consumer electronics show

Universal chargers for portable electronics will someday seem quaint when wireless charging technology becomes ubiquitous, and that may happen soonest in your car.

General Motors has partnered with Powermat to incorporate its wireless charging mats into car interiors, both companies announced from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.

Starting with the Chevy Volt, drivers and passengers will be able to lay things like phones and MP3 players on the center console and have them wirelessly charge while they're sitting there.

GM said consumers will be able to get the tech for the 2011 Chevy Volt, and that … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Idapt's new i1 Eco universal charger can juice up a range of devices and in a way that's friendly to the environment.

Announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show, the i1 Eco includes both a USB port and a tip port with interchangeable tips. That helps the charger handle more than 4,000 devices, according to Idapt, including the iPhone and iPad, BlackBerry, Xbox controllers, Sony's PSP game console, and various GPS and Bluetooth gadgets.

But it's the i1 Eco's greener features that Idapt is touting.

The company says that the charger is made … Read more

LAS VEGAS--XtremeMac has added a few more Apple device chargers to its lineup.

Designed to charge an iPhone, iPod, or iPad either at home or on the go, the vendor's new InCharge Mobile device offers a 2300 mAh battery capacity. That's one of the largest capacities on the market, according to XtremeMac, and is equal to one full charge. Retailing for $79.99, the new charger also comes with a stand to prop up the device in landscape mode, an LED battery status signal, an on/off switch, and a micro USB cable to not only charge the … Read more

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Nvidia announces a 3D sharing page called 3DVisionLive

HP may not announce a tablet at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show after all, but rather may wait until February if press invites are a decent indication of the company's plans

Asus announces a line of Android and Windows tablets as well as a new Android phone

Video streaming site Vudu is going to start streaming 3D movies

The Fling is a suction joystick for the iPad

LAS VEGAS--In its quest to keep your hard drive fully defragmented, Diskeeper plans to release a new program aiming to both prevent and instantly clear up fragmentation.

Being demoed at CES this week, Diskeeper 2011 will combine two features to handle disk fragmentation. First launched in Diskeeper 2010, IntelliWrite will stop up to 85 percent of most fragmentation before it happens by intelligently writing data to the disk, according to the company. And the new Instant Defrag will instantly and automatically defrag any remaining fragments, the company says.

The company sees Instant Defrag as a way to ensure continued system … Read more

A smart-home automation system using Fios, Verizon's fiber-optic communications network, is about to be tested in some New Jersey homes, the company announced yesterday.

The management system, which Verizon simply refers to as Home Monitoring and Control, enables real-time access to view and make changes to a home's lighting, security cameras, locks, and thermostats, as well as appliances and consumer electronics devices connected to the home network.

The software application that offers the real-time monitoring and control can be accessed by smartphone, computer, or Fios TV.

Verizon will be demonstrating the smart-home system at the 2011 International Consumer … Read more

For the Consumer Electronics Show, set for early January, 2011 is shaping up to be the year of the tablet. Yet the most (some would say only) successful tablet to date is the one that won't be at CES. Apple sold 7.5 million iPads in the first six months and no doubt millions more this holiday season. Its shadow will hang over the show, forcing a wide range of companies--chipmakers; computer hardware and consumer-electronics companies; software developers and wireless carriers--to announce plans for tablets. Here's what we're expecting to see.

Read more of "It's tablet time at CES 2011&… Read more

Amazon plans to demo a Kindle Web app today as it tries to play catch-up with Google's new e-book effort.

An Amazon spokeswoman reportedly confirmed the demonstration in an e-mail to ComputerWorld, saying that the new Kindle Web app would "enable users to read full books in the browser and [enable] any Website to become a bookstore offering Kindle books."

The e-commerce company didn't provide further details. ComputerWorld said that the new app wasn't ready yet but quoted a Gartner analyst who said it could be launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The … Read more

Mavizon Technologies just introduced AutoBot, a smartphone application that allows drivers to control several car functions with the push of a few buttons.

The new app will be available in 2012, but you don't need a brand-new car to use it. According to Amy Gilroy at CEOutlook, it will work in all vehicles with an OBD-ll port (1996 or later). Drivers can sync information with a their home computer using a cloud-based account.

AutoBot functions will allow the driver to lock and unlock doors, control window settings, start the car, and even locate the car if it gets stolen.… Read more