These tablets will likely be very cheap for what they offer. Coby isn’t going all out with the details at this point and has simply stated that it will be offering five different tablets and that all of them will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The tablets will be offered in 7-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch, 9.7-inch, and 10-inch versions.

They will each have similar hardware features with up to 1GB of RAM, a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, and multitouch screens with WiFi. The tablets will also have up to 32GB of storage presumably via microSD or SD cards. Pricing and availability are unknown, but that info should land at CES in about a month.

The latter feature seems harmless – the fact that the data comes from a person’s social network account means he should know that other people can access it anyway. What concerns me is the automatic tagging bit. If this thing really works, people may will get tagged and caught on camera without them knowing. Sure, if they were doing something illegal then fine, they had it coming, but what if you don’t want to be tagged and identified?  I don’t know about other social networks but Facebook allows users to tag even people who don’t have a Facebook account, and can opt not to tell these people that they’ve been tagged. Who knows where photos with such essential metadata could end up once they’re sent online?

Once this thing gets released, be wary of anyone with a smartphone. So be wary of everyone.

[via Technology Review]

That’s almost as thin as a single hair strand. As you can see, the display is not just thin, it’s very flexible too. According to Dvice, a Samsung representative told them that you could even roll this display to a cylinder with a radius of just 1cm (0.4 inches), although the rep refused to actually roll it up. Better safe than sorry.

Can you imagine the applications of such a display? We’ll have portable gadgets that fold into even smaller sizes, more wearable gadgets with displays, ultra lightweight TVs – hell, we could use it as a wallpaper or cover our desks with it.

I wonder how long it’ll take before AMOLED finally becomes mainstream. Check out Dvice for a couple more shots of another AMOLED screen on a smaller media player prototype.

If I had one, of these cool Withings Smart Baby Monitors, I could just strap the iPhone to my wife’s hand and when she freaked out, she could see for herself that the baby was fine and leave me alone. I love technology. The system will connect with the iPhone or another device like your PC, tablet, TV or anything else with a screen that is connected.

The camera for the device is a 3MP unit with an extra wide view and night vision with infrared LEDs. The camera can detect movement in the room, provides video along with audio, and will show the temperature and humidity in the room as well. It connects to devices via Bluetooth, WiFi, or wires. Pricing and availability are unknown.

Developed by Alivecor along with Oregon Scientific, the iPhonECG works thanks to a pair of electrodes. The electrodes communicate the info to an iPhone. These readings can be done wirelessly, meaning that you can monitor your heart rate thanks to the iPhone pressed against your heart. The software can store a complete history of heart rates and beats and, if you’ve got heart problems, the iPhone could someday be programmed to send alerts to your physician in case of emergency.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Incredibly, the units are expected to sell for less than $100 a piece. When you think about how much a traditional ECG machine costs, it’s pretty amazing.

[via MedGadget]

First up we have the Eee Note EA800, a cross between an eReader and a tablet. It has a non-backlit TFT display with 2,450 dpi, 768×1,024 resolution. It’s powered by a 624MHz CPU, has a 4GB SSD, micro SD port, a camera, built-in mic, and Wi-Fi. As you can see, the EA800 has a stylus, and is clearly meant to be used as a digital notepad:

Tech in Style was lucky enough to spend a week with an EA800, and they say that writing on it is a pleasure. The fast refreshing TFT screen and the CPU combine to minimize the lag in the device. The inclusion of a camera and mic means that you can take not just written notes but images and audio as well.

On the software side, the EA800 has a browser, a music player, a calculator, and support for a plethora of documents: ePub, PDF,  MP3, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx and possibly more. ASUS claims that the EA800′s battery is good for about 13 hours, which is on par for tablets but not as long lasting as dedicated eReaders.

Next up we have this mysterious device pictured above, which has at least one USB 3.0 port, a built-in keyboard, and what seem to be Android buttons. Below is another tablet; Engadget bets that this one has a keyboard that slides out, but we won’t be able to confirm that until next week.

Finally we have a teaser clip from ASUS itself, this time outlining the capabilities of the Windows 7-based ASUS EP121 tablet, which seems to be ASUS’ main bet against the iPad and other current mainstream tablets. Unfortunately it’s all in (digital) chalk; there are no shots of the device itself.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Since we don’t have all the information yet, it might be possible that the EP121 is one of the two mysterious devices pictured above, but the thing is, the teaser doesn’t mention any keyboard, slider, swivel, detachable or otherwise. Check out the links below for more pics and info. Which tablet would you like to own in 2011?

[via Engadget & via Tech in Style (1) (2) (3) via Akihabara News]

Nyko’s new Wireless Nunchuk (or Nunchuck if you’re not using the proper Nintendo nomenclature) controller lets you play games that require both the Wii-mote and Nunchuk to operate completely without the annoying cable between the controllers. The $30 wireless controller works just like the one Nintendo includes, but transmits its signal to an adapter that snaps on to the bottom of your Wii-mote.

Expect the Nyko Wireless Nunchuk to hit stores sometime later in Q1 2008.

[via CrunchGear]

The Cue Radio will offer a digital AM/FM tuner with RDS track and station display, dual alarms, and a built-in iPod dock on top. While it looks like the radio will only offer a single speaker, Cue is aiming to make “best table radio in its class”, according to the guys over at Switched.

The clean, elegant design looks like it’ll be perfect for use in a kitchen, office or even better yet, on a bedside table. I certainly wouldn’t kick it out of the bedroom if one magically appeared to replace my current alarm clock.

Expect more details to surface during this week’s CES show.

There’s just something inherently funny about hardware that cost millions of dollars to develop, yet fails about as often as that $200 PC you picked up from Wal-Mart.

[via Plastic Bamboo]

The Dresser Wayne Ovation

Channeling much of its style from Yamaha’s YSP surround systems, this one is a complete home theater in a box. It features a slot-loading DVD player, AM/FM Stereo and a media player dock.

The iLive Surround system is the first product to offer the new SRS TruSurround HD4, which provides virtually positioned speakers from a single device. The TruSurround HD4 chipset allows devices to process inputs of 1.0 to 6.1 channels and reproduce them in a virtual surround field using 4.0 to 5.1 speakers that are all positioned at the front of your home theater.

Pricing and a release date have not yet been announced.

So what makes this television so special, and why would you want to spend as much as a new car on it? The new set features a number of improvements to image quality over standard LCD panels. For starters, there’s xvYCC color capability (Sony calls this “x.v.Color technology,”) which is supposed to the gamut of colors by 1.8x over the today’s color standards. The XBR3 also features 120 Hz refresh rate (aka “Motionflow”) with motion compensation, which should significantly reduce or eliminate motion blur and other unpleasant artifacts. The display panel is 10-bit 1080p native, and illuminated by LED backlighting.

The set also features a 178-degree viewing angle and Sony’s Digital Reality Creation v2.5 circuitry. Contrast ratio is rated at 7000 to 1, which is very good for an LCD (although Samsung is working on an LCD with a 50,000 to 1 contrast ratio, so there!) Now one thing that kills me is that while the Sony includes a reasonable number of HDMI inputs (3), the recently announced 60-inch Vizio Plasma comes with 4 HDMI inputs at 1/10th the price. With more and more devices sporting HDMI outputs these days, you’d think that a $33k set could throw in a few additional inputs.

So if you’ve just gotta have the biggest, baddest, most expensive toys, the new 70-inch Bravia LCD set might just be right for you.

The $229 Robopanda is geared towards children will be able to interact with the world via a variety of touch, infrared and audio sensors. Robopanda’s movements include sitting, walking, crawling, rolling over and hugging. The panda will tell stories, track objects, sound sources and can avoid obstacles. Hopefully, it can avoid the downright ugly looking Roboquad.

Looking like one of the creepy crawlers out of Resistance: Fall of Man or Half Life 2, the $119 Roboquad scurries along on four legs and will be able to navigate in the dark. That way, it can sneak up on your unsuspecting roommate while he’s sleeping (before eating him alive).

[via PCMAG]

According to this post (UPDATE 1/6/07: this link is no longer active) on The Mercury News, it’s expected that Microsoft will be announcing plans during their upcoming CES keynote speech for the gaming console to act as an IPTV set-top box for high-definition digital television.

So now that Microsoft has 10 million+ Xbox 360′s in living rooms all over the world, they certainly could be the bait for people to adopt upcoming Microsoft IPTV based television services (such as AT&T’s U-Verse service) by offering a single device that can play high quality games, online community, media downloads and storage, and now, stream live television.

[UPDATE 1/6/07: It appears that the original Mercury News story has since been removed, leading me to believe that this information was, in fact an early leak that wasn't supposed to hit the press until after the CES keynote]

On the hardware front, LG is expected to announce a combo player that can play both formats. Conversely, Warner is planning on rolling out dual-sided discs that feature Blu-ray on one side and HD DVD on the other. While I think the Warner idea is kind of a nice short-term solution for movie studios that otherwise would have released on both formats, the LG approach of a universal player that can handle both formats seems like a better choice for consumers.

[via Engadget]

Both sets feature WXGA (1366×768) resolution and can handle 480p, 720p and 1080i source signals. The Cineon’s also offer an on-board NTSC/ATSC digital tuner for over-the-air HDTV broadcasts. The 42-inch model claims a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, while the 50-inch offers 8000:1. The sets also feature a diverse array of inputs including VGA, HDMI, component, composite and S-video. The displays are available for purchase now through custom A/V and home theater installers.

When asked about the possibility of upcoming price reductions, Toshiba CEO Yoshihide Fujii was quoted as saying: “At first I thought the price threshold is $499. Maybe coming next is $399 and after that is $299.”

You can currently find the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player at street prices just north of $400, and the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on for $199. However, the idea that a stand alone player could hit shelves for under $300 could give HD DVD another boost over Blu-ray, which still offers most players at $800 and up (except for the Sony Playstation 3).

[via Gizmodo]

Their Windows Vista SideShow Media Center Remote sure looks purty. It’s got a 2.5-inch color LCD with running Vista’s new SideShow remote user interface. The remote will feature both IR and Class 1 Bluetooth connectivity (capable of working from up to 100-meters away). Like all good universal remotes these days, it features both hard keys – providing quick access to things like volume and track control, as well as soft keys – which can be customized.

SideShow technology also lets you run Vista “gadgets,” such as checking your e-mail, news, weather and RSS feeds. The remote isn’t cheap, at $199, and will require that you have a PC running Windows Vista, but if you’ve just gotta have the coolest toys on the block, you might want one of these. (More details on the remote should be available here after January 8, 2007)

[via Engadget]

Little is yet known about the product and whether it is simply a prototype or a product that will hit the market soon. The SAT-GO will be featured at the upcoming CES show in January, and has already been named a recipient of a CES 2007 Innovation Award. Check back for more details as they become available.

[via Engadget]