Hot Tech Toys - CES 2008
Every January, Las Vegas hosts the biggest technology consumer electronics trade show in the world, known as CES. The latest and greatest technology is unveiled at the show, and often, even prototypes from products that will commercially ship years from now. This year was no different, some impressive products were announced, so here's our list of the coolest products introduced.
In the home entertainment category Philips' Eco 1080p LCD TV is able to dim the backlight and save a ton of power when the movie scenes are dark. In these cases your TV is both environment-friendly, and its black levels are  improving. This unit has been built with only ‘trace’ amounts of mercury and the box is even made from recycled materials. This 42” LCD TV is due out in March with an MSRP of $1,399. Way to go Philips!
Sony introduced the first OLED TV too. OLED technology offers the best quality in TVs, but the price is still high: $2500 for just an 11" TV. Sony also had a prototype 27" OLED TV on display, destined to be released next year or so. Speaking of prototypes, Pioneer demonstrated a prototype TV that is able to have much more "absolute" black levels than the best black-level TV in the world right now (also from Pioneer). The so-called "Extreme Contrast Concept"  technology again, is set to be commercially available in a few years, but nevertheless it was interesting to see Pioneer essentially claim that their current best product is not as good as it should be (even if it is the best in that department).
The main features TV manufacturers went after this year is thickness of TVs (companies demonstrated TVs that were thinner than the iPhone), and 24p support. 24p support means that the movies will be smoother when played back on these TV sets. Many LCD models from various manufacturers were announced with 120Hz support which equals good 24p, but on the plasma side, except Pioneer and Sony, only Panasonic announced the feature for its new TVs.
Gamers have a lot to be happy about this year. Alienware, announced a 2,880x900 pixels rear-projection DLP screen, specialized for video gaming. The screen is curved, and so the gamer  will feel that he's surrounded by the virtual environment. It is set to be released in the "second half of 2008."
Beta News Reports, “The Blu-ray Disc Association has promised that 2008 will be the year for interactivity coming to the format, and the hardware vendors supporting the standard are pushing forward with player upgrades to support it.” In the meantime, Panasonic's new Blu-Ray player is the first to support "Profile 2.0". BD-Live, as the profile is also known as, is able to handle features that require an internet connection, while the player also supports 7.1 DTS-HD & Dolby TrueHD sound and it has local storage capability of 1 GB.
 In the digital camera category we had some interesting announcements. Casio was a favorite this year with its EXILIM Pro EX-F1, a high speed digital camera boasting the world’s fastest burst shooting performance. It allows for full resolution photography using 60 fps ultra-high speed burst mode that captures the crucial moments. The 6MP camera has sensor-shift image stabilization, 12x zoom, HD Video recording (720/30p, 1080/60i), while its main video capability is that it can record high speed movie footage of motion too fast for the human eye, for ultra slow motion playback. Users can select a recording speed of 300 fps, 600 fps or 1,200 fps. The EX-F1 will be available March 2008 priced at $999.99.
And speaking of video, the fashion for this year's consumer camcorders was flash memory. Both Panasonic and Canon shifted focus to AVCHD cameras with flash memory instead of hard drives. Panasonic's highest-end consumer camcorder can now record in Full HD in both 60i and 24p (for film-like look), while the Canon models are using 17mbps to record 1080i which is of higher bitrate than most other AVCHD consumer camera. Sony and JVC also introduced new models, but not with fundamentally major new features other than reduced sizes.
 Finally, Motorola announced the Moto Rokr E8, a Linux-based phone which uses "mode shifting" technology. Instead of having a navigational button-based keypad, the Rokr features a smooth surface with touch-pad controls that change shape depending on which application is being used. The phone also features tactile feedback by using the phone's vibration to notify the user that a button pressing was received by the device.
Other interesting devices shown this year were voice-activated GPS car systems, Sony's Alpha DSLR-A100 camera, iRiver W7 MP3 player with GPS support, and Vizio's plasma and LCD TVs that will keep the prices low and the feature-set high.
CES 2008 has been a great conference which always has its share of highlights……can’t wait until next year!
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