



CES Tidbits 215
Various newsbits from the Consumer Electronics Show: Verizon promises cell phone TV; USB flash drives get more useful; Transmeta promises a fanless media center device, sometime; things you can stick on your iPod; and a tech site offers a photographic overview of day 0 of the convention.
Cell phone TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nyko's iPod movie player (Score:2, Insightful)
You can get a portable DVD player designed for kids for about 100 bucks, though. We got our youngest one for christmas. It's not a sexy geek device, the battery is an old NiCad and weighs a ton, and only lasts 4 hours or so. But it works great, and it reads DVD-Rs and VCDs.
80 bucks for the player and pennies per blank disc, and you stay just as sane on a long car trip as with the 500 dollar iPod + 300 dollar "peripheral" (just guessing at what they'd charge, but that sounds right for what is essentially a self-contained media player and usb host, minus the hard drive).
What it's all about (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it a bit disheartening that so much of the success of these products will depend on the success or failure of the content. Finally, when I heard Conan's lame double entendres about flacid penises (as in the Microsoft intro) that shook me out of my interest in what was presented at this convention. More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that products that allow the common man to produce content are far more interesting, revolutionary, and important than the evolutionary products shown at the Consumer Electronics Show to allow you to consume the content of others. The products at CES that catch my eye are ones that allow me to create or enojy the creations of others, unfortunately I think I'll see more of that sort of thing at NAB in April than I've seen at CES so far.
Please, tell me that I'm wrong and point out some great consumptive and productive tech that's made its debut.
Re:Konica/Minolta Analysis Suspect (Score:3, Insightful)
The image stabilization in teh body, however, if it is compatible with current lenses WILL SELL. Especially to people that can't afford the current auto stabilizing lenses. (like me) Best bet for that is to license it to Nikon and Cannon for theirs and they will make a bloody mint.
Re:Nyko's iPod movie player (Score:3, Insightful)
My kid is still a baby, so I haven't experienced the "Are we there yet?" years too much. And I'm not trying to be preachy-- I just want to know what other parents do with their kids.
You and I survived these long car rides with books, games, puppets, imagination and long period of staring out the window (a great time for day dreaming and thinking, and I still do it). We didn't have this constant stream of stimulation being pushed at us, and we survived fine.
Are you sure you want to push your kids (and you and your wife) for 10-12 hours? How about getting a hotel somewhere in the middle there. You all need more rest then that, and the drive would be more leasurely-- you could even drive for a few hours, take a break and see some of the sights and get some exercise, and then drive again. You'll also drive much more safer...
Dvd or not, 10-12 hours in a car can't be good for you or your kids.
"Auto-run" Features Are a Security Risk (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are these guys pushing to make this "standard"?? Thanks for more tracking and security headaches guys for the sake of "convience".
Re:Microsoft CES Torrent (Score:3, Insightful)
if you need 3d drivers and you're using an nvidia card (which you should if you're using linux) d/l nvidia's drivers, stop X, install, follow instructions to modify your X config, restart X (even easier than windows, don't even need to restart your machine and all instructions are available from nvidia website in great detail).
I don't know why I even try, feeding trolls is so tiresome......
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:U3 (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, this is a little tinhat-ish, but you never know...
Re:Microsoft CES Torrent (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, most consumers expect to be able to install the software without reading any of the dialog boxes and just hitting 'next' like mad. Making this more difficult isn't a matter of them not being able to do this, but rather that they lack the drive to actually do it. Changing 3 lines of a text file is pretty archaic and reminds me of CONFIG.SYS and the DOS days.
Comon, we can do better than that.