View Single Post - CES 2013 - Day 1

Hellfire · Rated XXX

Just getting settled in for the night and thought I'd post a few thoughts on the things I saw today. Which being the first day, wasn't much.

Seagate
They have updated their Satellite line, and calling it now Wireless Plus. Some great enhancements allowing you to stream media files to tablets and smartphones. One big change is the ability to WRITE to the drive from your tablet or smartphone. Now when you're out taking pictures you can send them to the Wireless Plus drive without using a computer to transfer them. With a 10 hour run time it should last though the day. This will be available around the end of January.

A new device is their Seagate Central. This is a set top box that is like a NAS for media files, which you can connect from any device connected to the internet. You can configure it to connect to Facebook and download pictures that you are tagged in as well. It includes a Samsung app for their SmartTV, and has DLNA certifications. Seagate is working to develop apps for other smart TV's such as LG, Vizio and others. Available in 2, 3 and 4 TB, expect to start around $200 and go up to $269. Not a bad price point. Available mid-March.

They had a cool demonstration of their Hybrid drive running on a PS3. This is something I hadn't considered doing, load Dragon Age 2, they were able to load a saved game using the Hybrid drive almost twice compared to the standard drive; it was about 3 extra seconds for the second load. On games with a smaller load time, this won't be a big deal, but games with large load screens it could potentially load the games faster.

CES Unvieled
This event was extremely busy and was difficult to get a chance to talk to many companies. A few were showing nice demos.

BeeWi is a small company focusing on entertainment. They had a couple of helicopters and a "tank" that is controled by your smart device with bluetooth and a little puck on the wall to be target practice. Fun little game rather than just flying the helicopter around.

Cord Cruncher is a pair of ear buds that have a stretchable sleeve to recoil the cords of the earbuds. You pull the earbuds out and when done, stretch out the sleeve to recoil the cable. I haven't listened to the earbuds yet, but the concept of the recoiling cable is a great idea.

SpareOne is an emergency phone that comes packed in a waterproof bag with a single AA battery. It is used for emergecy purposes so no service or SIM is necessary. Unused it lasts 15 years, and has up to 10 hours talk time or 24 hours of light from the integrated LED. THe latest model, the SpareOne Plus has geo location built into it as well.

OWC was showing off several new items, including a 3.5" drive bay SSD, which goes up to 2TB at 6Gb/s. Their Power2U electtrical socket can power four devices and allows 20Amp service, and tamper resistant power outlet. Finally their NuGuard KX is an iPhone 4 and 5 case that is certified Military spec, which means it can survive extreme drops, they said they have personally dropped it at 200 feet and had no problems. This of course as long as the screen doesn't land on a rock, not much is going to protect it from that though.

That's it for tonight, not a whole lot, we're just begining out here. I will probably pick a few major announcements a day to provide updates. So much to see it's hard to keep up with it all.