Gadgets Galore! Tablets Are Hot at Consumer Electronics Show
Plus, a stringless guitar and a touch-screen TV remote!
Jan. 5, 2010 — -- The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show is upon us and "GMA" has picked some great products to show you what the next year of gadgets has in store.
Tablets, Tablets, Tablets
Asus is announcing three tablets, including the Eee Pad Transformer: it works as a stand-alone tablet but it also docks into a keyboard for added functionality. It's got an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, a 10.1-inch touch-screen display and two cameras: 5 megapixels in the back and 1.2 MP in front. It's got a 16-hour battery life, and will be available in April for $399.
Entourage has shrunk their dual screen tablet to a smaller version: the Pocket eDGe two-screen 7-inch LCD screen tablet weighs just 24 ounces and is the smallest dual book available on the market. It's an e-reader on one side, touch-screen tablet on the other. It retails for $399 and is available now.
The MOBY tablet is a budget tablet intended for students. The manufacturer wants parents to consider this option before they buy their child a $500 iPad. It has a 10-inch screen, camera, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, with up to six hours of battery life. It will cost less than $200, and will be available to the public sometime before Christmas 2011.
Vizio Phone, Tablet, and TV all running Google's Android operating system. Vizio has announced a trifecta of gadgets that will all work together to create a cohesive entertainment, social networking and communication system. Each product is a stand-alone gadget, but the tablet and phone can communicate with the internet connected TV to make using Facebook easier.
Samsung has an Android-based, 3-inch touch- screen TV remote control for Samsung TVs, it serves as a keyboard if you access the Internet on Samsung's Internet-connected TVs, and the coolest feature is if your family wants to keep watching on the big screen but you need to walk away to answer the door or go grab something in the kitchen you can keep watching on the remote; it turns into a little simulcast TV. No price yet. It will be available in the first half of 2011.
TASER, the people who make the non-lethal weapon, now have a product aimed at helping parents keep their teen drivers safe. It e-mails parents to tell them how/where/how fast their teens are driving and if the car has been in an accident. Except for 911, calls it disables the teen's phone when the car is moving to prevent texting and driving. It'll cost $249.95 with additional service charges, and will be available to the public on Jan. 6.
SONY Bloggie 3D HD camera is the world's first HD 3D pocket camera. It captures videos and photos and can be viewed on the camera's screen, in 3D, without 3D glasses. It will be available in April for $250.
Combining a blood pressure cuff that communicates data to an iPhone running a special app, the iHealth Blood Pressure Monitoring System can log and transmit blood pressure data for your doctor. It costs $99.
The Kitara Digital Guitar is an electric guitar with no strings attached - literally! It's a real guitar, but the "strings" are a touch screen. It's not a toy. It's a serious instrument trying to do for guitars what the synthesizer did for pianos (wait -- is that a good thing?) It becomes available to the public in April for $849.
PixelOptics electric bifocals - the world's first electronic corrective eyeglasses, called emPower! They look like regular, high-fashion glasses but when you simply tilt your head down to read or view an object up close, your lenses turn to bifocals (with no lines in the lenses).