NEWS: A Quick Look at CES 2008

GEEK: A Quick Look at CES 2008

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the annual event for electronics enthusiasts. Prior shows have brought us the Xbox (2001), HDTV (1998), the NES (1985), the Commodore 64 (1982), the Compact Disc player (1981), and the VCR (1970) – each of them icons in their own right.

This year’s show is no exception, with Panasonic’s 150-inch Lifescreen Plasma (it’s bigger than a queen size mattress), Pioneer’s 9mm-thick plasma TV and “real black” contrast concept taking the cake. Honorable mentions should include Alienware’s curved rear-projecting gaming monitor, 2880x900 pixels of pure wrap-around gaming goodness, and SanDisk’s 16GB microSDHC card – at least in this geek’s humble opinion.

Technology isn’t the only thing making news this year. During his traditional keynote address, Bill Gates announced his official retirement from Microsoft, highlighted by an entertaining video of his life after Microsoft where attempts to work on his physique and mental well-being with Matthew McConaughey, asks George Clooney to play him in a biopic, and tries to get back on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Slash even joined him on-stage for a little bit of Guitar Hero.

But this year, the rest pale in comparison to the ultimate in self defense: Taser’s C2 line of leopard-print (also comes in pink!) bad guy shockers along with a revolutionary MP3-playing holster. You might want to read that again and give it time to sink in. “Fashion with a Bite” meets music-on-the-go for the modern day man or woman who wants to not only sport the latest trends, but listen to cool beats while they pump ne’er-do-wells with 50,000 volts of pure personal protection.

If you’re interested in more coverage of CES 2008, head on over to The Giz’ or Engadget – both of them have agents live on the field.

That is just insane. The ever decreasing size of solid state memory is the only technology lately that seriously impresses me. You could fit good sized public library worth of books on a 16 gb card. And it's small enough to comfortably hide in your butt when reading becomes illegal.

Some folks could fit an entire Samsung 128GB SSD in their butt too, ya know. Those were also announced at CES.

See? I'm not fat, I'm preparing for the idiocracy!

Is that the library of congress up your butt, or are you just happy to see me?

Both.

Count me in as also mainly impressed by the 16 gig microSD card. I could fit my entire PSP game collection (and a whole lot of ROMs) on that. And then I would be travelin' in STYLE.

Until the batteries ran out three hours later.

Ooh, my buddies have hacked PSPs. They'd love those cards...

Assuming it's compatible, of course. I have no idea. (And I doubt I could afford it.)

Holy crap that TV is huge. However, I'm not a big fan of plasma's, nor would I ever have the space to put it. As it is I already have to search out apartments that can fit my beast of a couch, if I had that TV my living room would probably be just it and the couch. I'd then be sad that I didn't have my bookcases of books. Though, I suppose I could get them in digital format and stick them on the SD card. That's no fun though.


Also:

I went and looked at it, I think my eyes bled a bit at the leopard print.

I really don't get the ultra-huge TVs. More than about 50" seems like a huge waste of space and money and electricity. Unless you're planning to run your own home theater business...

Which would be pretty illegal, I would think, according to those copyright warnings and regulations they like to show us before we watch the movie we bought

Hey, mega-millionaires need something to spend their money on. Geez.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the mega-millionaires!

Cars that drive and even park themselves may be on market within decade, General Motors says.

And about time.

(Although by last November, four other manufacturers (including Lexus, BMW and Toyota) were already claiming they'd market a car which parks itself, in 2008.)