CES 2012

LAS VEGAS--One oft-cited reason for the lack of cameras is that a lack of fast and easy wireless sharing capabilities keeps them from developing the ubiquity of a camera phone. Eye-Fi is planning on bridging the gap between traditional cameras and mobile devices like phones and tablets by adding a new capability, Direct Mode, to its existing Eye-Fi X2 product.

For the uninitiated, Eye-Fi's SD card line adds a variety of Wi-Fi file transfer capabilities (among other things) to any camera that uses SD cards. While the current generation allows for peer-to-peer connections between cameras and computers, Direct Mode … Read more

Netflix will become more prominent and easier to use with the arrival of a button this spring on remote controls that connects directly to the company's widely used video-streaming service.

A big, red button with the company name will appear on multiple remote controls for Blu-ray players, TVs, and set-top boxes, the company announced today just before the Consumer Electronics Show gets under way in Las Vegas.

The announced partners are notable, though it's not immediately clear yet how broadly the button will propagate through product lines.

Netflix said its buttons will appear on remote controls for "… Read more

OnLive CEO Steve Perlman hinted this summer about his company's interest in integrating its cloud-gaming service directly into television. It seems OnLive has achieved that goal after this morning's announcement of a partnership with Vizio.

Previously confined to Macs and Windows systems through downloadable software, as well as its own dedicated MicroConsole set-top box, OnLive debuted last year as the first major cloud-gaming service. With its partnership with Vizio, the OnLive service will now extend to Vizio HDTVs, as well as Vizio's newly announced line of Via tablets, smartphones, and Blu-ray players.

Details in OnLive and Vizio'… Read more

You'd hardly know from looking at it that the white, half-mooned iHealth Blood Pressure Dock wasn't designed by Apple. The do-it-yourself blood pressure monitor has clean, minimalist curves and just a single button. It also has a 30-pin connector for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

iHealth is one of those peripherals envisioned by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that doesn't just amplify the iOS devices' entertainment value, but can actually improve quality of life. At its core, iHealth is a blood pressure meter with an auto-inflating cuff peripheral. Instead of reading results to a digital console as … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Today Vizio announced it would be shipping a pair of TVs shaped a bit wider than usual.

The new displays, sized at 50 and 58 inches, will be known as Cinema HDTV, and their LED-backlit LCD screens will have an aspect ratio of 21:9. That's visibly wider than the 16:9 shape used by nearly all other plasma and LCD TVs shipping today in the United States.

The advantage of the shape, according to Vizio, is that it allows the sets to "display 2.35:1 (CinemaScope) movies without any black bars." As the company … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you're the outdoorsy type, chances are that you've often found yourself off the beaten path and away from the safety of a strong wireless signal. What if you wanted to update your family with your location from the top of a mountain? What if you found yourself trapped under a rock in the middle of nowhere and needed help? The Spot product family of GPS-enabled satellite messengers is one solution to your lack of signal bars, with the newest of these devices being the smartphone-enhanced Spot Connect.

The Spot Connect interfaces with a Bluetooth-paired smartphone via … Read more

Together with cloud editions of the single-volume Home Media Network and dual-bay StorCenter ix2-200, Iomega announced today that it's going to add its new Personal Cloud feature to its flagship 4-bay NAS server, the ix4-200d Cloud Edition.

Unlike the first two that will be available later this month, the ix4-200d Cloud Edition won't ship until March.

The ix4-200d Cloud Edition is very similar to its dual-bay brother but differentiates itself by offering more storage (up to 12TB); more RAID configurations (RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5); and two Gigabit ports for more consistent performance during heavy loads.… Read more

Iomega announced today that it's shipping an upgraded version of its StorCenter ix2-200 that boasts better performance and the company's Personal Cloud service.

The new Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 has the same name and physical look as the existing one. To make it less confusing, the company added "Cloud Edition" to the product's name.

The new dual-bay NAS server comes in 2TB, 4TB, and 6TB capacities (the previous model caps at 4TB). It supports RAID 1, JOBD, and iSCSI, an advanced network storage feature that lets a computer manipulate the NAS server's storage as its … Read more

I reviewed the Iomega Home Media Network Drive awhile ago and found it to be a very good NAS server for home users. Iomega announced an upgraded version of this product today, and it seems even better.

The new Home Media Network Drive shares the same physical design as the previous model. It comes with two USB ports (front and back) and one Gigabit network port. Iomega, however, says that it's now equipped with improved internal hardware based on a dual-core processor that allows for much faster performance.

Most significantly, however, is the fact that it's one of … Read more