CES Day 3

For the first time since I have been going to CES I didn’t stay until the end of the 4th and final day.  Although there were still more booths to visit and demonstrations to see I felt the show had already been more than worthwhile so I decided to leave on Saturday afternoon instead of staying for the final Sunday session.  It seems that often, some of my best “finds” are located early in the day and today was no exception.  Pictured here you see the “iTwin”.  I found this in the Singapore section, which is the tiniest section of the entire show in the same area as the massive China section.  I saw two guys in a tiny space with British accents, which was unusual all by itself, so I stopped to look closer at what they were doing, since everyone ELSE around them was speaking Mandarin and standing all of about 5’2” high, when these guys were over 6’. 

What I found was one of the most useful items in the show this year!  This iTwin makes it possible for you to access all the files on your PC from anywhere in the world without having to learn or set up anything!  I can see this becoming a really big “hit”.  At MSRP of  $99, I think this is fair, not too high or low.    As you can see from the photo, it’s a USB stick with 2 USB ends. It connects together in the middle.  You just plug one end in to the PC that has the files you want to access remotely.  Two Windows Explorer windows pop up and let you see all the files on your PC.  You just drag and drop the files you’ll need to access remotely into the 2nd window.  Then disconnect the 2nd half of the USB stick and take it with you.  The files are not copied to that USB stick.  But it does show the file names & stats.  No matter what other Internet connection you have, or where you’re located, when you put this USB stick into your remote computer, it just pops up the window showing the files you wanted to share from your office or home (or whatever) PC.  You can then copy and paste them to the new computer.  This is a fantastic way to move big files from one computer to another, or to simply access whatever you want from a remote location regardless of what file(s) you need.  For file transfer, I think this is better than Skydrive, Remote Desktop, file storage sites and a host of other applications that allow you to transfer files remotely, because it eliminates a 3rd step required in most of those other applications:  Either installing or logging in somewhere.  With this stick available, all you have to do is plug it in, identify the files you want to copy and then copy them to the remote system.  “VERY cool!”

Of course Samsung and Panasonic always have a massive presence at every CES.  I snapped a quick pic of myself here checking out the Samsung area, which was all the more appropriate because I was using my brand new Samsung camera that I got for Christmas!  Also, worthy of special mention is the fact that flat panel TV’s keep getting skinnier each year.  I spent a little time at the Panasonic area because they had perhaps the best 3D presentation at the whole show.  I took a quick picture of one of their video display units right when you walk into one of the venues.  Can you see how SKINNY these TV’s are?  Wow!  These are about the depth of a white board, yet they’re showing full 3D video!  It’s an amazing thing to see because you feel like there’s all the depth in the world, but then when you walk around to the side, you see it’s practically paper-thin! Not-to-be outdone, of course, is Toshiba (below), who had the biggest display of NO GLASSES 3D.   That’s right, the place was filled with 3D and many of them featured a way of viewing 3D video WITOUT glasses!  I have to admit, I was duly impressed with this feature.  You’ll see a plethora of 3D promotions for video throughout this year, and by next year, you’re going to notice it’s hard to buy a TV or video monitor of any kind that does NOT have a 3D feature.  I’m amazed this technology that has been around for so many decades is finally taking off  in such a big way!

Finally, for my 3rd day I noticed that Skype finally has a feature that lots of us Skype enthusiasts have been looking for, and that’s the ability to do MULTIPLE video conferences.  What this means is that when we host a conference call on Skype through the Internet, the latest version allows all the participants to use their camera and EVERYBODY can see everyone else.  This has been a feature common to the high-end paid services out there, but now Skype is offering it up free of charge (of course!).  Man.  Competition is just BRUTAL, eh?  Check in tomorrow and I’ll post my Top 10 Picks for CES . . . the ones I think “we” can use during the coming year!