Digital Age

Barb Dybwad
Filed under: CES, Features, Home Entertainment

We got some hands-on time with the new Logitech Squeezebox Duet, the device that ensures Daddy never sleeps at night. Veronica Belmont and the Mahalo Daily team provide the eye candy after the ever-lovin’ break.

Christopher Grant
Filed under: CES, Features, Home Entertainment

So you’ve got the announcement of Logitech’s latest Harmony remote, the Harmony One. You’ve checked out our hands-on pics and you’ve even read the first review. So why not spend a minute with Mahalo Daily’s Veronica Belmont and take a video look at the redesigned channel changer, safely tucked away after the break.

Ben Drawbaugh
Filed under: CES, HDTV, Home Entertainment

If you thought Logitech was going to rest on the laurels of the Harmony 880, think again. The Harmony One looks to pick up where the 880 left off; it takes everything we love about the 880 and steps it up by replacing the terrible buttons with our favorite raised type, and the LCD screen goes touch screen to boot. PJ from PC World appreciates the new ergonomic layout and touch screen, but misses being able to access the LCD screen without looking down at the remote. The charger base was also revised, but no word on if it is more reliable — PJ does say that he was seeing about a week of battery life. In the end, the Harmony One is a nice upgrade to the 880, but considering that it’s priced almost twice that of the Harmony 550, we’re not sure it’s doubly good.

Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Features, Wearables

You’ve waited for it, now you’ve got it. Video of LG’s new Watch Phone. Just check the scroll-action from the Shine-like bar as we navigate through the user interface with ease. Voice or other audible prompts indicate a successful completion of each task. Bluetooth? Yup, although we didn’t have the chance to test it in our haste. Not too shabby LG, not too shabby.

Ryan Block
Filed under: CES, Features

So we embarked upon an epic quest in search of the mythical, rumored 150-inch Panasonic plasma — and what we came across in the still-under-construction Panasonic booth really wasn’t at all hard to spot. It was also possibly the most well guarded thing we saw in any of the pre-CES halls, kept under close watch by multiple guards, a half dozen contractors, and obscured by a curtain, a plastic drape, and huge white panels; there was simply no way to get a full-on shot of this behemoth’s screen. But we did manage a spy a shot of the rear, and from evidence gathered on site, we discovered what we believe to be the beast’s name: Lifewall. Search though we might, we simply could not find any numerical evidence that the Lifewall plasma is the full rumored 150-inches. But let’s put it this way. It’s the most friggin’ enormous screen we’ve ever laid eyes on — even sight unseen.

Gallery: Panasonic’s Lifewall: the biggest thing to be announced at CES

Thomas Ricker
Filed under: CES, Displays, Features

What? Wasn’t everyone ninja-spelunking the cavernous halls of CES 2008 this evening? For those who couldn’t, here’s Hitachi’s 1.5 LCD TV in a silky pirouette just for your viewing pleasure. Funny enough, 1.5-inches never looked so chubby.

Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Features, Wearables

Well would you look at that. The best gadget we’ve seen at CES so far: LG’s watch phone. Again, no details as these shots were taken on the sly. Regardless, it appears to be a mere prototype at the moment. Hear this, however. It features the slickest three-button, watch-phone interface you’ve seen this side of Chester Gould. Video on the way. ‘Till then, you’ll just have to take refuge in the snaps below.

Gallery: LG’s Watch Phone: production please?

Ryan Block
Filed under: CES

So yeah, you could say we kind of waltzed on into CES plenty long enough before the show gets started on Monday. Unfortunately there just wasn’t a ton to see besides contractors setting up booths — but there was some good stuff. Stay nearby, it’s coming right up.

Gallery: The show floor before the show: the CES they don’t want you to see

Christopher Grant
Filed under: Household

By this May, the UK government wants to provide free clip-on electricity meter devices designed to show residents exactly how much they’re spending on electricity, with the goal of encouraging them to reduce their consumption when they’re made aware of the cost of the electricity they use. Of course, the government doesn’t want to foot the bill for the project themselves, they’d like to see the energy companies pick up the tab. The energy companies, however, say the program is a stopgap on the way to more sophisticated “smart meters.” Call us old-fashioned, but we prefer to break out the calculator and figure out the energy usage of our electronics manually, just like our great-great-grandfathers did.

Paul Miller
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

If 2007 was the year of the carbon nanotube, it looks like 2008 could be the year for boron nanotubes to shine. Carbon nanotubes have been sprouting up in all sorts of tech that requires strong building blocks and fast electronics at the microscopic scale, but boron nanotubes, which were discovered in 2004, are looking even better at electronics, while matching carbon in the strength department. Researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China have proved in simulation that the boron nanotubes can have variable electrical properties, which could make boron the jack of all trades at the nano scale, but that’s about as far as we go with this whole “science” thing. Bill Nye would be so disappointed in us.