Electronics

Though falling into that tiny category of things exhibited at CES 2012 that don't have an HD screen and aren't an iPhone peripheral, we did want to briefly mention Poldera's Power Bank Energy Holder. A combined LED flashlight and phone-charger, the Power Bank is one of those unassuming devices that may not be a head-turner, but is a good idea nonetheless. After all, if you have need of a portable phone charger, why not have one that can do something else useful too? Read More

At a whopping 234-diagonal-inches, the touchscreen display created by Microsoft and Stereolize for last year's CeBIT may well be the biggest we've seen but it's hardly practical (or cheap) enough for everyday use. If you're looking for something that won't require museum visitors or business customers to reach up way above their heads to even touch the screen, New Mexico's interactive exhibit veteran Ideum has announced the release of a new 65-inch wall-mounted multitouch display called the MT65 Presenter. Read More

The folks at MakerBot Industries have not exactly been resting on their laurels since causing a stir at CES last year with the Thing-o-Matic 3D printer. Even though the original small object creation device would still see the jaws of most people dropping in wonder, the company has now unveiled a new model at CES 2012 called the Replicator that is not only capable of fabricating much bigger objects than its predecessor, but can also do so in two colors at the same time. Read More

Drawing styluses are, for the most part, simply glorified sticks. They do what your finger would do, but have a finer point. The new jaja stylus developed by Australia’s Jon Atherton, however, has a few tricks up its sleeve – the big one is, it is capable of registering 1,024 levels of user-applied pressure, which it transmits to the tablet or smartphone’s microphone using sound. The resulting lines drawn on the screen will be of varying thicknesses, depending on the amount of pressure applied. Read More

There may indeed come a day when printed books and magazines have been gone for so long, that nobody cares how little reading a digital document resembles reading one printed on paper. That day is not yet here, however – most of us still like our e-reading experience to be as close as possible to that of reading a book. To that end, this week a team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced the development of new e-reading system, that brings several book-like capabilities to tablets and smartphones. Read More

Since becoming more widely available to the public, people have found a myriad of uses for 3D printers, whether it's recreating bone, constructing replacement shells for hermit crabs, or simply customizing mini robot figurines. Unfortunately, most 3D printers still have one drawback over other types of printers, in that they typically need to be put together like a hobby kit. Seeing as most electronics are purchased fully intact, the idea of having to build a device piece by piece can be off-putting to consumers. 3D Systems is hoping to rectify the problem with its own 3D printer that actually works right out of the box, along with a new Cubify platform for designing and distributing printed creations. Read More

At CES this week, Panasonic unveiled what it claims is the world's smallest, thinnest 4K2K-resolution, 20-inch IPS Alpha LCD panel. The prototype ultra-high definition monitor is only 3.5 millimeters thick, yet has about four times the resolution of a standard HDTV, at 3,840 x 2,160 pixels - this translates to approximately 8.29 million pixels in total, with the "world's highest pixel density of 216 pixels per inch." Read More

While OLED may have staked a claim as the next generation display technology to beat, Sony has chosen CES 2012 to unveil a new display technology called “Crystal LED.” Instead of an LED or CCFL backlight shining through an LCD layer to produce an image, the Crystal LED display technology is a true LED TV that uses a layer of tiny self-emitting LEDs to directly produce the image – think of it like a high resolution shrunk down JumboTron like those found at sporting stadiums. Read More

Parrot has updated its popular AR Drone, adding a 720p camera to the high-flying gadget. The camera on the device displays video at a 1280x720 resolution on your smartphone or tablet while you fly, and flight video can be recorded and saved onto your mobile device to watch later on. In addition to the camera, the Drone also now has a new AR.FreeFlight 2.0 application which offers a new flight interface and flight options. Read More