CES: Kia’s New UVO Powered By Microsoft

Around the summer, Kia will start shipping a new stereo option on their existing 2010 model line. This new stereo will be powered by Microsoft’s Automotive division – the same thing that powers Ford Sync, only Kia has made some improvements.

The unit is being called “UVO” and is labeled as an in-car infotainment system. The first thing you’ll notice is the big bright screen that is fully touch enabled. This makes it very easy for displaying prompts and interacting with the unit and displaying images from the rear view camera. What you won’t notice right away are the tweaks that have been done to make pairing with your cell phone that much easier. It’s now a 1-step process and you’re up and running. Of course it supports external MP3 players, iPods, and Microsoft’s Zune (the first in car unit that fully supports the Zune – to my knowledge).

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CES: Dual Screens Coming to your Laptop

While at CES, I managed to gain access to the briefing rooms upstairs in the Microsoft booth.  Here, I found all sorts of hot new tech that was talked about but not put down on the show floor for general press to lay their greasy hands on. One of the cool things I found was a dual screen laptop from Onkyo Corporation – Model DX1007A5. This little wonder cam complete with two 10.1 inch wide screens running 1266×768 resolution. It also has an AMD Athlon Neo processor at 1.60 GHz, 2GB of memory, 320GB of hard drive storage, a 1.3 Megapixel camera, WiFi support for n/b/g standards and of course, Bluetooth. All of that, along with a 6 cell Li-ion battery is stuffed into this 1.8Kg package. Do I even need to mention that it’s running Windows 7?

It was hard to resist getting hands on with this machine.  When you open the lid of the laptop, the two screens are stacked, one in front and the other behind. You can then pull then apart, sliding one to the left and the other to the right. They move very easily and snap into place when extended.

There’s no word on when this would become available or how much it would cost. Or even if they plan to bring it to North America. Onkyo isn’t really known for their personal computers on this side of the world. It’s my guess that we won’t see this available around these parts. I sure hope I’m wrong.

CES: New iPhone Cases and Speaker Docks

I’m sure that you’ve heard of this new smartphone from Apple called the iPhone.  You’ll be happy to know that a couple manufacturers have decided to built cases, docks, and external speakers for this device. Each manufacturer had a radically different accessory design and function. The good news is that if you don’t like how one looks or works, there is another manufacturer just a couple booths away with another design.

Now, I may be exaggerating a little. There are a lot of booths with cases, docks and accessories for your favorite Apple mobile device. What really gets me, is why even enter that market at this point? There are so many companies making accessories, that you don’t really stand a chance of being in the top 10 unless you’re doing something so radically different than everyone else and from what I’ve seen, that’s just not happening.

Consumers are sitting in a great position as the price of accessories is only going to go down. Unfortunately, so will the quality and the manufacturers will struggle to make money and provide for their employees.

Anyway, I hope you’ll forgive me if I neglected to visit or take pictures of any of these companies and their products.

CES: HP’s Android Technology Demo

HP does have much of a presence at CES this year, but they are at ShowStoppers and Digital Experience. One of the things that they were showing off is a “Technology Demo” of Google’s Android OS running on an ultra slim netbook style device.  HP wouldn’t say much about what’s under the hood on this marvel, other than a SnapDragon processor running at an unknown speed and some sort of solid state memory for the limited storage it offers.

Sorry about the rough picture.

The general idea here is to provide a mobile device for people that work in the cloud. It offers instant on and quickly suspends when you close the lid, in order to ensure the best life out of the battery.

When asked if this device could possibly make it to production this year, HP simply restated that this is a technology demo only and they can’t talk about possible future products or roadmaps.

I have to admit that I was very impressed by this unit. I wasn’t too sure about the Android laptop rumors that have floated around in the past, but after seeing HPs technology demo, I’m sold and looking forward to the possibilities that this will bring with it.

CES: LG to Bring Device Remote Control to Your Car Stereo

As I was passing through the LG booth today when my eye caught something out of the ordinary. In the Converging Technologies corner of their booth they have an in-dash screen that was showing Windows Mobile 6.5 on it. This could mean one of two things, either they have put Windows Mobile into the car audio system, or they are doing some sort of remote control / RedFly like connection to the device.

As it turns out, the in-dash unit is running Windows CE and they are doing a remote control session to the device in almost the exact fashion that you would do remote control between your desktop and your Windows Mobile device with SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro software.

The connection can be made over WiFi, Bluetooth, or over USB connection. They are still working on the USB connection, but expect to have that completed soon. You do need to install a small agent on the device to allow the communication to happen.  They are open to supporting more than just LG devices. Since this is a Windows Mobile client, it will work on any Windows Mobile device. It’s still early, but they are looking at adding other mobile operating systems as they move forward.

Currently this is not something that you can go out and buy.  They are talking with car manufacturers to put this in your next car.  Eventually they would like to see it as a stand along unit that you could purchase and install in your car.

This gives you true hands-off your mobile device while still being able to access and control everything on your device.

CES: i-mate Shows off the Small Yet Rugged 810

During my trek around the floor at ShowStoppers last night, I came across the i-mate booth and had a chance to talk with Jim Morrison about the small, yet rugged 810 mobile device, as well as the health of the company.

First off, we put the rumors to rest – i-mate is alive and kicking. According to Jim they had some fraud issues. The issues have all been dealt with and the people at the heart of the fraud are being held in Dubai.

Now, lets talk about the rugged 810 smartphone. The 810 is a messenger style device that is about the same thickness as Samsungs Propel Pro. It has a touch screen and is running Windows Mobile 6.1. But that’s not what makes this device special. The 810 is the smallest and most rugged smartphone in its category on the market today. It’s fully waterproof and has a fairly nice drop rating – which Jim was happy to show us as he tossed the phone in the air and let it come crashing down to the ground. Only to be picked up and tossed into a bowl of water. The device didn’t skip a beat.

This is a perfect device for the road warrior that is too rough on the general consumer products, but still needs all the portability that comes with a consumer device.

CES: HTC Announces the new Smart Phone

HTC has launched a new phone based off the Brew platform called Smart. HTC’s Smart features the HTC Sense interface that everyone has come to know and love. As well you find 256MB RAM, 256MB ROM, weighing 108 grams, a 2.8 inch screen, QVGA resolution, Quad-band GSM/GRPS/Edge with HSDPA of 2100 for Europe and Asia, Bluetooth 2.0, a 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, along with a 3.0 megapixel camera. The Smart phone is set to be available across Europe in the summer.

The Smart has very few buttons on the device. There is the standard call and hang-up buttons. Between those you’ll find a back button and just between that row of 3 buttons and the screen of the device, you will find a small silver button to open the menu or start the navigation.

The new Smart from HTC is the latest non-Windows Mobile device to come from the manufacturer that at one point only dealt with the Microsoft based OS. HTC now has a number of Android based devices and with this announcement adds Brew to the list.

The full press release can be found after the jump.

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CES: 3D Televisions Everywhere You Look

There’s been talk of 3D television for a while. However, over the last couple weeks the buzz seems to be building. Here at CES you will find a company around every corner that is preaching to you about the glories of 3D TV.

The first thing you need to understand is how 3D TV works. It all starts with a 3D DVD or BlueRay player along with some sort of 3D content. If the media output is not “3D” encoded, then some of the TV’s can automatically convert the signal into 3D-like signal. Although, everyone is quick to point out that this isn’t TRUE 3D.  Think of this like “up-converting” DVD players – it does the job, but it’s not really HD content from a regular DVD. If the signal is already 3D, then it’s passed directly to the screen and you can sit back and enjoy your movie in 3D.

Oh, but wait – there’s one thing missing from that whole equation.  Without special 3D glasses on, you’re not going to see the “amazing” picture.  Instead you’ll just be looking at a blurry mess.  It’s not horrible, but it’s not the picture you’ve come to expect from HD TVs. Here’s the thing, with the special glasses on, the picture does jump out from the TV and is kind of cool to see. Is it worth buying a new TV, DVD, and glasses?

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CES: HTC HD2 Coming to T-Mobile this Spring

Today, during the keynote at CES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the HTC HD2 will be coming to T-Mobile’s network in the spring. If you’re not familiar with this smartphone, it’s the latest HTC device running Windows Mobile 6.5. It features a Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon processor with a high-resolution 4.3 inch capacitive touch screen, 5 megapixel auto-focus camera, GPS, and so much more.

While there is no word on the expected price or the actual date of availability, this is a significant win for T-Mobile, and will play a key part in growing their customer base.

For those of you north of the border, it’s worth mentioning that the HD2 on T-Mobile’s network would result in a perfect match for the new Wind network in Canada.

Let us know your thoughts on the HD2. Are you interested in switching to T-Mobile so you can enjoy this device when it arrives? The full HTC press release can be found after the jump.

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CES: Lenovo’s Hot New Portables

Lenovo has taken the ultra-portable netbook category by storm with the latest releases announced here at CES. I’ve owned more than a couple ThinkPad’s in the past and was disappointed to see that Lenovo had very little to offer when shopping for a new more portable laptop. While the designs looked nice, the price point was all wrong. Thankfully, that’s all changed now.

First up is the new x100e – weighing in at 3lbs, the new x100e has a 11.6” display and a full sized keyboard with TrackPoint and a multitouch touchpad. Available today starting at $449 with 1GB RAM and  a 160GB 5400RPM hard drive or $549 with 2GB RAM and a 250GB 5400RPM hard drive. Both versions run Windows 7 on the AMD Athlon Neo Single Core 1.6GHz processor.

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