Page 2: CES 2008 Page 2
SanDisk:
SanDisk usually has a large booth at the show and this year is no different. Other than the usual assortment of flash drives and such, SanDisk was displaying a whopping 72GB solid state drive in a 1.8" form factor. This is pretty incredible. They wouldn't say anything about what the cost of the drive is but, needless to say, this year looks like it will be the one to finally replace moving storage in notebooks thanks to Crucial and SanDisk.
SanDisk was also showing off their Sansa TakeTV complete with DRM and all. The concept is a fine idea. Basically, you have a USB flash drive that you dump video onto and plug it in to a player on a TV that will play the content. The problem with the TakeTV is that the USB flash drive is special (due to DRM) and the product is expensive. $179 for the device with 4GB. That's too expensive for what it does. If SanDisk provided just a player than accepts any flash drive for $50, that would be great. SanDisk.
Intel Booth:
Intel's booth was really showing off their latest technology such as this picture! Joking aside, it is interesting to still see huge laptops being pushed rather than thin and light ones. I keep seeing many 15.4" laptops that weigh so much. Why is this? Most people want a laptop that gets the job done on the thin and light.
As you may know, Intel supports Open Source in their hardware by releasing many open drivers. Another company is using an Ultra Mobile PC to support voice commands. The demo was actually running on Ubuntu and the front end of the software is pretty impressive. It picked up commands well even in the loud CES hall. Very cool technology for Linux. I'm always glad to see technology like this move onto Linux. The company that makes the software is One Voice Technologies. ASE Labs should have a review of their software this year. Intel, One Voice Tech.
Microsoft Booth:
While the Microsoft booth has the usually display of Vista technologies and such, the partners for Microsoft were showing off some pretty nice products. This sub-notebook from Fujitsu is the road-warriors delight. This is how laptops should be designed. This new Lifebook will have all the wireless connectivity you need and will run Linux with no problem. I heard that someone was running Ubuntu on the laptop in the labs. Mind you, this information is hard to get while in the Microsoft booth. Fujitsu.
Needless to say, NVIDIA was at the Microsoft booth showing off their brand new three-way SLI. This combines three graphics cards into a huge graphics processing monster with a power requirement to match. Playing Crysis at 1080p resolution with full detail was pretty fun. I still believe that SLI has other uses than just graphics. In fact, NVIDIA also supports generic commands using their GPUs for fast stream calculations. I'm glad that graphics companies see the potential of these very fast stream processors for other uses. NVIDIA.
Samsung:
Don't get me wrong, I like seeing new 30" monitors with LED backlighting, but these are really just evolutionary technologies. What does Samsung have that's truly revolutionary?
This is a prototype of an OLED TV. When I say that this is crisp, I mean that it is razor sharp clarity. The OLED screen was absolutely a dream to see and the profile was equally as impressive to see.
These are OLED displays. Notice how thin the display is. Really, this is where display technology is heading and it is too bad that it hasn't happened yet. Even Samsung admits that these models are just prototypes and they don't know when they will release OLED displays. Hopefully we won't be waiting another five years for this technology.
Samsung was showing off their image stabilized DSLRs. These cameras are unique in that the optical image stabilization unit is built into the camera as opposed to stuffing it into the lens. Steve was pretty impressed with this and he's a huge photography professional. Samsung.
Stay Tuned:
More show coverage will be coming soon, keep your browser on ASE Labs and make sure to »check out our forums while you are here. Thank you for reading.
»Day 3 coverage is up.
SanDisk usually has a large booth at the show and this year is no different. Other than the usual assortment of flash drives and such, SanDisk was displaying a whopping 72GB solid state drive in a 1.8" form factor. This is pretty incredible. They wouldn't say anything about what the cost of the drive is but, needless to say, this year looks like it will be the one to finally replace moving storage in notebooks thanks to Crucial and SanDisk.
SanDisk was also showing off their Sansa TakeTV complete with DRM and all. The concept is a fine idea. Basically, you have a USB flash drive that you dump video onto and plug it in to a player on a TV that will play the content. The problem with the TakeTV is that the USB flash drive is special (due to DRM) and the product is expensive. $179 for the device with 4GB. That's too expensive for what it does. If SanDisk provided just a player than accepts any flash drive for $50, that would be great. SanDisk.
Intel Booth:
Intel's booth was really showing off their latest technology such as this picture! Joking aside, it is interesting to still see huge laptops being pushed rather than thin and light ones. I keep seeing many 15.4" laptops that weigh so much. Why is this? Most people want a laptop that gets the job done on the thin and light.
As you may know, Intel supports Open Source in their hardware by releasing many open drivers. Another company is using an Ultra Mobile PC to support voice commands. The demo was actually running on Ubuntu and the front end of the software is pretty impressive. It picked up commands well even in the loud CES hall. Very cool technology for Linux. I'm always glad to see technology like this move onto Linux. The company that makes the software is One Voice Technologies. ASE Labs should have a review of their software this year. Intel, One Voice Tech.
Microsoft Booth:
While the Microsoft booth has the usually display of Vista technologies and such, the partners for Microsoft were showing off some pretty nice products. This sub-notebook from Fujitsu is the road-warriors delight. This is how laptops should be designed. This new Lifebook will have all the wireless connectivity you need and will run Linux with no problem. I heard that someone was running Ubuntu on the laptop in the labs. Mind you, this information is hard to get while in the Microsoft booth. Fujitsu.
Needless to say, NVIDIA was at the Microsoft booth showing off their brand new three-way SLI. This combines three graphics cards into a huge graphics processing monster with a power requirement to match. Playing Crysis at 1080p resolution with full detail was pretty fun. I still believe that SLI has other uses than just graphics. In fact, NVIDIA also supports generic commands using their GPUs for fast stream calculations. I'm glad that graphics companies see the potential of these very fast stream processors for other uses. NVIDIA.
Samsung:
Don't get me wrong, I like seeing new 30" monitors with LED backlighting, but these are really just evolutionary technologies. What does Samsung have that's truly revolutionary?
This is a prototype of an OLED TV. When I say that this is crisp, I mean that it is razor sharp clarity. The OLED screen was absolutely a dream to see and the profile was equally as impressive to see.
These are OLED displays. Notice how thin the display is. Really, this is where display technology is heading and it is too bad that it hasn't happened yet. Even Samsung admits that these models are just prototypes and they don't know when they will release OLED displays. Hopefully we won't be waiting another five years for this technology.
Samsung was showing off their image stabilized DSLRs. These cameras are unique in that the optical image stabilization unit is built into the camera as opposed to stuffing it into the lens. Steve was pretty impressed with this and he's a huge photography professional. Samsung.
Stay Tuned:
More show coverage will be coming soon, keep your browser on ASE Labs and make sure to »check out our forums while you are here. Thank you for reading.
»Day 3 coverage is up.