Page 1: CES 2008 Page 1
Intro:
CES is one of the biggest consumer electronics show in the world. Hosted in Las Vegas at the start of the year, the show welcomes well over 100,000 people. Most local residents of Las Vegas probably don't like the fact that the city gets overrun by technology enthusiasts. Such is life for Las Vegas and its busy convention center.
Disclaimer:
These daily articles will be a bit light on details. ASE Labs will write a follow-up article next week to get into much more details with better pictures including press kit photos. These photos are taken directly from the show floor by the photography editor, Steven Susman.
Crucial/Lexar:
On Day 2, ASE Labs had an appointment with Sam Harmer of Crucial to give us a tour of the Lexar booth. Lexar is a child company of Micron technologies and you will see a meshing of Lexar and Crucial products. Crucial is a name known to enthusiasts while Lexar is a brand that many consumers know. Crucial will actually fall under the Lexar brand name. It is also interesting to note that Micron will be providing flash memory for Kodak branded chips as well.
One thing that the industry is currently looking at is how to make devices fit into our daily lives. Lexar has a great idea to allow kids to wear their USB flash drives and stop them from losing it. The picture is a bracelet with a flash drive built-in. Very smart idea on Lexar's part. They have also partnered with Disney to provide themes such as Hannah Montana and Pirates of the Caribbean. Kids won't want to lose this one.
On the consumer side of flash drives, Lexar will be releasing one that shows the space usage on the drive. Will this may not be useful to enthusiasts, it is very helpful to regular consumers that may not know how to check if the drive is getting full or not. Lexar will also be releasing a cool SD card that will allow you to wireless upload pictures to the Kodak site without the user doing anything. More on this as it develops.
Lastly, Crucial has unveiled the Ballistix Tracer Red series of modules. These modules are basically the same as the normal Tracer ones, but bathed in total red. Since red is my favorite color, I love these modules just by seeing them. Pricing should be comparable to the normal Tracer series. Crucial was also showing off DDR-3 modules as well as FB-DIMM DDR-2 modules. DDR-3 is pretty expensive compared to DDR-2, but the price should fall to more manageable levels with a year or so. Micron, Lexar, Crucial.
Life|ware:
Life|ware has a rather large presence at the show this year with three smart homes on display. The technology is very interesting, but having a whole house run on Windows is a bit scary. The new version of the Life|ware software enables drag and drop support for adding devices as opposed to programing them in with C#. I believe Linux can get a foothold if some companies work together. Life|ware is showing that it can be done and they are doing it well.
Cooler Master:
Cooler Master was showing off some of their new CSX cases. These are fully custom painted cases and they look amazing. Cooler Master actually has a presence at many booths since companies are using their special cases to show off other products. Crucial had a red Cooler Master case for the Ballistix Tracer Red display.
Cooler Master has really done a great job in case design and looks. Their cases are well laid out and the painting is nice and glossy. You will turn heads if you bring this to a LAN party. ASE Labs should have reviews of Cooler Master products this year. Cooler Master.
SentrySafe:
SentrySafe was showing some products at the Seagate booth. One of them is this very well priced fireproof enclosure for a 2.5" USB drive. It should cost around $179 which is a great deal for a fireproof (for consumers at least) case that you can leave your drive in all the time. The unit features a built in USB passthrough to allow you to never open the enclosure to use the drive. One of the problems with many vaults is that you need to actively remember to put the drive back into the vault and seal it. SentrySafe doesn't have this problem. ASE Labs should have a full review of SentrySafe's products this year. SentrySafe.
CES is one of the biggest consumer electronics show in the world. Hosted in Las Vegas at the start of the year, the show welcomes well over 100,000 people. Most local residents of Las Vegas probably don't like the fact that the city gets overrun by technology enthusiasts. Such is life for Las Vegas and its busy convention center.
Disclaimer:
These daily articles will be a bit light on details. ASE Labs will write a follow-up article next week to get into much more details with better pictures including press kit photos. These photos are taken directly from the show floor by the photography editor, Steven Susman.
Crucial/Lexar:
On Day 2, ASE Labs had an appointment with Sam Harmer of Crucial to give us a tour of the Lexar booth. Lexar is a child company of Micron technologies and you will see a meshing of Lexar and Crucial products. Crucial is a name known to enthusiasts while Lexar is a brand that many consumers know. Crucial will actually fall under the Lexar brand name. It is also interesting to note that Micron will be providing flash memory for Kodak branded chips as well.
One thing that the industry is currently looking at is how to make devices fit into our daily lives. Lexar has a great idea to allow kids to wear their USB flash drives and stop them from losing it. The picture is a bracelet with a flash drive built-in. Very smart idea on Lexar's part. They have also partnered with Disney to provide themes such as Hannah Montana and Pirates of the Caribbean. Kids won't want to lose this one.
On the consumer side of flash drives, Lexar will be releasing one that shows the space usage on the drive. Will this may not be useful to enthusiasts, it is very helpful to regular consumers that may not know how to check if the drive is getting full or not. Lexar will also be releasing a cool SD card that will allow you to wireless upload pictures to the Kodak site without the user doing anything. More on this as it develops.
Lastly, Crucial has unveiled the Ballistix Tracer Red series of modules. These modules are basically the same as the normal Tracer ones, but bathed in total red. Since red is my favorite color, I love these modules just by seeing them. Pricing should be comparable to the normal Tracer series. Crucial was also showing off DDR-3 modules as well as FB-DIMM DDR-2 modules. DDR-3 is pretty expensive compared to DDR-2, but the price should fall to more manageable levels with a year or so. Micron, Lexar, Crucial.
Life|ware:
Life|ware has a rather large presence at the show this year with three smart homes on display. The technology is very interesting, but having a whole house run on Windows is a bit scary. The new version of the Life|ware software enables drag and drop support for adding devices as opposed to programing them in with C#. I believe Linux can get a foothold if some companies work together. Life|ware is showing that it can be done and they are doing it well.
Cooler Master:
Cooler Master was showing off some of their new CSX cases. These are fully custom painted cases and they look amazing. Cooler Master actually has a presence at many booths since companies are using their special cases to show off other products. Crucial had a red Cooler Master case for the Ballistix Tracer Red display.
Cooler Master has really done a great job in case design and looks. Their cases are well laid out and the painting is nice and glossy. You will turn heads if you bring this to a LAN party. ASE Labs should have reviews of Cooler Master products this year. Cooler Master.
SentrySafe:
SentrySafe was showing some products at the Seagate booth. One of them is this very well priced fireproof enclosure for a 2.5" USB drive. It should cost around $179 which is a great deal for a fireproof (for consumers at least) case that you can leave your drive in all the time. The unit features a built in USB passthrough to allow you to never open the enclosure to use the drive. One of the problems with many vaults is that you need to actively remember to put the drive back into the vault and seal it. SentrySafe doesn't have this problem. ASE Labs should have a full review of SentrySafe's products this year. SentrySafe.