Red hot technology at CES 2008

Darius Chang | Jan 11, 2008

It is the first major consumer electronics show of the year. Though the CES has more than its fair share of chaff, we spotted a few gems which had us checking our savings account and taking out our check books.

The Alienware curved display is one of those technologies which makes us think "why didn't it come our way earlier?" For PC monitors, adding curves may be just what the doctor ordered to shatter the screen size race.

How about the Toshiba UMPC concept, which not only implemented a forward-thinking touch interface but actually made good use of the integrated accelerometer for flipping virtual pages?

Makers of laptop screen protectors may need to increase the range of sizes available. Dell's 16-inch XPS prototype may be a glimpse of a new "in-betweener" category, much like what the 13.3-inch MacBook did for the thin-and-light range.

Tired of bringing multiple chargers when traveling? The Green Plug may soon change the way we power up our tech toys.

But PC technology was not the only category which had drool-worthy products. Check out our top picks for CES 2008 and tell your spouse to start saving for your birthday present.

Filed under: PC & Peripherals
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mobilesalesman

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mobilesalesman says...
CES was great as far as Intel's new chip technology but so all of the new devices are weak to me. Yes companies got some of the problems of the UMPC's in 2007 corrected which caused the entire UMPC market to only sell 350K in 2007. They did finally realize mainstream users want in small enough to be carried in a coat pocket so yes there were many 4-5" screens. What they failed to correct completely was the lack of keyboard. 2007 UMPC's had pen input primarily and only geeks liked that; mainstream users have never adopted pen input. So they added thumb keyboards. That was created by pocket pc companies as a band aid to the PDA and if you ask most people the response is they do not like thumb input. What they should have done is bring back full touch type keyboard clamshells. Yes remember the HPC clamshells of the 90's like the Psion 5mx or Revo? or how about the HP Jornada 720/728? Those devices proved a touch type keyboard computer can be shrunk down to 3.6" x 6.9" to 7.3" and .90 to 1.3". The HPC's in the 90's that had touch type keyboards and were jacket pocket in size sold over 2.3 million per year before MS killed the OS. Just think about now that that size of a computer could run full windows! Can no computer company have the common sense to just create a simple pocket laptop with a touch type keyboard?

Feb 20, 2008 13:00