While most of my fellow CES attendees are staked out at the slots trying to get in a little more gambling, I’m staked out on the laptop cropping photos, and trying to get in one last post.  I had been looking for the cool, new toys here at the show and finally found some I think fit the bill.

As a dad, I dread the day my kids get old enough to want their own PSP or Nintendo DS.  I just know they’re going to lose them.  If the good folks at LeashTec have their way, maybe not.  The Game Leash (buy it online for about $13) tethers the device, Wii controller, or other tech toys to your tot.  Never lose another gadget or watch another nunchuk sail across the living room.

If you want to propose but wish the two months salary you shelled out for all that bling came with a case that would play a video or pictures set to “We’ve Had the Time Of Our Lives”, you’re in luck.  For an extra $200 bucks the Euricase will allow you to upload images or an MP$ and it will playback when the recipient opens the box.

Gaming chairs are all the rage and the show had plenty of them.  From the low end (on the bottom at $600) to the high-end closing on $15,000, you can get your chair configured with multiple displays, flight simulator controls, phenomenal audio, and a drink holder (not actually sure about that last one, but it would make sense.

The iDry is the next wave in clothes dryers (or so they hope).  Your clothes (up to 14 garments) hang in the tall nylon tube and air circulates around them.  It eliminates the need to iron, and doubles as a heather humidifier in the winter.  Warm air flows from what looks like a small space heater at the bottom and the warm moist air exits the top.  Run it in the summer with the heat off (it takes a little longer) and avoid the heating effect.  They expect it to retail for about $200 (much cheaper than that Maytag you’ve had your eye on).

The Argo Cinema 2 provides 3D DVD viewing through a set of personal glasses (similar to the MyVu’s I took a look at on Monday).  The entire set retails at $549 and includes the glasses, remote, and DVD player.  I’m not sure why a personal player needs a remote, but it has one.

Finally, 3DV, a company that apparently provides a lot of very cool stuff for filmmakers enters the consumer electronics field with what appears to be a typical webcam until you see it in action.  The camera in the picture above sits right under the TV.  It reads your body in 3D, strips out the background and puts you in the game (in this case boxing, but combine it with the Wii controllers and first-person shooters and the skies the limit).  It was cool to watch - like a new version of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, but featuring a body that looks strangely familiar layered over Soda Popinski.  They expect the camera bundle to retail for around $100.

Well, my flight is boarding.  I hope these updates have given you a little glimpse into some of the newest tech toys at CES.

Remember the PC versus TV debates of years ago? Even back then, I thought the correct answer was “both.” But the differences between the two devices blur more every year and they both end up being a box connected to a monitor that displays content.

One trend that’s of interest is the ability to connect your cable signal to your PC. For example, there was an interesting set-up at the Microsoft booth. A coaxial cable is plugged into the back of this ATI TV Wonder digital cable tuner, which is equipped with a CableCARD.

The signal then runs to the PC, running Microsoft’s Media Center. Then, thanks to an HP extender, the content can be run to a TV in another room; I’m also told that there are sets with embedded wireless extenders, so you just hang the TV up on the wall and be done with it.

The way this works is that you can now switch back and forth between cable television and the digital media on your hard drive. Watch TV, listen to MP3s, write e-mail, watch digital movies, or whatever. And every TV in your house can have access to that content, including the cable signal running through the one tuner, thanks to the extenders.

We have something like this set up in the “cableINNOVATES” exhibit back at the NCTA offices in D.C.

Let’s move to something a little less sophisticated, and yet elegant in its own way, the SanDisk TakeTV player. You may recall that last summer, NBC Universal decided to part ways with Apple and its iTunes Store. NBC is pursuing several different strategies for video distribution; for example, they are a backer of Hulu, a project mentioned in a panel Monday. In December, NBC announced a deal with SanDisk to distribute content through the Fanfare service. (Keep in mind that SanDisk is a huge player in Flash devices and competes strongly with Apple in the area of digital media players.)

After you browse through the shows on Fanfare, the DRM-protected content can be downloaded to your PC and then loaded to the Sansa TakeTV, a flash-based device that can be plugged into the USB port on your computer. Then you take the TakeTV out and pop it into the dock (seen at right), which is connected to your TV. A remote control allows you to pull up the content and make your viewing choice. Someone described it to me as a bit of a sneakernet approach to getting programming from the PC to the TV, but it seems to work pretty well.

Finally, there’s an approach that may already be headed for obsolescence, but might be an appropriate solution for some people, Hauppauge Digital’s TV receiver. As you can see in the left photo below, you run your cable into the back of the receiver. You then connect it to the PC through USB. The catch is that you can only tune to open QAM channels, and in today’s digital world, there are far fewer open channels than they used to be, and they’re only going to go away. However, you could also connect an antenna to the receiver and pull in digital television signals. If you were a college student in a dorm without cable service, that might be quite handy.

As you can see in the photo on the right, you can then watch TV, in a window or full-screen. You can also set up recordings, using the MPEG-2 format.

On Monday I mentioned the LimePC, a handheld-sized Linux based PC. I tried to get back that day to get pics, and couldn’t find the booth again. On my journey today, I stumbled upon it. Now I’ve got some details.

For a full-function PC, this thing is tiny. That’s a business card next to it in the pic below. The LimePC currently sports a 30, 80, or 100 GB drive and 256MB of RAM. They’re working to increase the RAM to 512. on the back it provides two USB 2.0 jacks, a standard VGA connector, 10/100 Ethernet, and power. The system they had running used a Bluetooth keyboard trackball combo leaving one additional USB. They have not yet settled on pricing.

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If you’ve never seen the t-shirt TV up close, it’s hard to fully appreciate it.  I first saw these in New York a couple of years ago, and they really do make you stop in your tracks.

From the picture at left, it’s hard to fully appreciate the technology.  What is essentially a flat panel TV is sewn into the shirt and delivers full motion video with whatever your message may be. 

They draw quite a crowd of onlookers and even more people taking pictures.

The t-shirt TV is the brain child of a guy named Adam Hollander with Brand Marketers.  Adam wasn’t available to chat, but his spokesmodels tell me you can hire the shirts for your promotions or just buy them outright.

Is this what the future of mobile marketing looks like?

Day two had me out wandering the show floor again. While Gizmodo and Engadget have been posting on everything from a pig shaped iPod dock to robot shaped iPod docks, I thought I’d look at stuff that I might actually buy or use (or play).

So here’s round two in the gadget run-down.

Bowers & Wilkins bring us the Zeppelin.  Bowers & Wilkins are known for making high-end audio components for recording studios, and they’re bringing that technology to iPod docking systems.  At $599, they cost more than most, but the sound they deliver is phenomenal.  They look like a big black pill with a bright shiny chrome belt wrapped around it - your iPod provides the buckle.

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I neglected to mentioned that Brian Roberts had three guest appearances as part of his presentation. Toshihiro Sakamoto, President of Panasonic AVC Networks Company, came out to talk about the two tru2way-enabled HD sets that will be available later this year, as well as the AnyPlay device. The ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest came out to chat up the new Fancast service and let slip a couple of colorful ad-libbed remarks that might have been of interest to fans of Kevin Bacon, Justin Timberlake and Andy Samburg.

Saving the best for last, the event was closed out by New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords. As seen in the photo, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement showed off their integrated media center, which consisted of a disposable camera, taped to a cell phone, and then thrown on top of a TV equipped with rabbit ears (antennae augmented with foil).

They closed by singing their hit song of seduction, “Business Time.” You can see a video of them performing that song on another occasion.

UPDATE: I am reminded that they then added a toothbrush to their converged device by placing a toothbrush on top of the TV as well.

UPDATE #2: You can now see the video of their performance by clicking here and then fast-forwarding to the last 12 minutes.

I’ve been to CES a few times over the last five years. On my first few trips, it did seem a little odd to notice cable’s absence. Comcast Chairman & CEO Brian Roberts described a very similar experience in his keynote this morning, talking about walking the show floor a few years ago with Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt. As Roberts put it, “Cable was almost invisible.”

Following that experience, the cable industry reached out to the consumer electronics industry. He said that they heard complaints that cable was a regional business that operated in silos, that cable set-top boxes are closed and proprietary, and that, in general, cable made it too tough to innovate and to create products and services that could be sold in the retail environment. This morning’s address seemed a valuable pay-off to those efforts, with Roberts describing cable as a real partner to consumer electronics and retail.

He went on to describe the latest stage of his company’s development: Comcast 3.0. As part of the new Comcast, he said they were committing to a series of issues:

• Having the best fiber optic networks and IP infrastructure
• Delivering superior experience in hi-def and interactive
• Providing new levels of excellence in customer service
• Being a leader in innovation by providing “products and services that are converged, plug-and-play, user-friendly, and most important, easily open for third-party innovation.”

Many in the cable industry have debated over whether content is king or distribution. Roberts said that today the answer is clear: The consumer is king. The best way to serve consumers is by offering a wide array of choice.

He went on to profile such new services as wideband, Fancast, Project Infinity, the AnyPlay portable DVR, and the SmartZone communications center. You can read about the details elsewhere, but the important feature was that Comcast was preparing to offer more video that could be consumed in a more flexible fashion, more bandwidth and more features on its communications services. In a word: more.

On May 8th of last year, during NCTA’s annual Cable Show (also held in Las Vegas), Roberts demoed a DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem capable of delivering 160 Mbps using its “channel bonding” technology. You can see a video of that demo here and, as a sign of how far we’ve come over the last decade, you can also see Roberts demo a high-speed cable modem in 1996. Look at how fast the photos download! Check out the White House website!

Earlier this morning I attended the keynote address given by Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast. Paul did as well, and I suspect he’ll post himself, but it’s probably good to get two different perspectives. Engadget covered the proceedings as well.

Roberts began with a trip down memory lane. He told of a walk through the CES show floor he took with Glenn Britt, CEO of Time Warner. They were surprised to see the proliferation of devices that leverage cable’s platform, yet cable had virtually no presence at the event.

Cable, through CableLabs, began to reach out to the consumer electronics industry. As cable modems became available at retail, cable broadband took off.

Today we’re announcing the age of the closed proprietary set-top box is behind us.

Today Cable is employing a similar approach to TV and this week Panasonic and Comcast announced <tru2way>, the open standard for cable. This year <tru2way> will be rolled out to cable systems across the country and consumers will be able to purchase televisions with <tru2way> that plug directly into the cable network with no set-top box, no extra wires, and access to cable’s interactive services. <tru2way> offers an open platform for development with open APIs and a Java based system.

<tru2way> will be supported on MS Media Center PCs as well with all cable content, including program guide and OnDemand, accessible through the Media Center system.

AnyPlay

Roberts introduced Panasonic’s Toshihiro Sakamoto to introduce AnyPlay - a new set-top box with removable DVD and DVR capability. AnyPlay is a take and go device that connects to a docking station when working as the set-top box, but can be lifted out and taken as a portable media player for watching media at home or on the road. The device is about the size of a portable DVD player, but has DVR functionality embedded as well.

Roberts recognized his father, Richard Roberts who originally founded Comcast in 1963 as a 1,200 subscriber system in Tupelo Mississippi, offering 5 channels (twice as many as were available over the air).

The original premise then, as now, is “choice sells”.

Comcast began offering On Demand video services with 250 viewing choices. That increased to 1500 in a year. Now more than 10,000 viewing options are available every month. Comcast is now the largest provider of OnDemand in the world. 90% of their content is free. Customers using OnDemand have accounted for 6,000,000,000 views since launch - twice the number of iTunes downloads and six times more than NetFlix.

What’s more is OnDemand is only available to 15 of 25 million Comcast homes, but they have plans to roll out to everyone.

Beyond that, however, Comcast announced plans to provide 1,000 HD choices in every HD home by the end of 2008 (versus 150 for DirectTV). 2008 also begins rollout of a new system architecture, with 6000 movies on demand, 3000 in HD.

As they continue to grow Comcast is launching Project Infinity. Project Infinity is expected to scale well beyond 10,000 OnDemand options “to provide every piece of video content that a producer wants to put on TV – every movie, any TV show, any conceivable kind of video… it’s a content hungry consumers dream. You’ll never want to get off the couch.”

Comcast is also changing the communications experience. As the 4th largest phone company in America, Comcast serves more then 4 million customers. They’re rolling out new features like caller ID to the TV and integrated messaging on the web through a new feature called SmartZone.

SmartZone - introduced, via video, by Dennis Miller - integrated e-mail and voicemail in one inbox and integrates with another Comcast service called Fancast - a video and entertainment portal.

Ryan Seacrest joined Roberts on stage to introduce Fancast.

Fancast is not just another entertainment site. It’s a personal experience site with 3,000 hours of streaming videos, 10,000 movie trailers, and 11 million pages of entertainment. It provides personal recommendations based on your entertainment consumption (like Amazon). and it allows you to remotely control your DVR to record programs you’re looking at online.

Roberts used the discussion of Fancast to demonstrate cable’s new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem standard with speeds in excess of 160 Mbps planned for rollout this year. Seacrest and Roberts downloaded a 2 hour HD movie in 4 minutes during the presentation - a download that would have taken 6 hours via DSL and 7 days on dialup.

After a couple of questions from audience members, Roberts introduced HBO’s Flight of the Conchords for a performance.

The presentation was well received by the audience including much applause for the new Comcast services, wideband cable modems and <tru2way>. We’ll try to get video of the event and put it online for you.

Update: Comcast has the video (minus the performance by Flight of the Conchords) here. And you can get a copy of the prepared text here.

2nd Update: New version of the video available, which includes Flight of the Conchords.

In addition to the gadgets and tech discussions at CES, there is a lot of consumer education going on. It seems everywhere you look there are posters or ads for some public awareness campaign or another.

One of my favorites is a campaign to educate people about the unsafe use of personal audio. ListenToYourBuds.org. According to their website:

“With the increasing popularity of MP3 players, millions of adults and children across the U.S. are at a newfound risk of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. Listening to headphones at high volumes for extended periods of time can directly result in lifelong hearing loss. The loss may occur painlessly and gradually over time and – this is important! – Noise-Induced Hearing Loss often goes unnoticed until it’s too late.”

Having cranked the volume on everything from the home stereo to the casette tape walkman, CD walkman, and iPod, my only fear is it may be too late to save me.

It’s official as of this morning. CableLabs announced that the “tru2way™” brand will replace use of the term “OpenCable Platform.” You may recall that the initiative, which began back in ‘97 with the goal of helping the cable industry deploy interactive services, was previous known as OCAP.

Why the name change?

The tru2way brand was developed by the global brand consulting firm Siegel + Gale, in consultation with the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and marketing and technology representatives of a variety of major cable providers.

Which basically means that, based on talking with consumers, it was felt that a new name would help with branding. Manufacturers can then make products under that name.

For example: Panasonic and Comcast Announce Products With Tru2way(TM) Technology. Specifically, this means that you’ll be able to soon be able to get a portable DVR which you can take on the road, watching those TV shows you recorded.