Las Vegas, Nevada - Even for the man who has everything, there's a vast array of cool gadgets and gizmos on display at the world largest technology trade fair, the Consumer Electronics Show, which officially opened Monday in Las Vegas, Nevada. Polaroid unveiled a mobile, ink-less printer as the successor to its now-defunct instant-film cameras.
Using a thermal printing technology from startup Zink Imaging Inc, the 225-gram printer is about the size of a deck of cards. It will go on sale later this year for about 150 dollars and can print card- sized pictures in less than a minute when connected to a phone or camera by Bluetooth wireless or USB port.
Ultra-mobile computing is a hot theme at this year's show.
The Asus Eee PC 4G shows why. Costing only 399 dollars, it boasts a tiny, 18-centimetre screen, runs Linux and comes with a suite of great software applications. A specially designed Intel chip will allow the minicomputer to use the high-speed internet over Wi-Max.
It's been a good CES for Sony, which announced strong sales of its PS3 game console and saw its Blu Ray format emerge as the leader for high-definition DVDs. The company is also hoping to reclaim the lead in televisions from the likes of Samsung, LG and Sharp by offering the first TV using OLED technology.
The 28-centimetre screen is just 2.5 centimetres thick and offers far more vivid colours than any LCD or plasma televisions. The only problem: it costs about 2,000 dollars.
Samsung showed off a 79-centimetre version but has no word when it will go on sale. Sharp, which leads the US market for TVs, said that OLED screens only last four years and cannot be produced yet in large-enough sizes.
GPS navigation systems just got a lot smarter with a new product called Dash Express, a nifty gizmo that uses cellphone airwaves to talk to other GPS systems and get real-time traffic conditions on the road and offer alternative routes in case of traffic jams up ahead.
Such technology will no doubt be standard in vehicles like General Motor's Boss, a driverless car capable of navigating complicated urban environments. It uses sensors and computer technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University. For now it's limited to the convention parking lot, but GM reckons that such cars will be on general sale by 2018.
Wireless technology is moving ahead on freeing high-tech equipment from the jumble of cables that can turn even the sleekest gadgets into a mess. TV manufacturer Westinghouse, working with networking firm Pulse-Link, is displaying the world's first integrated wireless HDTV, which has a built-in receiver that takes a signal from an ultra wideband transmitter plugged into a high-definition DVD player.
Networking firm Netgear has unveiled a slew of products to help banish cables to history. Its RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N-Router incorporates new "meta-material" antenna technology in no less than eight antennas, which Netgear says ensures quality streaming despite potential interference from other wireless gear including microwave ovens, cordless phones and neighboring Wi-Fi networks.
The router also includes a dedicated button to automatically set up a secure connection between the router and any other standard client. Typically, users must work through a software application to set up secure connections.
A new storage card aims to banish the need for wires in transferring photos from your camera to your printer. The Eye-Fi is a specially designed, low-power wireless chip with a 2GB memory card. Install it in your digital cameras to automatically transfer photos from the camera to your Mac or PC.
