20 Eye-Catching Products From Opening Night At CES

MSI Wind, a PC maker that has benefited greatly from the netbook craze, apparently has a bit of MacBook Air envy, as evidenced by its unveiling at CES of the snazzy X-Slim 320. With a 13.4-inch screen, thickness of just 1.98 cm and weighing in at 2.87 pounds, this newcomer seems poised to give its Apple counterpart a run for its money.

Inada, which bills itself as the world's largest and most innovative manufacturer of shiatsu massage chairs, also claims to commit more resources to massage chair R&D than any company in the world. Judging from the steady stream of CES attendees visiting Inada's booth to test out Inada's massage chairs, this has been money well spent.

Last we heard, Sharper Image was closing its neat stores where we bought Christmas gifts for gadget lovers. Think again. The stores are gone, but the new licensee of Sharper Image products, SI Products, rolled out 24 hot products at CES. The home audio products run the gamut from iPod-compatible bedside stereo systems to wireless speakers and docks for iPods to a 7-inch digital alarm clock photo frame. Wake up world. The Sharper Image is back!

Logitech isn't just about keyboards. Get this -- the keyboard company is getting into the high-end headphone game with the G35, a truly amazing set of headphones for gamers that features 7.1 Dolby surround sound (the same Dolby surround sound that rocks you in your local movie palace). The G35 also features three programmable G-keys on the headset for voice morphing (yes, you can do your own Dr. Evil imitation with the headphones). The G35 is priced at $129.99 and will be available in March. Eat your heart out, Bose.

Let's get this straight. Batteries are not boring. Not when it's Fuji's EnviroMax that is priced just like your average Eveready and Duracell, but is absolutely 100 percent eco-friendly. The Fuji EnviroMax batteries contain no cadmium, no mercury, no PVC. Yes, no PVC. If you know anything about batteries, you know that's pretty amazing.





"These are landfill-safe," boasts Fuji EnviroMax sales director Jeff Kreidenweis. "This product can be recycled. It is nontoxic and biodegradable." For those looking to draw a green line in the sand with CE products, the Fuji EnviroMax batteries will be available starting in February.

Yoggie Security Systems has come up with a new twist for Internet lovers sick and tired of battling malware and spyware: The new HyPC packs a Firefox browser in the form of a small credit-card-size Express Card that says your laptop is never in danger because all of the browsing is done on what is in effect a credit card device that is in effect a hybrid PC. The HyPC will be available in March at a price of $149 from retailers like Amazon.com and Buy.com.

Cobra Electronics' XRS 9960G radar detector takes dodging the fuzz to a whole new level by incorporating its new AURA database (Advanced Universal Road Alert), which includes GPS coordinates of speed and red-light cameras and driving hazards.

Interactive Toy Concepts showed off an array of wild and wacky tech toys, including Duck Hunter Xtreme, a remote control game in which players shoot a flying fowl made of featherweight plastic with an infrared gun. The game's box screams out for fun for both kids and adults, with slogans like "State of the art micro flight technology!" and "Duck flies away with real flapping wings!"

Meade Instruments displayed its new ETX-LS telescope, which can automatically zero in on interesting spots in the sky using its proprietary LightSwitch technology, which automatically delivers telescope location, time, date and orientation. The telescope also includes a built-in CCD that captures and displays images of the cosmos and stores them on an SD card for later viewing.

Novint Technologies, a purveyor of haptics applications for medical, oil/gas, automotive and mass-market fields, showed off its Falcon technology, a 3-D gaming interface that works like a mouse, but also moves up and down. Priced at $189, Falcon is available at retail outlets such as Tiger Direct, Fry's Electronics, J & R Music, CompUSA.com, CircuitCity.com and Amazon.com.

Tonium AB wowed the crowd at the CES Unveiled event with PaceMaker, a portable music player that includes all the functionality of a professional DJ setup. PaceMaker lets aspiring DJs play two tracks side-by-side, do creative adjustments to the music on the fly and mix between two separate channels using a cross-fader. The eye-catching device also lets users save their creations and upload them to the Internet.

Cobra Electronics for years was perhaps best known for making CB radios, but at CES, the company leapt into the consumer space. Cobra unveiled two new bookshelf radio units, the CIR1000A and CIR2000A, which wirelessly stream music from the Internet. Cobra's debut in the wireless multimedia space had many CES attendees pausing for a longer look.

At CES, Novatel Wireless introduced MiFi, a palm-size device that allows users to turn their cell phones into a wireless access point capable of handling up to five users. And the best part is, it's even smaller than an iPhone.

Oregon Scientific keeps pushing the limits of the wireless weather solutions that have helped it carve out a solid niche in the consumer electronics space. At CES, the company showed off several new products that not only display the date and time, but also let people know when to bring an umbrella.

The Eclipse AVN4430 is not only a Tom Tom GPS designed so you can easily carry it in the palm of your hand when you reach your destination and want to be sure you reach that hard-to-find restaurant. It also features a CD player, DVD player and iPod link. This is your all-in-one entertainment system for your car. The Swiss Army Knife of GPS systems is priced at $849 and is slated to ship in the first quarter.

No, it's not too soon for 3-D TV. Not if you're Mitsubishi Electric and you're showing off a 73-inch diagonal 3-D ready TV that is already on the market at a price of $2,699. This particular 3-D ready TV at CES has some help from a PC outfitted with 3-D glasses made by Nvidia. You can't tell by looking at this photo (we did try to shoot through the 3-D glasses but it didn't work), but you have not lived until you've seen a Stars Wars segment in 3-D. May The Force be with you.

Joby attracted throngs of audiophiles with its Zivio Boom wireless Bluetooth headset, which features a retractable, flexible microphone boom and provides clear sound even in windy, noisy environments.

Keyboards generally put us to sleep, but not this one: The Logitech G19 is the first Logitech keyboard with an LCD display built in, suitable for watching a movie or YouTube from your keyboard while you're doing real work on your PC or laptop screen. It's the perfect product for workplace slackers. The G19 will be available in April at a price of $199.99.

If an LCD screen in a keyboard isn't your cup of tea, how about a programmable keyboard for gamers looking to beat the pants off competitors by saving more than a few keystrokes? Logitech's G13 Advanced Gameboard has 25 programmable keys. It also has a programmable mini joystick. All that for only $79.99. It's available this month.

ASUS, a leader in the exploding netbook category, showed off what it is calling a hybrid storage netbook, the S101 Eee PC. Weighing in at only 2.3 pounds, the S101 comes with a 16 GB solid-state drive, a 16 GB SD card and 30 GB of online storage provided by ASUS. The beauty of the solid-state technology, of course, is it's shockproof. No matter how many times you drop it, you're not going to jumble the hard drive. The product is already available and is being priced aggressively by the likes of Newegg.com and TigerDirect.