The Gadgets Page

After seeing what Eleksen can do, I wonder if their product has a hand in these jeans from Levi Strauss.

• Levi Strauss & Co. | News Releases – iPod Compatible Jeans – January 10, 2006

Unfortunately, no photographs of the product are available at this time, so we can’t get a glimpse of what the jeans look like. Here are the features:

• Docking cradle in pocket
• Looser design to eliminate the “iPod Bulge”
• Easy removal to see the screen
• Controls on the hip area featuring a “joystick”
• Handy wire retractor to prevent tangled earbuds.

After seeing what Eleksen can do with touch sensitive fabric, I completely believe that Levi Strauss has these jeans in the works. Now all the jeans need are some solar panels on the butt to power your iPod and they’d be the perfect jeans.

Via: gadgetgirl: ooh, technology

This is one of the Superbowl commercials that Motorola had for their PEBL phone. The design of the phone is amazingly smooth and tactilely pleasing. They had them at the Motorola booth at CES. Some were on pedestals where you could play with them, but they had many others that were with piles of rocks under glass on the floor.

The Motorola booth was huge, but I didn’t find anything there that I really wanted. They were promoting their RAZR in pink, you know, for girls. As a girl, I’m becoming more and more sick of the color pink. I’m beginning to think that they don’t really understand women and what we want.

I was more impressed with the Motorola Ski Jackets. The MP3 player snapped into the arm of the jacket and the headphones were in the hood. Of course, I would forget to remove the MP3 player and throw the jacket into the washing machine when it started smelling too much like February snow, so it’s not really a good choice for me.

The Motorola booth was impressive, with its dance floors, music playing apparel and phones that look like rocks. I don’t know why I didn’t take any pictures…

Update: 02-08-06: I lied. I had quite a few pictures from the Motorola booth and I just found them today. Here is a quick slideshow with them:

All this writing about CES is exciting. Being there reminded me of being at Comdex. I found these old photos of Comdex 2000 and I thought I’d share them for fun.

This picture of Mike with the Ask Jeeves butler makes me smile. I am surprised that Ask Jeeves is still around today. It has been quietly tailing behind Google since that juggernaut took over the scene.

I have no idea who this crayon was trying to promote. The company is probably out of business by now. So many companies were massacred by the Dot Bomb, even if they had nothing to do with the Internet.

Netgear are still around. Obviously this huge inflatable ode to Netgear was more interesting to us than the routers they were promoting back then.

I don’t know if you remember when Microsoft added their “friendly” paper clip to the Office Suite, but I do. Everytime I would start a sentence with the word “To,” it would pop up and tell me that if I’m writing a letter, it could help me. I have NEVER started a letter with the word “To.” I wanted to personally beat up the Paperclip, but they only allowed their Help Genie beat him up. We didn’t need a better animated help feature. We needed to learn how to turn the stupid paperclip off.

This was the year I learned about Linux. Mike knew all about it, but I had never heard of it and the concept of Open Source was even more confusing to me. I found it strangely scary that so many companies were promoting something that was available for free on the Internet. Mike had a copy that he had been playing with, but all I saw were penguins.

Not only did those companies survive the Dot Bomb, they are still working on Linux solutions to this day. Here is a picture of Mike with the Penguin Computing penguin. I remember people standing in line to get Linux Penguin tatoos. I still have a hundred of them in a box downstairs from this show. I also have some bumper stickers that say, “Open Source Is Not A Crime.” I didn’t understand them back then. Now, Open Source makes more sense to me than other software programming models and I’m amazed at how short-sighted I was.

This little car is electric. It was featured at a couple of booths at the Sands convention floor. Zap! Cars was one of the sponsors for the Scientific American Innovations People’s Choice Awards. Here are a run down of the facts:

• Speeds up to 40 mph (not freeway legal)
• Range up to 40 miles (don’t go too far from home)
• Uses NO gasoline (all you do is plug it in)
• Length: 9 feet Width: 4.7 feet Height: 5 feet Weight: approximately 1500 pounds
• Seats up to four people (only if they’re short)
• You can charge it at any electric outlet
• It comes in Xebra Flash (pictured above), Ocean Blue (pictured below), Kiwi Green and Lipstick Red.

I used to own a Yugo in the Eighties and this car was very similarly equipped. I had a flashback of trying to find a window crank for the Yugo when I saw the interior of the vehicle and I immediately recoiled from the machine. Unless you live in Southern California, this car is probably not for you. When the window crank breaks, you want to be able to walk into any auto parts store to get a replacement.

I can’t find any information about how long it takes to charge a Xebra. I would hate to think that it’s only good for 40 miles of errands and then it has to charge overnight. That would make it completely useless. I might as well ride my bike.

It sure is a cute car, though. Despite the limitations, I’m attracted to it in a strange way. It reminds me of the car in the video “Never Let Me Down Again” by Depeche Mode (that car had one wheel in the back instead of two). It feels very European with its three-wheel design. I imagine driving it would be fun because I would be the only one in my city with a Xebra. Still, Salt Lake City is very spread out and 40 miles wouldn’t even get me from one end of the Salt Lake Valley to the other.

• ZapWorld.com – ZAP Xebra Electric Vehicle

The Palm booth was packed with people. There were many affiliate companies demonstrating their products and the Palm people were showing off the new Treo 700w. It is the first Palm handheld that runs Windows Mobile instead of the Palm OS. There were so many people milling around that we didn’t get a chance to play with one. Microsoft had two Treo 700w PDAs at a kiosk at their booth, but both of them had dead batteries (unlikely since they were plugged in) or hard crashed.

Compared to the Treo 650, which is a Palm-based OS, they were very similar in size and design. I really have loved the design of the 650, so I’m glad they didn’t sacrifice that. It looks like a well-designed machine.

My only problem is the operating system. I have a lot of programs that are made for the Palm OS. It is such an ideal programming platform that there are literally thousands of programs that have been created for the Palm OS. All of those programs would become obsolete with the Windows Mobile edition of the Treo 700.

The Treo 700w has some great software built into the device, including the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It even has a few games: Bubble Breaker, Solitaire and Cubis. I have all of those games for my Palm, but what Windows Mobile does not have is what is going to keep me on the Palm OS.

As soon as they come up with a Weight Watchers Points Tracker for Windows Mobile, then I will think about switching over. Until then, there is no hope for a change from me, no matter how shiny and pretty the Treo 700w is.

Mike and I have commented before about the difficulty of finding good headphones for exercising. The big versions tend to hurt me somewhere on my ears or have foam that disintegrates under the abuse of sweat. The earbuds tend to fall out when I’m running.

Mike and I tested the E3G headphones at the Shure booth at CES. They offered disposable covers for the earbuds (the yellow part), so I was able to give them a real test. I tried them both ways: over my ear and just inserted into my ear.

After inserting them, I jumped around and jogged in place trying to recreate the movement that makes all earbuds fall out of my ears. After an embarrassing romp around the booth, it seems that no matter how I put them in my ears they would stay. I didn’t work up a sweat, so I don’t know how the squishy bits that fit into the ear canal would survive it, but they were able to stay in place, which is important.

When Mike tried them, he was completely unable to hear me talk to him. If he wasn’t looking at me, he couldn’t even tell. They blocked out the ambient noise of the convention floor extremely well. So well, that I wouldn’t recommend these headphones if you exercise outdoors. You wouldn’t be able to hear cars or muggers and it might leave you vulnerable. Use them at home or in the gym only.

My only problem is that at $199, these headphones are easily four times what I’m willing to pay. Amazon has them for $179, but I have such a hard time shelling out that much money for something that I could accidentally lose at the gym. I was really impressed with them, but I don’t trust myself not to lose them.

This section of The NextGen Home Experience featured products from the following companies: Life|Ware, ZON Audio Router, Belden Cable, DSC ConcoursePro Cable Enclosure, Klipsch Speakers, Brizo Faucets, and Vantage Lighting.

Zone 17 – Equipment Closet

In a normal house, this room would have been the clothing closet for the master bedroom. There were no clothes or shoes in this closet. In a business building, this room would have been a mess of wires and computer racks. There would be small sculptures of animals made of telephone wires that had been made while the IT guy was stuck there overnight trying to trouble shoot the servers.

In other words, this room was an anomaly in both the home and business environments. Most homes don’t have a “equipment closet” and most businesses have an equipment closet that is a claustrophobic mess of wires. There was no demonstrator at this zone to tell us the importance of adding an equipment closet to your home.

Zone 18 – The Master Bathroom

By the time we got to the Master Bathroom, the “What Happens When The Power Goes Out” guy had moved ahead of us and taken the demonstrator in the Master Bath hostage. We heard the whole story about how that man lived in an area with spotty power coverage and how all of this technology is a waste when we can’t reliably supply electricity to the remote areas of the United States.

The demonstrator nodded awkwardly with that panicked look that my cat gets when she knows we’re going to open her mouth and make her swallow a pill. Mike and I slowly backed away from the scene so as not to disturb the hostage situation after we took a picture of yet another Life|Touch Screen on the wall. I don’t know about you, but in a house of only about 1000 square feet, you can never have too many Windows Embedded machines built into the walls.

NextGen Home Experience Wrap-Up:

I was actually pretty impressed with the NextGen Home. It was interesting to go through. Because almost everything was “Available Today” it didn’t have that Golly-Gee Factor that the House of the Future at Disneyland had. It was more reasonable and believable. I’m sure glad we took the time to go through it because it gave me a bunch of ideas of practical things I could do in my house.

This section of The NextGen Home Experience featured products from the following companies: Hewlett Packard, Klipsch Speakers, Aaragon Amplifier, Tripplite Power Protection, Life|Touch Screens, Vantage Lighting, Lafayette Window Shades, DSC Security, Xbox 360, Empower Media Chairs and Microsoft XP Media Center Edition.

Zone 9 – The Wall by the Living Room

This was YET ANOTHER Life|Touch Screen on the wall. A house this small does NOT need that many fully functioning Windows Media Center units, but this is the most “pimped” house in Las Vegas, so they had to have another one on the wall. There wasn’t a demonstrator there to show us this one, thankfully. We hurried past it to get a seat on the couch in the living room.

Zone 10 – The Living Room

Unfortunately for the Microsoft employee showcasing this section, the computer decided to do a software security update and reboot in the middle of his presentation. One of the people in our group was being a complete jerk to the employee and I called him on it. Whenever I do this, I always expect to be punched in the nose, but it has never happened. The guy was very polite for the rest of the tour. Soon, the computer rebooted and it worked like a dream.

This part of the tour really showcased Windows Media Center. It includes a full featured personal digital recorder (like a TIVO) without having to pay a monthly fee. That was enough to tempt me to buy an HP computer instead of a DVD player the next time ours goes out. He also showed us how to look for music, family photos and such with Media Center. Most importantly, he did it all with a remote control, not a mouse and keyboard.

This software is almost to the point where it would be feasible for Mike’s dad to have something like this. It’s not quite ready for my mom, but Mike’s dad would think this was really cool. Me? I pretty much have all those capabilities already, I just don’t watch TV on my computer. I don’t actually watch television much anymore, so I guess that’s not a fair assessment.

The tour guide for Zone 10 said nothing about the speakers or the window shades that were opening and closing when the computer rebooted. I just laughed to myself.

Zone 11 – Game Room

Zone 10 was dedicated to the Xbox. By now, they were really trying to hurry us out there and didn’t leave us much time to ask questions. There were two lounge chairs equipped with speakers (and I suspect vibrated to the game), but we didn’t hear anything about them. The focus was on the Xbox 360, which has Windows Media Center Extender built into it. All the things that we could do from those Life|Touch Screens and the fancy HP computers with Plasma screens, we could do on the Xbox 360. The demonstrator showed us a clip from a game and sent us on our way.

I must admit that the new Xbox 360 system looks easier to use and more powerful than the original Xbox. In our house right now, we use our Xbox to play games and watch DVDs, so 90% of what we do with the television is handled by the Xbox. To see the Xbox 360 with even more capability is very exciting.

This section of The NextGen Home Experience featured products from several companies: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Hewlett Packard Computers, Life|Touch Screens, TMIO Intelligent Ovens, Brizo Pascal Faucets, GE Appliances, ZON Audio Controllers, Vantage Lighting and Microtherm SEISCO Tankless Water Heater.

They packed so many computers and gadgets into this small manufactured home, that it was really overkill, but it was still fun to see all that could be done:

Zones 1 & 2 – The Entry and Dining Room

Out on the porch, there was a network camera, so from the Life|Touch Screen, we could check to see who was at the door. The $15 spyhole has been replaced with $8000 of machinery. Of course, you can also check who’s at the door from the bedroom, so that’s what’s so cool about that. You can also open and close the blinds and curtains, choose music from your MP3 collection, show television shows that your system has recorded for you, and adjust the temperature of the house. The Life|Touch Screens aren’t just little LCD screens on your wall that connect to a Windows Media Center PC, they are a Windows Media Center PC themselves.

In the dining room, they had an HP Plasma HDTV on the wall that displayed art. Of course, it could replay television shows, play movies or music from your collection. As you can see, of all the art they showed us, Mike preferred the penguins.

Zones 3-6 – Kitchen

We had already seen a computer in the entry and a computer in the dining room. They opened the kitchen cupboard to reveal yet another HP computer. I would have put the phone book in that cabinet and walked the extra couple of feet to the home office, but that’s just me.

There were touchless faucets that turned on automatically. We happened to be touring with a man who kept asking, “What happens if the power goes out?” about EVERY product that was being demonstrated. He lived in an area that experienced brownouts and blackouts on a regular basis, so all of this “House of the Future… er… Today” stuff seemed unwise to him. The people manning the house were from Intel, so they couldn’t tell us what would happen if the power went out and you wanted to turn on the water. They couldn’t even tell us if the water would start running if the power went out.

There was another Life|Touch Screen in the kitchen. It was grimy with fingerprints and I had the vision of what it would look like in a house with three kids. After only a day of children accessing their favorite songs and looking to see who’s at the door, even if no one rang the doorbell, I could imagine a far messier touch screen. It made me unwilling to put one in my house.

By far, the coolest thing in the kitchen was the TMIO Intelligent Oven. You can put dinner in the oven before you go to work. It will refrigerate the dinner until it’s time to cook it, then turn on the oven and cook your meal.

The guy in our group asked his question, “What happens if the power goes out?” Without missing a beat, the gentleman showing the oven said that if it’s a short amount of time, the oven goes back to its routine of either refrigerating or cooking. If the power goes out for a long time, it will fail-safe to refrigeration. The cool thing is that if you’re at work and the oven had fail-safed to refrigeration, you could reset it from their website or call their system on the telephone and reset it to cook correctly.

It doesn’t need Windows Media Center to run, it has its own system and just needs to connect to the Internet with a cable or wireless connection. Hands down, it was the coolest thing I saw in the NextGen house.

Zones 7 & 8 – The Utility Room

There was no one in this area to tell us what to look at. There was a washer and dryer there from GE and some other equipment. The only thing we noticed that we thought was cool was the SEISCO Microtherm Tankless Water Heater.

We had seen one of these at the cabin in Island Park, Idaho. Instead of a water heater that heated a tank of water that could run out with six of us showering, the cabin had a tankless water heater like this one that heated the water as it ran through it. I have no idea how it works, but it worked like a dream in that cabin. I kind of wish there had been a guide in the utility room that could have explained that technology to us. As far as I know, it’s magic.

Zones 1-8 Wrapup

With so many questions from us and the people in our group, it was understandable why the wait for the tour was two hours long. It took us a full hour and a half to get through the house. In Zones 1-8, the coolest thing was the TMIO Oven. There were so many things that the demonstrator showed us, we were really impressed. The truth of the matter is, we rarely use our oven for cooking dinner and the TMIO seemed like a really impressive crockpot to me. I didn’t see anything in zones 1-8 that I would install in my house. Sadly, I might not even use them if I moved into a house with all those gadgets, except the water heater. I love the idea of being able to shower as long as I want.

The CES NextGen Home Experience had a two hour wait to go through it. Engadget felt like it wasn’t worth the wait.

• The future is not air conditioned – and we’ll take a pass – Engadget

Unlike, Engadget, we thought it was worth it to go through the “Home of the Future,” even though they kept telling us that this is NOT the home of the future. It’s the home of today and every product on demonstration is available today. This week, we’ll share all the new and coolest gadgets we saw in the Home of the Future… er… Today at CES.