CES 2012- Page 6 - CNET Blogs

Need room for 4,000 photos? Try SanDisk's 128GB SD card

It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.

The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.

The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away … Read more

Stodgy old telcos? Not us, carriers blast at CES

LAS VEGAS--Who says CES is becoming irrelevant? Certainly not the wireless carriers.

At a time when some companies are scaling back or skipping CES altogether, the telecoms have actually stepped up their presence. AT&T bulked up its product line with the announcement of a slew of 4G LTE products. Verizon Wireless expanded the size of its booth this year and had a notable presence on a keynote panel. Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile both hosted parties at the conference.

The fact that the carriers have been upping their presence at CES illustrates the importance of having a voice … Read more

Plextor bumps SSD speed with M3 Pro line

Relatively expensive flash memory keeps the cost of SSDs much higher than I'd prefer, but competition keeps everyone honest, so I'm glad to see Plextor announce its M3 Pro line of solid-state drives.

These 2.5-inch models, with a slim 7mm height suitable for thin notebooks, will ship in February in capacities of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB, the Japanese component maker said at CES this week. It didn't disclose pricing.

The new models step up from the existing MS3 products in data-transfer speed, the prime reason most folks pay the price premium and sacrifice the capacity compared … Read more

Samsung Chromebook makes CES cut, but Atom does not

LAS VEGAS--The Google Chromebook will live on with a fresh chip upgrade, according to Samsung.

The next-gen Samsung Series 5 Chromebook gains a dual-core Intel Celeron processor and loses the slower Atom silicon, a Samsung representative on the CES show floor told CNET.

Other specs (see photo below) remain pretty much the same, including a 16GB solid-state drive.

Chromebooks aspire to run apps, documents, and settings in the cloud and thereby simplify the overall user experience. In practice, however, reviewers have found that cloud-based computing can be frustrating if the wireless connection is unreliable.

For that, and other reasons, the Chromebook has not sold in numbers comparable to mainstream Windows laptops.

The Series 5 is slated for release in the second quarter. Pricing has not been announced. … Read more

Women need more role models, tech leaders tell CES panel

LAS VEGAS--Even though women have taken great strides in technology, a panel of top women in the industry suggested that great role models could help them gain more.

Those role models shouldn't be merely top executives, said Cisco Systems Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior, one of the highest ranking women in the industry. Young women considering pursuing careers in tech need to see accomplished women in a variety of jobs.

"We need to have successful role models at every level," Warrior said during CNET Women in Tech panel at the Consumer Electronics Show here this afternoon.

Warrior … Read more