Tag Archives: CES

Xi3 Modular Computer, Xi3 Micro Server Modules, Xi3 Mobile Data Center

CES 2012, Computers, , ,

Not only is Xi3shipping their modular computer, they have also introduced the Xi3 Micro Server modules that contains a 2- 1GB Ethernet module, 1 10 GB fiber channel, 4-USB, 40 eSATAp and runs at 40 Watts of power. All in the same Xi3 chassy.

David Politis joins us once again to show us these great products. Along with the Microserver, Xi3 announced the Xi3 data center. 24 units of rackspace – so it can hold a conventional server – but you can also put 3 Xi3 Microservers into the  space and have up to 224 Xi3 computers right in the box. All air controlled and redundant power.

The datacenter also is on a cart which can be pushed, or motorized. This makes the Xi3 datacenter perfect for a small company that has limited space, a mobile company, disaster station, and more. You could literally have your server room move from room to room. Best part is the Xi3 is modular, so more additions will be coming in the future.

Xi3 Microserver will be released and priced later in the year. The datacenter will be around $500,000 .

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine

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AgeTek – Aging Technology Alliance

CES 2012, Gadgets, , ,

AgeTek is helping seniors use technology to stay independent. The Aging Technology Alliance (AgeTek) is dedicated to bring the technologies to you, your parents, and grandparents to help quality of life. Items like the Life Station managed pill box that Jamie Davis interviewed earlier at CES.

Over 60 companies and organizations are part of this alliance to promote Agetek. They have a wide array of gadgets; Easy-to-use TV remotes to big button mobile phones (like the Jitterbug). The alliance is there to assist you and your loved ones to incorporate these items into everyday life.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine and and Andy Smith of Geocaching World.

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Swissvoice iPhone, Android Docking Handsets in ePure

CES 2012, Home, , ,
swissvoice
swissvoice

Company Swissvoice has been around in Switzerland since 1893. They are bringing some of that technology to the US with the ePure. It’s a series of phones – a land-line version, but also a iPhone and Android version.

The iPhone dock phone lets you put your phone in to charge, but then you can use the handset to answer phone calls. If you turn the receiver on the side, you can use it as a bluetooth speaker.

The ePure also has a multi-phone solution. This is for your Android phone, or another smart phone. Once again, you can use the receiver as a cordless phone, or speakers when set on their side.

We finally looked at another device that you connect up to your router, it then will push the call to multiple lines. If you don’t pick up the land line, it rings the cell phone. Swissvoice has a patent pending. Your iPad, your iPhone and other devices can manage calls.

These products are planning to hit the US by July. The station is $99, the iPhone ePure will be $199, multi ePure will be $150. The cordless ePhone is $99.

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Dynamics PowerCards Make Your Credit Card Smart

CES 2012, Home, , ,
Dynamics Inc
Dynamics Inc

The credit card is getting an upgrade. It also won the CES 2012 Innovation award.

Jeff Mullen, CEO of Powercards joins us to talk about the Dynamic Credit Card. They just raised over  40 million dollars to create one of the smallest devices ever developed. 70 electrical components in the size of a credit card.

This is the world’s first card re-programmable mag stripe. Push a button and the card will re-write the data to the magstripe. You can then swipe your card into the reader.

It feels like a regular credit card. You can bend it, and put in your wallet. The cards are completely sealed, so they can get wet without issue. The battery will last for up to four years.

If you have multiple accounts (personal, business), then you can push a button and your card is a business credit card. Push the other button, it is your personal credit card. After a while, the card can clear off your mag stripe, so you are forced to chose your card type again.

Another use of these cards would be Reward points. Push a button, and your card is using your rewards points.

There is another card that has a pin code on it. Enter your pin code and the system will put your card info on the mag stripe. After use, the mag stripe will clear, so your card becomes a blank piece of plastic.

Finally, Jeff showed us a medical card that will show emergency numbers and other medical information medical professionals may need to keep you alive. The card comes with a card holding case that you put in with your drivers licence. During emergencies, medical professionals look for your ID, then pull out the life card. They get a number which they put into their computers and get important information.

The cards do not have a price point. The cards will be announced later in 2012.

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Powershot G1X Point and Shoot Camera from Canon

Cameras, CES 2012, , ,
canon
canon

While at the Canon booth, we looked at the new Powershot G1 X camera. It’s a new type of point-and-shoot camera that allows you to act like a professional.

Ben Thomas talks about the sensor size of 1.5 inches. It’s much larger (9x) than other Point and shoot. This gives you amazing low light performance and “Shallow depth of field”. It’s the ability to blur out the background and focus on the subject.

It also has 14 bit raw shooting. Something you find in a $6,000 camera.

With a 3″ varied angle screen, high resolution at 922 dots. Dedicated movie button at full 1080 resolution at 24 frames (or 720 at 30 fps). .mov format.

Even though it’s a fixed lens, you can take off the ring and put on accessories. The pop-up flash will help add light, but also add a light to the shoe and your point-and-shoot becomes a pretty professional camera.

The G1X takes SD cards. The Lithium battery takes about 250 shots. The G1X will be available at the end of February for $799.

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Stanton SCS.4DJ Digital DJ Mixstation

CES 2012, Home, ,

SCS.4DJ MixstationIf you’re a DJ, you probably know the name Stanton, purveyors of DJ hardware. If you’re not a DJ, you probably still know the parent company, Gibson, of the guitar fame. Either way, we’re in good company here. Todd and Steve mix it up with Darrin “B-Side” Young from Stanton.

On show is Stanton’s SCS.4DJ Digital DJ Mixstation, a self-contained digital controller that has its own built-in computer and mixing software. The Mixstation is Linux-based with proprietary software that takes advantage of the unit’s features.

The music itself is all digital (.mp3, .wav, .aac) and USB storage can either be plugged in temporarily or else more permanently fitted on the underside in media bays.

Some of the cool toys include a 4″ hi-res colour LCD screen, display of the current track’s beat and wave form, media browser and automatic synchronisation between tracks (beat match). There’s also an auto DJ feature that takes a playlist and beat matches between the tracks. Nice.

Available now for $499 from over 500 retailers nationwide.

Interview by Todd “TC” Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network, and Steve “Surfer” Lee of Waves of Tech.

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Gazelle

CES 2012, Gadgets,

Gazelle If you have old gadgets lying around your house, there are a couple things you can do with them, keep them, throw them in the trash, try to sell them on Ebay or Craiglist or you could use Gazelle. Option one isn’t very practical. Option two is bad for the environment and is illegal in most states. Option three can be a hassle. The best option to me is option four, Gazelle. Whenever I have an old gadget I want to sell or get rid of I go to Gazelle. Currently I am waiting for the box to ship my iPad version 1 to them. I am going to get $140.00 for it, which will go toward the purchase of an iPad 3.

Gazelle has been around 2006. You can trade in your old gadgets for money or recycle those that aren’t worth anything. Around 95 percent of all items they receive are worth something, the other 3 percent they will recycle properly. They handle products in 23 different categories everything including cellphones, gaming consoles, laptops and mp3 players just to name a few. Gazelle takes data removal very seriously any data that is on the device is removed using the most secure method. Gazelle gets most of their business from people who wanted to get the latest and greatest and trade in their old device. Since the release of the iPhone 4s in Oct they have received over 150,000 iPhones in trade in. They are currently getting ready for the release of the iPad 3.

The thing I didn’t know about Gazelle is they have a store, where they sell the items they receive that are in good working order. So when the iPad 3 comes out you maybe able to pick up a iPad 2 for a good price. In fact many people will buy a device from the Gazelle store and then later sell the same device back to Gazelle to get some money. In case you haven’t noticed I am a big fan of Gazelle, so if you have old gadgets you are trying to get rid of you may want to check out Gazelle.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Steve Lee of Wave of Tech

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TVman Wireless DTV Tuner by Dediprog

CES 2012, TVs, ,

TVman Do you want to watch over the air TV on your laptop or tablet while traveling, then the TVman Wireless DTV Tuner by Dediprog maybe what you are looking for. It is a digital TV receiver that allows you to watch over the air TV. It transfers the signal to any computer or tablet by Wi-fi. So there are no extra wires to carry around. The cord is the antenna. Because it doesn’t depend on 3G connectivity you get a full high def signal. Unlike other options available now which depend on the 3G signal and are often compressed. Dediprog distributes the product themselves and also through other vendors. They expect to sell it in the US for around $100.00. It is available now in Japan and South America. They hope to have it available in Europe within 3 months and the US by end of the year.

Dediprog also showed off a second item which combines the wireless DTV tuner with 3G. The device can be used as a mobile hotspot or a digital TV receiver. Dediprog is trying to build partnerships with various mobile service providers which would provide the 3G connectivity. They also need to get FCC approval for both devices.

Both products are small enough to fit into a man’s front pocket. You carry them with you and as long as there is an over the air signal available you can watch TV. Not sure how long the battery last or how far the wi-fi signal travels. I expect you need to be in the same room as the device, but that is an assumption on my part. Both products will works with Android, iOS and Windows. I would love to get a hold of the device to test it, to see what kind of signal it picks up

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Steve Lee of Wave of Tech

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Fulton Innovation’s Wireless Charging

CES 2012, Home, ,

Fulton Innovation logoThe great thing about CES is that every now and then an unknown shows off something cool. I’d never heard of Fulton Innovation but they have smart products based around wireless power transmission. Todd learns more about eCoupled from Dave Baarman.

Fulton Innovation have developed an inductive coupling solution that scales from simply making a magazine cover light up as you walk past to being able to charge a whole bag of devices without taking them out of the bag. Electric cars could be recharged by parking in the right spot and not by plugging them in.

Not all of these products are ready for market just yet, but inductive charging efficiencies are on a par with plug-in chargers though economies of scale are needed to bring the prices down to a point where it’s built-in as standard. Palm’s Pre range of smartphones used inductive charging with the Touchstone and the Motorola Droid 4 has inductive charging as an option. As a Pre 3 owner, it’s brilliant not having to fiddle with cables and I hope more devices come to the market with inductive charging in 2012.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network, and Dave Lee from Waves of Tech.

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Rocstor AES 256-bit Enctypted Hard Drive

CES 2012, Gadgets,

Rocstor has unveiled a new portable external hard drive that practically guarantees that your data won’t be stolen. The hard drive, which comes in capacities up to 1 TB, has a slot for a smart card. Enter the card, punch in your code (which you choose), and you unlock the drive and all of the data you have stored on it. The drives are FIP certified and ship with multiple cards. For users that need additional cards, they can be purchased blank and inserted into a unit to be programmed to work with it. PIN Numbers can be changed an unlimited number of times as well.

These hard drives are probably not for average consumers, but more for business and government. They are designed to protect highly-sensitive data and eliminate those stories that are always in the news these days about stolen laptops filled with account and credit card information. The drives retail in the $400-600 range and are available now from Rocstor.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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