Kingston is known for their memory modules, SSDs and a flurry of memory products that have satiated uberGeek needs for years. Their gear is well-priced, high quality and always competitive in performance. Unfortunately, while they may be towards the top of their class, Kingston is still part of a crowded landscape of companies offering many of the same memory modules and storage devices. Aside from their name and reputation, Kingston has been missing that next “killer product” that could separate them from the chaff. — That is, they WERE missing that next killer product until we got a look at their new Wi-Drive at Showstoppers.
This diminutive device is about the size of an iPod touch and contains 16, 32, or 64GB of flash memory alongside a WiFi radio and a battery to power the unit. Once loaded with your favorite movies, pictures, music and documents, you can easily share the data stored on the device with up to three simultaneous mobile devices. — A big boon to owners of tablets that have limited expandability or those who need a little more storage than their tablet can provide.
International CES 2012 Las Vegas, NV and Fountain Valley, CA — January 10, 2012
– Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced an app to enable Wi-Drive™ use with Kindle Fire. Shipping in later Q1, Kingston® Wi-Drive will also be available in a 64GB capacity. In addition, existing Wi-Drive users can get a free app update for Apple devices that allow AirPlay and DRM support. The award-winning KingstonWi-Drive is wireless portable storage for tablets and smartphone devices including Kindle Fire, Apple® iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, and lets users store and share content wirelessly with three users simultaneously.
With all the high-tech wonderment that comprises most of CES, it’s nice to occasionally chat with a vendor who offers a product that simply makes something better. That’s definitely the case with Wrapsol.
We bumped into them at Showstoppers CES 2012 and got a close look at their “Grip Pad.” — This oval piece of non-slip material adheres to the back of your tablet device and makes it “sticky”- capable of resting on inclined surfaces of all types and materials.
From their press release: BOSTON, MALAs Vegas, (January 10, 2012, from ShowStoppers @ CES 2012) – Wrapsol, a leader in protection solutions for consumer electronics, today introduced its newest product in protective films technologyfilms technology – the Wrapsol non-slip Grip Pad. The Grip Pad is made with tactillaTM, a proprietary gripping technology, made from advanced high durability polyurethane. The Grip Pad is the first product to integrate Wrapsol’s non-slip, tactillaTM technology.
If you’re like me, your desktop and drawers are filled with business cards, bits of paper, “important” letters and receipts that need to be processed in some fashion. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a single piece of technology that could scan, categorize, and keep those bits of data in a usable format?
We stopped by the Neat table at Showstoppers CES 2012 to take a look at their Neat Receipts and Neat Desk products. They’re designed to let users in the office on or the go organize their paper as quickly as it comes in. They claim that it uses a combination of scanning hardware, OCR software and parsing intelligence to make the product smart enough to know how to file your bits of data.
While wandering through the CES hotness that is “Digital Experience” we happened across a Faraday cage at the Wilson Electronics table. Wilson, a company known for making cellular signal boosters for your home and office, was trying to recreate what happens when you take your shiny new cellphone and bring it into the metal, signal-killing box that we call our cars. Their newest product, the “Sleek 4G” is a cool device that is designed to give signal back to those who want more bars in the box.
To break it down even more: phone gets signal out of the box, but not inside the box. So what do you do? make a device that takes the signal outside of the box, and repeats it inside. It’s a simple concept and a product worth a look.
The TTS crew tries to stay away from the Central Hall at CES because it’s mostly filled with slightly larger LCD panels or infinitesimally brighter lights that are covered ad nauseam by the professional media. Instead, we concentrate on the satellite pavilions, trying to find the little nuggets of tech that will drive the industry for a generation. Also… it’s almost impossible to film in the Central Hall for the first two days of the show because it’s shoulder-to-shoulder geek — However, there are, on occasion, a bit or two of cool Central Hall tech that rises above the noise and makes the impromptu CES wrestling worth it.
The coolest tech we found was at the Samsung booth. Between their Galaxy Note (see the picture to the left) and their MHL enabled Series 5 & 7 monitors, they cornered the “gotta have it” tech for the next year.
The Samsung Galaxy Note is, to put it bluntly, a tablet that doubles as a phone. In the picture you can see it compared to an Applie iPhone 4s and there is just no comparison between the amount of screen space each offers. It also comes with all the features and functions that have made the Galaxy S2 one of the hottest selling smartphones of all times, including MHL.
Follow us on a little walk through the Samsung, Microsoft and Intel booths to see the things that caught the eye of the uberGeek Padre!
Surf the web long enough and you’ll see the phrase”Internet-Connected” tacked on to pretty much ever device possible, whether or not it makes sense to have that device on the net. Sure, we went through a phase of “wow… wouldn’t it be cool if I could access my “x” from the Internet” where “x” could be anything from a soda machine to a toilet, but I would like to think that common-sense is starting to prevail and we are now looking at putting things on the Internet that would be made, you know… BETTER for being on the Internet.
Case in point… The Liftmaster 8550 Garage Door Opener.
Now it may not sound very sexy to access your GDO over the Internet, but it is one of those household utilities about which ever home owner has at one time had anxiety while saying to themselves, “did I forget to close the garage door?” What Liftmaster has done is to give you the answer to that question at the tip of your fingertips.
By connecting the Liftmaster to your home Internet connection, you can then control and monitor your GDO from your Internet-connected device. Unlike some other GDO products, the Liftmaster actually gives you positive feedback, not only letting you trigger the GDO, but telling you if the door is in the opened or closed position. — Best part: It doesn’t add that much over the cost of a standard GDO.
