pico-projection boom box.  The WowWee Cinemin Swivel, shown here, will hit the market first, offering 480 x 360 resolution, three hour battery life, a poseable neck for projecting on walls, ceilings or anything in-between, and a standard video input suitable for iPods, laptops and other devices.

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I stopped by OpenMoko’s booth and was given a quick outlook on its progress with Neo FreeRunner. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in term of handset’s specifications; but that does not mean the OpenMoko guys are sitting idle. They have made many under the hood (software) improvements since I last spoke to them, the phone is much more responsive to commands compared to my previous hands-on.

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