BostonPocketPC

SanDisk had their Press Conference today and the nice thing they had mentioned that where they see the removable storage market going is mobile phones, not digital cameras like one would think and they are making some revolutionary changes in other areas as well. Our host and main presenter for the Press conference was SanDisk's CEO and Chairman, Eli Harari.

They talked about media changing from the day of the floppy disk to USB.

They showed off the new Cruzer Micro 8GB with automatic online backup in case you loose it.

They mentioned their SSD drives in 64GB and 72GB capacites as well as their  new onboard flash for motherboards called Vaulter on the mini PCIe interface, now this would be cool 64GB built into motherboard for the OS and a hard drive for other media, I have been waiting a long time for this. We talked to Ken Castle from SanDisk at Pepcom the night before and they are slowly working on 128GB SSD, but the price point for manufacturing isn't quite there yet so it may 6 months before we hear word of it going to manufacturing, but consumers won't see that until 2009. In the 2H of 2008 we will see 73GB SSD on the market and in new PCs.

They introduced the SanDisk 12 GB micro SD HC card for phones and cameras. It is know so easy to take everything you need with you.

They showed their growth and marketing in the mobile market

As well as storage cards designed for video.

They showed their 'Four Screens' strategy of covering media for television/video, digital players/music and video, phones-pictures,audio, and video, and computers- pictures video and audio.

They also showed their growth in Japan as the leader above Japanese made storage cards by Panasonic and Sony. Next they showed their growth in the EMEA market as well, where they are far above all other brands.

They next showed us where the current usage of flash memory storage is and where they see the future market share and growth for mobile storage going - mobile handsets.

They then closed with a Thank You as people grabbed goodie bags from the empty seats near them containing a 1GB player and presskit. Unfortunately ours were taken before we even sat down, but were able to get them in the end. We will post up a review of the 1GB Sansa Clip soon.

We briefly stopped by the Samsung booth at Pepcom and they had a plethora of phones to show us. Unfortunately nothing new on the Windows Mobile front besides the stateside phones of the BlackJack II and the Verizon SCH-i760 we saw last year, but this year it has a battery in it. We were hoping to see the new Samsung i780 a great review of it is here.

Here are some shots of the phones they had.

In talking to the Samsung people it was evident that they see more people using their phones as digital cameras and they have integrated several parts from their camera division into their phones.

The Serenata had a very nice design that included a slide out speaker designed with Bang & Olufsen; this was the first handset I have seen with an integrated high quality speaker and it sounded pretty good admist the noise of the event and it had the same unique Industrial design that Bang & Olufsen is known for, hopefully it won't have its high price as well. Samsung also had a some Bluetooth headsets made by Bang & Olufsen as well.

Now that these models seemed to marry the two technologies of camera and phone the best in a pocketable form factor that consumers have been wanting. I just wish they had a Windows Mobile phone with this camera technology. More info and pictures of the phones and devices that Samsung released at CES can be found here.

One of the highlights for us at CES this year was the prototype Panoramic DLP display by Alienware. Granted there was a visible seam where the two screens were married together, but you don't really notice it when playing games like Crysis on it, which looked phenomenal.

Seeing this thing in action looked awesome. How it works is that there are four LED-backlit DLP built into the back of the display projects the image used to create the beautiful widescreen panoramic  picture. We were told that the final product will be optimized to create a seamless pictures without any visible stutters or lines.

Stepping in front of it and playing with it gave a really nice appreciation for it. However we could totally see this not being just a great high end gaming monitor or video editing workstation, but as a really nice every day desktop monitor. No price was released.

Eric did some questioning and found that the ODM was Ostendo. The specs given were a 10000:1 contrast ration and two WXGA+ 2880×900 panels. No pricing or availability dates were given since it was brought more to weigh consumer response (which was nothing but positive) and show a proof of concept. They plan to launch the monitor in the second half of 2008.

For those that will be asking, they were also showing off their latest Alienware Area-51 7500 that was powering the display.

iRobot was there as well and had a press conference, which we missed due to conflicting meetings with other companies and they never fail to impress with their new products.

The iRobot Looj gutter cleaner that retails for $99 with other packages and accessories available. It can propel itself through gutters, under gutter straps, and over downspout holes to clean 60 feet of gutter under 10 minutes. Now if it could just have a cool remote camera, go up and down drain ,and make that quick 90 degree turn at the top we'd have a real winner. You do have to climb up a ladder and place it in the gutter and retrieve it on the other end. It does come with a rechargable battery, charger, and remote control.

The also had what iRobot is famous for the new Roomba 560. Which is a bit bigger and better than its predecessors as well as easier to clean, easier to use, it also cleans better due to new programming and logi and it even includes a voice tutorial built-in.Weighing in at 8lbs and 13 inches in diameter with a 24 cubic inch dustbin capacity(increase of 33%) it retails for $349. It also comes with interchangeable color covers in White, Steel Blue, Champagne, Burnt Orange,Silver, Charcoal, Chestnut, and our favorite Carbon Fiber.

The underside has undergone changes including a larger catch basin as well as larger and softer wheels.

The beater bar also comes out and is easier to clean with the addition of a new brush cleaning tool to help get rid of dust and hair that always tends to collect there and if not removed it can bind up and burn out the motor.

In our book one of the biggest things were some proof of concept devices by Intel showing off their new Menlow processors in concept design MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices).

Here you can see the size of the chips for Silverthorne, which allows for 20X performance increase with a 10X power savings based on Intel's 45-nanometer technology and designed to be compatible with the Core 2 Duo instruction set while getting down into the 2 watt to 0.6 watt power range and Poulsbo integrated chipset.

Some prototypes from both Lenovo and Samsung, which similar to some device on the market today.

One Device that seemed to impress us was a mock up phone running Linux on an OLED touch display. It looked very nice! Granted it wasn't a fully working prototype, but we go the idea.

This was a very nice simple MID with a vibrant display easily capable of playing video as well as having a slide out keyboard similar to the OQO.

Some more closeup pictures of the Lenovo prototype. This was designed to be a MID device with the option of a phone, but we will have to wait and see so far this does look like the future of computing and are definitely companion computer devices which UMPCs should be. 

Today at the CES Pioneer announced at their press conference a brand new in or on dash system which will compete with many other multimedia in dash systems.  The Pioneer AVIC-F500BT Hybrid Navigation  improvements on other is in short:

• recapturing lost quality in music files
• Their own voice command technology
• and a new navigation system ( Looks like it's running on I-go, Nav N go software)

Another  announcement made was "Rock does beat Paper" in using Basalt rock to create the fabric for their speaker systems. Which creates more durability and higher Volume.

Last the announced the development of the future line up for Plasma TV's. The KURO project. We  probably won't be seeing these untill 2009 though:

• True Black (no discussing anymore on color aspect ratio)
• Just a 9 mm 50" plasma flatscreen TV

Ok, up on to the next press conference.

I was told this by Don when he came over for a movie viewing night between the holidays with some friends and their families. Yes I have known Don for over 7 years and never met his family, until now. Anyway one conversation that came up were the new laws for traveling with lithium ion batteries. According to Safetravel.gov effective January 1, 2008, you now have to carry your spare with you and can't pack it in your suitcase (in my opinion defeats the whole purpose anyway unless you are looking to lighten your load racing through the airport. :)

Here are the new policies so be aware of them before traveling this new year:

• Spare batteries are the batteries you carry separately from the devices they power. When batteries are installed in a device, they are not considered spare batteries.
• You may not pack a spare lithium battery in your checked baggage
• You may bring spare lithium batteries with you in carry-on baggage – see our spare battery tips and how-to sections to find out how to pack spare batteries safely!
• Even though we recommend carrying your devices with you in carry-on baggage as well, if you must bring one in checked baggage, you may check it with the batteries installed.

For more information on the new regulations head here:

http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html

The new rules are kind of confusing because what is permitted is based on the actual weight in grams of “equivalent lithium content.” 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:

Well we have arrived in Las Vegas for the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show aka CES, which makes this eight years in a row for me of attending the technology preview of things to come in the future of CE. Technology sure has changed over the years and so has the size of the show. This year I was just planning on hitting several events at CES and just leisurely walking the floor, but for some insane reason I am going to be meeting with some companies to show us their latest and greatest and I will be sure to take lots of pictures and share our findings here at BPPC. The we being Johan van Mierlo and Eric Hicks will be joining myself in Vegas and we will be sharing our finds and info with you here. If there is anything of interest you would like to see or hear about give us a shout and will see if we can make it happen like shots of the next largest television at CES, which is supposed to be a good sized bigger than last years winner from Sharp at 108" from Panasonic.

We will also be meeting up with some friends and colleagues as well at several events and will share those as well. Our next meeting I will do another annual slide show and presentation like have done from previous years. So stay tuned.

WebIS just announced a couple a weeks ago their partnership with Ilium Software. With their partnership they also announced the new version of eWallet 6.0. many of use have so much information to keep up with to access e-mail accounts, web site, bank accounts, you name it. eWallet will give you a secure, organized and synchronized way of managing your information.

The following list will give a quick overview of their major improvements followed by a short review

• iPhone/Web version currently in beta.
• Sync your info where you want - to any PC, Windows Mobile or Palm OS device, USB thumb drive, a laptop, even your server at work - there is no limit
• Stronger security - AES FIPS and 256-bit encryption
• Encrypted file attachments
• Sync securely to remote locations using SFTP and other remote syncing options
• Access your data from remote computers using Iomega iStorage
• Prevent intrusion by locking your wallet after a certain number of failed login attempts
• Make online purchases safely! With eWallet's SmartCopy your credit cards and personal info won't be left in the clipboard for keyloggers to find
• Fill in passwords online without typing using AutoPass - protect yourself from keyboard logging in an easy and secure way
• Personalize your cards with background images
• Customize the card design with options for displaying icons on the card, square or round corners, card borders, and more!
• Use eWallet on your U3 USB Smartdrives
• Get Step-by-Step Instructions for basic tasks with the eWallet Companion
• Four free icon packs

Both the desktop version and the Windows Mobile version have exactly the same feeling and handling. You are able to purchase either version or together.  I love the fact that if you have both versions they synchronize with each other and you personal data is easy accessible.

Opening up the application on your device or PC will bring instantly to the password protection. This is optional but is great and works as quick as your pin does.

You are able to make categories to have an easy navigation in finding the information you need. If you have many different items stored on your device the application also also a "Find" function.

It's easy to create new categories and change the look and feel of them.  

The items within the categories has the same functionality as the categories, but more different icons are available.  

The detailed information is visible in two different ways

• As Credit card image with notes
• Flex view which is just line items.

The background colors can in both views can be adjusted to familiar color of your credit card, social security card, etc. The new version allows you to give more nicer radiant color option that are transferred onto your device. But these color can also be selected on your device when creating a new card.

There are over 30 templates to choose from which makes it easy to get the right information together. Ones chosen a template you can rename any fields to make it custom for you.

By default you can have pin/passwords hidden, but by tapping the link of your pin/password  your info will appear.

Both version will also have a back up version and an export to text  option to make sure that all the information can be used again if the application ever fails. In previous uses of eWallet I entered all my information and lost due to....who knows... and I was hesitant re-entering all this information again.

The desktop version has also an import wizard which lets you import information form other competitve software like:

• CodeWallet
• Spb Wallet
• SplashID
• TurbuPasswords
• and ofcourse FlexWallet

However it misses the option to re-import your exported text file.

below is a picture of the eWallet 6.0 desktop version.

Besides these options there are many options I probably haven't played with yet.

Availability

Trail downloads of eWallet 6.0 are available for a touch and non-touch screen and can be purchased for $29.95 ($16.95 for an upgrade if you have a previous version) at Ilium Software

Conclusion

With both the PC and device version you have an automatic back-up (besides their own back-up feature) of your valuable info. Ones entered in all the information (could be alot of work) you will have your information secure, categorized and easy available when you need to.

Ilium Software also announced three free copies of eWallet 6.0 to be raffled off at our next user group meeting.

The next meeting of the Boston/New England Windows Mobile User Group will be held Wednesday, January 16th at the Microsoft offices in Waltham, MA (201 Jones Road, 6th Floor). The meeting will start at 6:30 PM.

The featured presentation will be a CES 2008 Wrap-Up by none other than Steve "fyiguy" Hughes. Steve will be attending his fifth CES event this year. Those who have attended his CES Wrap-Up presentations in the past know that that this is a must-attend" event, complete with tons of useful information and photos.