Author: James Kendrick

The CES 2010 show hasn’t officially kicked off yet, but I have a full day of show-related activities under my belt already. The endless walking, shaking hands and jostling for position to get a better look at a particular gadget got started from the moment I hit the tarmac in Las Vegas, and it will continue at a frantic pace the whole week.

It may seem early in the trip to be ranting about something that is giving me trouble, but to a blogger connectivity is vital and when it fails, things get miserable in a hurry. That’s my big trouble so far, the hotel network is abysmal to say the least. It never fails to surprise me why big, expensive hotels always seem to have the worst network connectivity than that in other hotels.

Even hole-in-the-wall cheapo motels have good network connectivity these days. It can’t be that expensive or difficult to do as you can find good connectivity in almost any hotel, except gigantic, big buck palaces like these in Las Vegas. Most hotels on the Strip offer wireless connectivity for a big daily charge, and it’s a fee many of us are willing to pay if it allows us to get our work done. What is a total killer to us is when the hotel includes the connectivity in a special mandatory daily “resort fee”, and the connectivity turns out to be problematic at best.

That is my exact situation in the Venetian Hotel. Wonderful place, but they insist on charging a $15 mandatory daily resort fee to the room. This fee allows you access, not necessarily free access, to different amenities the hotel offers; that includes the in-room network connectivity. It is offered with both wired and wireless access, so things should be fine. The problem is the connectivity is difficult to tap into, and once connected it is spotty as can be.

The wired connection doesn’t work at all, and the wireless is an exercise in futility. Some times I can connect fine, others not at all. The real frustrating part is how connections are totally inconsistent when made. The bandwidth is nice and fast for a few minutes, then either slows to a crawl or drops me off the network altogether. This is fatal for blogging, as I have already lost posts in progress a couple of times due to the network failing when the post is being saved.

I have been using the Verizon MiFi in the hotel room, and it is working as wonderfully as it always does. The bandwidth is good in the hotel, and the connections are solid. So why even bother with the hotel Wi-Fi? Other than the fact I am paying a mandatory fee for room Wi-Fi, using the MiFi drains the battery. I like to have it fully charged when I leave the room for the show events, and that doesn’t happen when I am using it in the room too. For some reason connecting the MiFi to the Thinkpad via USB, something I have done many times, is not working. The access software will not see the MiFi no matter what I do. This forces me to use it on battery over Wi-Fi. The MiFi works well; I just need the battery to be full when I leave for the day.

These network problems have pointed out a glaring problem with the Google Chrome browser. I have been using Chrome as my default browser on the ThinkPad as it is faster than Firefox under Windows 7, and is a solid performer all around. What I have discovered to force me to change back to Firefox is that when the connection gets very spotty, Chrome has a tendency to hang up. It can even hang up the entire system, and once the browser hangs it doesn’t always resume when the connection heals. Firefox does a good job at resuming the session when the network reappears, so I have switched back to using it by default. Having seen this side of the Chrome browser, it makes me wonder how well the Chrome OS will handle spotty connections, given its “always connected” nature.

So come on big hotels — get your act together and get your networks up to par. It is 2010, we expect (and need) good connectivity when we stay in your house.

UPDATE: This post took me well over an hour to complete due to the connectivity issues. I got fed up, and reinstalled the Verizon Access Manager in an attempt to resolve my MiFi USB issue. That worked, and I am now able to connect seamlessly, and more importantly stay connected, vit the MiFi over USB. It’s not the best solution for uploading videos, but for everything else it will work like a champ. I am much happier than I was when I began this post.

The CES Unveiled event rocked tonight with thousands of attendees flooding the aisles. Hundreds of vendors exhibited the wares they are showing off at the CES this year. Kevin and I hit the floor and looked at a lot of stuff. Here are the top gadgets that caught my eye at the show:

Spring Designs Alex e-book reader. The Alex is that dual-screen reader that runs Android and features a color touchscreen much larger than the one on the Nook. Spring Designs just signed a deal with Google to bring their scanned book library to the Alex.

Entourage eDGe. The eDGe is the dual screen reader that uses two big screens to provide additional capability than just e-book reading. This reader also runs Android which is fully accessible on the color touchscreen. The other screen is a typical e-Ink screen for reading books.

We saw some cool notebooks too but we are going to spend some private hands-on time tomorrow with them so I’m sure we’ll have pics and maybe some video to share. Be sure and follow our coverage for the entire week so you won’t miss anything new and exciting.

It was great to see our podcast co-host Matt Miller today, along with lots of old friends.

I left Mobile Tech Manor at 4:30 this cold morning and headed to the airport to begin the big trip to the CES. A smooth flight later and I arrived in Las Vegas. There were no crowds and getting checked into the hotel was a short process.

After an unsuccessful attempt to get Wi-Fi connectivity working in the room, it was time to head to the Sands Convention Center to pick up my press credentials. Those had to be my first priority as they are the grease that gets me into everything here at the CES.

Press badge in hand, I headed over to the ASUS press event, wondering what new technology the creator of the netbook might have in store for us. The press event was like an hour-long advertisement, as the company only had a handful of new products to unveil. I will cover these more in detail later, but the major new notebooks coming from ASUS in 2010 are the G73, the Karim Rashid designer netbook collection, the U-series Bamboo notebooks, and the big NX90 notebook.

The Karim Rashid Eee-PC collection contained the only netbooks ASUS announced at the event. They are taking a page from HP’s Vivienne Tam designer netbooks and producing a stylish netbook that “people will want to carry in their hand.”

The Bamboo collection is interesting, as the casing is constructed from a combination of bamboo and aluminum. It is a stylish notebook that feels nice to touch.

By far the biggest product that ASUS unveiled is the one they seemed to be the most proud of. The NX90 was designed with ASUS by Bang & Olufsen, and the 1080p-capable big display is flanked by two big speakers that side beside the chassis when closed. In the Q&A session ASUS CEO Jonny Shih was thinking that the pricing for the NX90 was a conceptual $2,499. Ouch.

I’ll get some good pictures of these new products later in the week, ASUS did not have this set up where we could get close to the gear to get photos.

Now it’s on to the CES Unveiled event, followed by an effort to get my connectivity issues straightened out. I hope.

That Kevin is a bright guy and his idea to shoot a video of his CES gear bag made a lot of sense. I decided to follow his lead and shot this video showing my bag and all the gear that will accompany me to provide you the coverage of the big CES out in Vegas. Two things I forgot while shooting the video, let’s hope I don’t forget them for the trip, the Verizon MiFi and the Mophie Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G. The MiFi is my must-have gadget and will fit in the bag pocket along with the Mophie which makes sure the iPhone 3G has enough power to last all day no matter what.

Synaptics is the company behind most trackpads used on notebooks, including the multitouch variety that is becoming more common. The company is not happy to sit on mere multitouch capability; it wants to open trackpad usage up to gesture control. It’s announcing today a new beta program for technology called Scrybe that opens up the trackpad to a host of interface control options.

Scrybe is designed to let users draw gestures and letters on the trackpad with the fingertip, each of which fires up some function. The technology allows searching by drawing a question mark on the pad, and common functions like copy and paste can be triggered via symbols. Scrybe is configurable by the user to cause gestures to trigger commonly used functions. For example, you could configure the trackpad to open up the Wikipedia web site when a “W” is drawn on the trackpad.

Scrybe is open to OEMs to participate in the early program, and the company is making the beta technology available to end users. Simply visit the Scrybe site and sign up for the program to get access to the technology.

I have been covering the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for years and it feels like there are fewer surprises at the show each passing year. I am hoping there will be some cool unexpected things at the show this year, but it’s hard to get excited about the prospect. One of the reasons for the lack of surprise about things shown at the CES has to do with the way the entire show process unfolds. Those not involved in covering the show are not familiar with how things work so this will give you an idea how the CES happens for those of us who cover it.

The activity starts well over a month before the show, with companies beginning to reach out to those registered to cover the show. The emails start flying first, with dozens of emails a day hitting my inbox claiming that their company’s next big thing (NBT) is the best thing since sliced bread. These emails start trickling in at first, building to a veritable avalanche of email by showtime. It is not an exaggeration when I tell you I get hundreds of emails a day from companies exhibiting at the CES, and from the PR firms handling them.

The big players that typically announce many new products at the show begin having pre-CES online press conferences a few weeks before the show proper. The companies literally present everything that will be announced at the show, under NDA to protect the “surprise” of the announcements. I am not kidding, they present everything in detail that they will be unveiling at the CES. These conferences are accompanied by photos and full spec sheets for all products being announced. It is not uncommon to have all of a company’s CES information a full month before the show.

The two weeks prior to the show the emails take on an urgent air, with invitations to private meetings flooding my inbox. There are invitations to private events, parties and “one-on-one” interviews with CEOs. All of them are vying for just an hour of my time during the CES week.

The last two weeks before the show sees the phone calls start in earnest. We have to give a phone number when we register as press for the CES, and the companies start calling like crazy. I have received 10 — 20 calls in a given hour, and average over 50 calls a day. Thank goodness for Google Voice as I have it grabbing all of my calls these days to keep my sanity.

Once CES week rolls around is when the real fun starts. The exhibition runs from Thursday – Sunday, but the press events start the Tuesday before. A few companies hold press conferences starting at midday on Tuesday, and the CES Unveiled “pre-show” event is Tuesday night. This event will have about 100 companies showing the new stuff they are most proud of, and it will be wall-to-wall bodies.

The next day, Wednesday, is the official Press Day for the CES. The major companies at the exhibit hold press events to announce new products, and they are held all day. Most of them are in the Venetian Hotel, but some are at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). Others are held at other hotel venues around town, and it can be a real struggle to schedule time to see all of the press events of interest. The CES kick-off keynote address, this year by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, is held Wednesday evening as it is the day before the exhibition actually opens. Another pre-show event, Digital Experience, is also held that evening after the keynote. It’s like the CES Unveiled, in that a bunch of companies are in one room showing off their wares. Many of the companies exhibiting will be the ones having exhibited at the Unveiled show.

Thursday is the official opening of the CES proper, and it covers two convention centers. The LVCC is the biggest, and spans three huge halls and two stories. You can spend all four days of the show trying to visit everything. The show also laps over into the Sands Convention Center, which is attached to the Venetian Hotel. It is smaller and tends to attract the smaller companies with some off-the-wall products. Shuttle buses run back and forth between the two venues to help cover such a large territory.

During the day on Thursday there are a number of keynote addresses by executives from companies such as Intel and Nokia. All keynotes are being held this year at the Hilton Hotel next door to the LVCC, rather than at the Venetian Hotel as in years past. This will make it a bit of a logistical problem getting back and forth for keynotes. Thursday evening there is another off-site event, Showstoppers, that is held at the Wynn Hotel. It is similar to the CES Unveiled and Digital Experience events, with different companies exhibiting.

Thursday through Sunday the exhibition will run, and typically I will spend all of each day in one of the venues. This gives me the chance to see as much as possible, and I will have scheduled appointments with many companies each day. I will meet with some larger companies as needed, and these may be at other hotels in town. Some companies take big suites to provide better venues for hands-on sessions, and these are often where I will shoot videos of new products.

Both the LVCC and the Sands Convention Center have press rooms and blogger lounges for those of us covering the show. Most of the blogging will be done in one of these rooms. There are also interview rooms available that we sometimes use for shooting video interviews and audio podcasts. All of these facilities are great, with good Wi-Fi and snacks for those moments we actually have time to grab them. We get to see many friends in these rooms, which is easily my favorite part of the entire week.

Covering such a vast event is a lot of fun, and is easily my busiest week of the entire year. It is a tremendous amount of work, but it’s great to see friends that I don’t see anywhere else. There will be the odd unexpected product that is great to see, and those are real gems to find. The lack of surprises at the show have more to do with being exposed to products prior to the show, than any shortage of product announcements at the show proper. The week of the show does provide great opportunities to spend hands-on time with dozens of cool gadgets, and that is worth all the tea in China to a geek like me. In spite of being such a huge job, and the fact that I will be totally exhausted by week’s end, it is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I can’t wait to get there.

Lenovo let the cat out of the bag early about new additions to the ThinkPad line that are being released in time for the big CES. The ThinkPad Edge is the first consumer ThinkPad, and I’ve covered it in a video review. The other interesting addition is the ThinkPad X100e, which brings the line closer to the netbook category in features and price.

The ThinkPad Edge is initially available in a 13-inch model, starting at $549. In the second quarter of this year the Edge will also be available in 14-inch and a 15-inch models, pricing unknown. The Edge is a solid entry into the consumer space, and continues the ThinkPad tradition with a good keyboard.

The ThinkPad X100e is an 11.6-inch notebook that starts at a consumer-friendly price of $449. The notebook will have AMD processor options, and like all ThinkPads will leverage the ThinkVantage Technologies. Like the Edge, the X100e has both a TrackPoint and a multitouch trackpad for control of the Windows 7 interface. The X100e weighs under 3 pounds, making it the most portable ThinkPad available.

The ThinkPad brand has long been associated with top-notch business-class notebooks. The famous black notebooks have appeared in conference rooms the world over, and the ThinkPad brand has come to mean fine quality business notebooks. The folks at Lenovo look to bring the ThinkPad into the consumer space, and the ThinkPad Edge is the first effort to get folks to bring the ThinkPad home.

The Edge is available in three sizes, 13, 14, 15 inch screens, and all have a sporty cover that is available in either glossy black or red. Lenovo has attempted to make a consumer notebook that fits into the high-quality mold of the ThinkPad, and the Edge is a good first effort.

I have been fortunate enough to receive a ThinkPad Edge prior to launch, and have been using one for a few weeks. In the video I show the build quality and nice design touches that Lenovo has put in this first consumer ThinkPad. The model in the video is the 13-incher, with a glossy (smudge magnet) black lid. I demonstrate the unique features of the Edge, including the nice chiclet keyboard and the inclusion of both a multitouch trackpad and a ThinkPad trackstick.

I state in the video that the Edge will be available for a starting price of $450, but I have received updated information from Lenovo that corrects that figure. The Edge pricing will start at $549, still a good price for a ThinkPad product. The 13-inch model is available from Lenovo currently, and the 14 and 15-inch models will be available in the second quarter of this year.

As nice as Windows 7 is to use let’s face it — we always want total control over the computing environment. What we really want is to have total control in an easy-to-use form that puts everything at our fingertips. Enter the super secret Windows 7 God Mode.

God Mode is a simple folder that brings all aspects of Windows 7 control in a single place. It collects all of the Control Panel functions, interface customization, accessibility options, just about every aspect of controlling Windows 7 into a single place.

God Mode is easy to set up too, just do this:

• Create a new folder anywhere.
• Rename the folder by pasting this name exactly as it appears (copy it first):
• GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

That’s it, you now have a folder with the Control Panel icon (pictured above) that has all the controls in one place:

(Windows 7 Themes via Dwight Silverman on Twitter)

The week marches on and today being Saturday means it is time to recap the recent happenings in the world of Windows Mobile. The end of the year has seen things quiet on the Windows Mobile front, although Microsoft is looking to fill some jobs that may change that this year. Reports show several job listings for xbox and WinMo that looks to integrate the two platforms, turning Windows Mobile into a mobile gaming platform. Microsoft is looking for a program manager and some software engineers to bring Xbox Live games to Windows Mobile. Game on.

LG has released a pico projector option for the eXpo phone on AT&T running Windows Mobile. The projector add-on snaps onto the back of the eXpo to project the screen onto a flat surface. The projected image is 480×320 and can be used to watch movies or make presentations with Mobile Powerpoint. An add-on gadget like this projector makes a lot of sense for business travelers, with the ability to make a quick presentation right in the pocket.

As Q4 begins, online video is now mainstream. Read the, “Connected Consumer Q3 Wrap-up.”

The first day of a new year in a new decade; what better time for geeks to be thinking of cool gadgets to come? We’ve looked at the gadgets we bought last year, let’s look at what geeky purchases are likely to come this year. Are you in the market for a cool mobile tech purchase? What do you anticipate buying this year? If you are thinking of buying a rumored product, go ahead and mention it. We don’t have to worry about what will actually appear, let’s concentrate on what we will likely purchase in 2010.

Happy New Year to you and yours from jkOnTheRun! May you have a safe and happy transition into the new year. We are honored and humbled that you spend time with us.

It is Thursday and that means it’s time for another Palm Press. Palm Press is our weekly look at the world of Palm. The webOS App Catalog is closing in on 1,000 apps. While this falls a little short of the number of apps in the iPhone App Store, it took so long that it’s good to see this milestone approach. The lack of apps has been a major shortcoming of webOS, and while there is still a huge shortage of them it is good to see the number of apps steadily climb.

Palm is expected to update both the Pre and the Pixi next year, and it is looking like they will both be going to Verizon. The new models are being referred to as the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus, showing a lack of imagination on someone’s part. Verizon has long contended they will be carrying a webOS device, and the CDMA network is the perfect fit for the existing handsets too. It will be interesting to see if Big Red puts up a big ad campaign for the Palm phones, as they did for the Droid.

Sales of the Pixi may not be as good as Palm was predicting, if a Chinese supplier is correct. Compal Communications has told Chinese news outlets that their fourth quarter shipments of Pixis to Palm have been reduced to 600,000 units from the forecast 800,000. That’s a healthy cut-back, so the Pixi must not be flying off the shelves.

This community has the smartest tech people around, and is a good place to pose a problem one of our readers needs to solve. I will let Sanjay speak for himself:

I am an avid reader of jkOnTheRun from India (New Delhi) for the last few years and visit the site daily….I am just moving into a large house (9000 square feet over two floor with lots of concrete) built on a 3 acre plot of land…..

Wanted your help or suitable link to a resource on whats the most powerful Wifi Router to use so that I get coverage on both the floors of the house ….. i have a 8 mbps DSL line from my telecom service provider…

Thank you in advance

What is the best way to cover such a large, multi-story dwelling made of concrete? I am confident we’ll get the best solutions for Sanjay to consider, even though it’s a pretty big problem. Leave your suggestions for Sanjay in the comments.

The year is winding down and the time for reflection is on us once again. I like to end the year by thinking back on all the gadgets I purchased (far too many) and designating one as the best one of the lot. This year determining which was the best was easier than usual, due to the game-breaking nature of the selected gadget. I should be no surprise that my best gadget purchase this year was the MiFi. This little 3G modem/ Wi-Fi router literally changed the way I use mobile broadband for the better, and it is still a magical device for me.

So how about you? What was your very best gadget purchase this year, and why do you feel it is the best? I am interested to hear about your gadgets and why that one special device was the best. Let’s talk gadgets for a bit, it’s always fun.

It is amazing how much advance product information leaks out over social networks like Twitter. Recently, the HTC Russia team tweeted that the HD2 will be getting upgraded to Windows Mobile 7 next year when it is available. This hasn’t been confirmed by HTC, but the tweets went onto mention that the HD2 is the only HTC phone currently available that will get the upgrade. I’ll have to take this on good faith, as it is definitely a rumor and especially since I don’t read Russian.

It seems as if we’ve been waiting forever for netbooks equipped with Nvidia’s ION chips to hit the shelves. The ION kit should make for a better platform for netbooks, especially in the graphics department. Netbook diva Joanna Stern of Engadget has put four ION-based netbooks to the test, and has published her findings. As cheap as netbooks can be, it is important to realize that the four netbooks Joanna has tested range in price from $475 to $650, a healthy range for cheap notebooks.

The evaluation covers units from Lenovo, HP, Samsung and ASUS, all in the 11.6 or 12.1-inch form. Interestingly, while the ION promises better performance than the cheaper Atom, Engadget felt that these netbooks were more laggy than the Atom variety. I suspect that has to do with the higher screen resolution, but it’s something to consider when shelling out more money than for the typical Atom-based netbook.

Check out the review for the overall winner, but with each of the four winning in one or more categories, they seem to be pretty evenly matched. That means cheapest wins in my book.

One of the most useful new interface features in Windows 7 is the Aero stuff. This includes the feature that lets you drag windows to the edges of the screen to make convenient stuff happen. Drag a window to the top edge of the screen and the window maximizes. Drag it back down and it restores to its original size. I find this very useful on laptops with limited screen real estate. I especially like dragging a window to the left of the screen and having it resize to take the left half of the screen. I then drag a second window to the right and it fills the right side, making the two windows perfectly aligned. I find these features so useful that I missed them when working on the Mac. I should have known that someone else would miss it too and the developer of Cinch for the Mac has produced a great utility to duplicate this ability.

Cinch works flawlessly on the Mac and works just as well as the Windows 7 counterpart. It even intelligently handles multiple monitors, by letting you still drag windows back and forth between the monitors at will. While Cinch is great on a laptop screen, I also find it very useful on my big 24-inch display. The ability to put two windows side-by-side on the big screen provides a very useful working environment, as witnessed in the screen image to the right.

E-book readers are all the rage these days, but to tell the truth I have been reading them for about ten years. One of the methods I have been using to read e-books is by using Kindle for PC on the ThinkPad tablet PC. In this video I show how this works, and how great the reading experience can be on a 12-inch screen. The ease of operating Kindle via touch is shown, as is working with the library. I also divulge what sets the Kindle method apart from other readers I have used.