CES 2010, Complete Coverage Part #2

source: hardwarezone.com
The Latest Gadgets and Gear for 2010
CES 2009 was a bit of a muted affair, no thanks to the downward state of the economy back then. Fast forward a year later, and things are looking much better in the financial sense. As such, CES 2010 appears to be a much livelier affair, with hordes of attendees thronging the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as the emergence of 3D televisions as the next big thing to keep an eye out for.

MSI's Booth

The new MSI R5850 Cyclone is based on the Radeon HD 5850 GPU and it comes with a total of 1GB DDR5 graphics memory.

The more powerful MSI R5870 Lightning is based on the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU. It comes with 1GB worth of DDR5 memory and a 12-phase PWM power supply. Overclockers would benefit much with its Twin Frozr II design that utilizes 2 SuperPipes to keep the GPU cool while V-check points allow users to keep the voltage in check.

For those who said it couldn't be done, MSI had their Big Bang-Fuzion on demo, running an NVIDIA and an ATI graphics card at the same time.

The new MSI CR620 keyboard, up to 4GB DDR3 memory and HDMI support.

The CR720 is similar in specifications to the CR620, except that it comes with a larger 17.3-inch HD+ LCD screen. Besides that, this large desktop replacement also comes with a built-in subwoofer.

This dual-screen concept notebook displayed at MSI's booth shows us what we can expect later on in the future.

This 10-inch touchscreen concept tablet is also another preview of products we can expect from MSI in the near future.

This gaming laptop is based on the new Intel Core i5 processor and it comes with an ATI Radeon 5730 graphics. Supporting switchable graphics between discrete and integrated, this gaming machine comes with a 17.3-inch TFT LCD screen.

The new MSI GT740 ultimate gaming laptop is based on the Intel Core i7-720QM processor, Intel HM55 chipset and an GeForce GTS 250M. It also comes with SRS premium audio and a 17-inch HD TFT LCD screen.

The new MSI U135 netbook is based on the Atom N450 processor and it comes with up to 2GB of memory and a 10-inch WSVGA LCD screen. It sports a newer design and a stylish chiclet keyboard.

The Wind Box DE220 are nettop computers based on the Atom D510/D410 processor. It comes with a built-in Radeon HD 4330 GPU that gives it the ability to playback HD content. It supports Windows, up to 1TB HDD, 4GB memory and mini-PCIe wireless card.

The new 890FX-GD70 is the latest AMD-based motherboard that will support USB 3.0 and SATA 6G.

The MSI H57M-ED65 is their latest micro-ATX board based on the Intel H57 chipset supporting Intel Core i7/i5/i3 processors. Comes with built-in HDMI port to support integrated graphics.

Parrot's iPhone Toy & Motorola's New Android

The Parrot AR.Drone is a quadricopter toy that can be remotely controlled by the iPhone.

A demonstration of the Parrot AR.Drone in their booth. Control and stability was superb.

The Android-powered Motorola BACKFLIP comes combined with the social and personalization of MOTOBLUR. The phone comes in this unique reverse flip design that makes it easy to enjoy videos, music and photos on one side while flipping over to the QWERTY keyboard allows you to power through e-mails, texts, news feeds, social network messages and more.

Flip the screen over to enjoy videos similar to a portable media player.

Razer Charges Into Console Market

The new Razer Chimaera Professional Gaming Headset for Xbox 360 comes with support for virtual 5.1 surround sound. The wireless headset comes with built-in rechargeable batteries that allow users to recharge on the bundled base station.

The Razer Onza Xbox 360 gaming controller gives serious gamers an added advantage over their opponents with its highly customizable controls.

Razer added a pair of extra buttons that can be configured by remapping it to act as one of the action buttons, the analog stick buttons or an auto-fire button.

The additional buttons can be remapped on the fly through switches located at the back of the controller.

The analog stick comes with a screw type of adjustment which allows you to vary the tension required to tilt the analog stick. This will give gamers the flexibility to increase or decrease the sensitivity of the analog stick.

It also comes with a sleek green glow on its side. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with improving your gaming performance.

Razer also demonstrated a prototype device known as Sixense. It is a next-generation motion sensing and gesture recognition controller for gaming that works extremely well with 3D gaming or environments. It works by sensing the magnetic fields emitted by the controllers, allowing the sensing of movements in all X, Y and Z axis. As it is magnetic, it is not limited by line of sight.

JVC's Booth

Like about every other consumer electronics giant, JVC too has their own 3D TV, the GD-463D10, a Full HD resolution 46-inch screen with an Xpol polarizing filter built in. This makes the TV compatible with inexpensive polarized glasses for flicker-free reproduction of 3D content with better color than the anaglyphic glasses.

Fancy the possibility of viewing existing 2D content in 3D formats? JVC's IF-2D3D1 unit does real-time conversion using the company's proprietary algorithms for stereo video output. It also has parallax and 3D intensity adjustment to provide you the desired intensity of 3D effects.

We caught this demo showcasing the real-time conversion of 2D content shown natively on the smaller right screen and being output to the conversion box, which outputs the 3D converted content to the bigger screen on the left. The effect is not visible on this photo capture, but it certainly does work.

Speaking of other TVs in their lineup, JVC also launched their updated Teledock series, now in the third generation. This series allows you to dock your iPod to your TV and easily output audio, video directly to your TV. Navigation is now improved with a more iPod-like interface and better overall usability. The dock also doubles up as your charging station. Seen here is the 42-inch, 42P510 model supporting Full HD resolution, 120Hz Clear Motion Drive and triple HDMI ports; the inset picture is the flip open dock.

Other than TVs, of course JVC is well known for their Everio camcorder series and for 2010, one of the most important updates is in the camcorder's advanced image stabilizer. Demonstrating side by side with their 2009 model on a rocking platform and outputting the captured feedback on a TV, it was visibly evident that the 2010 model is much better in its anti-shake technology. The model shown here is the GZ-HM550B and its specs include the following:- 10.6MP sensor, F2.8 Konica Minolta HD lends, 32GB internal flash memory, SD/SDHC card slot, Bluetooth support, 15x dynamic zoom, AIS, Super LoLux, Direct DVD creation and Direct YouTube upload.

The new JVC NX-D2 mini stereo system does all the expected functions of its class, but it also has a dock for your iPod, USB connectivity and get this - motion sensor for gesture controls. Even the touch interface is on the system is an advanced variant that JVC dubs as the Laser Touch.

The Duracell myGrid is one of the many attempts in the market to simplify charging needs of our gadget filled world. The myGrid kit contains the charging mat, power clip for your device and a power adapter. The power clip is currently only compatible with BlackBerry, Motorola and Nokia devices.

Here's a look at the power clip at the back of an Apple iPhone so it looks like the clip is compatible with more devices but aren't officially qualified in their list yet.

Duracell also recently branched out into supplying instant USB chargers. This device can add up to 3 hours or more usable time span to popular gadgets like mobile phones. To juice up the instant charger when it depletes, just plug into any PC with a USB port.

Lenovo

Lenovo touts their new A300 all-in-one system as the thinnest in the industry. The bulk of the system's components are integrated into the base versus behind the LCD screen. It sports a 21.5-inch Full HD panel (resting on a swivel arm), Bluetooth based keyboard and mouse, 802.11n WiFi integrated, and is powered by a mobile Core 2 Duo platform.

Plenty of I/O ports are integrated in its base like dual HDMI ports, TV tuner antenna input, multiple USB ports, RJ45 LAN port, FireWire, flash card reader and analog audio input/outputs.

Lenovo's famous S10 series of netbooks get an upgrade with the new S10-3. Though still using a 10.1-inch screen, the exterior gets a more distinct look and feel while the interior sports the newer Pine Trail platform (going up to an N470 Atom processor), up to 320GB of hard drive storage, stereo speakers with Dolby Headphone audio output and an improved Quick Start 2.0 interface that boots up a customized Linux partition to get on to the web in seconds from powering up the system. Other neat new features are Maplife (location based mapping software), VeriFace (face recognition software) and an Active Protection Suite (basically an accelerometer based design to protect the drive from sudden bumps or falls by parking the read/write heads at moment's notice upon such freefall incidents).

This is the tablet brother of the S10-3, the S10-3t. It is identical in hardware to the S10-3, but has a pressure based touch screen that can swivel 180 degrees in any direction and fold over to form a true tablet PC.

This is the Skylight smartbook from Lenovo (also otherwise commonly categorized as a netbook). The Skylight is designed as a pure net-centric lifestyle computing platform with a customized web-optimized system and widgets for easy access to certain online apps or content like Gmail, YouTube, Facebook and more. The hardware of the system consists of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor and platform, a 3G modem, 20GB of flash and 2GB of 'cloud' storage. If you need to draw a parallel comparison, the Skylight smartbook is competing in the same space as the NVIDIA Tegra based netbooks that are also meant for Telcos to bundle the hardware along with their data plans.

Here's a side view of the Skylight smartbook. Thin and light at under 1.3kg. With a processor that was originally used on smartphones, the low power ARM-based chip is expected to give the Skylight a longer battery life than standard netbooks - up to 10 hours of active battery life as Lenovo cites. Estimated price is US$499 when available in April.

And this is the much talked about IdeaPad U1 - a truly hybrid notebook with a detachable screen that instantly switches between a full function notebook mode and that of a 3G enabled multi-touch tablet device. The detachable 11.6-inch screen has its own power and processing platform that's used on the Skylight notebook. Even the operating system is identical, using the Skylight's operating system. The 'dock' portion that gives the screen more power in battery and processing as well as a proper keyboard has a Core 2 Duo SU series processor, up to 4GB of memory, card-reader, eSATA and other commonly expected outputs. A complex circuitry layer ensures data usage on either mode is seamlessly and instantly transferred over to the netbook or the tablet mode for continuous and seamless computing. Prices start at US$999 and is available only from June 2010.

Panasonic's Booth

No surprise, Panasonic is also very big on 3D this season. More specifically, they are leveraging their strengths in plasma panel technology to bring about 3D Full HD plasma displays.

More new TV displays at their booth.

One of the more impressive technology displays was their working prototype of a full wireless 3D ecosystem - for the display, 3D glasses and AV equipment. Mind you though, it was pushing Full HD 3D resolution over wireless (1080p/24fps x 2 for 3D). This is was achieved by incorporating an ultra high speed wireless 60GHz radio band and sending 4Gbps of uncompressed data on it (inclusive of 5.1-channle sound audio over liner PCM audio format). The system is unable to cope with 1080p/60fps transmission needs but it has bandwidth for 720p/60fps if you need the smoother output.

Another showstopper at the booth was the world's largest plasma display panel - now a whopping 152 inches across! What's more, it goes beyond Full HD resolution and supports Ultra High Definition resolution (4096 x 2160 or otherwise known as 4K resolution). Mind boggling on multiple levels indeed.

Coming back down to reality, the 2010 series of Plasma panels from Panasonic have been enhanced and THX certified - the first for any plasma panel. LG was first for their LCD panels. Shown here is difference in vibrancy between a 2009 model from Panasonic and their latest for 2010 with THX certification. The angle of this photo might seem to be a bit unfair, but while we were there to trial the displays personally in proper, there really was a notable difference. Furthermore, the 2010 editions have a feature called Infinite Black Pro which is their marketing term for improved individual cell performance and a new filter that minimizes ambient light and increases transmittance of light from the display. The end result is that the panel is now capable of achieving 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Their LED-backlit LCD displays too have been refreshed in technology and here's a page of their slide to show the improvements made, especially in the A.I. department.

Like LG and their NetCast, Panasonic too have their VieraCast for online content provision on the big screen. The supported content variety has some similarities, with Skype being their latest addition too.

Here's the optional camera to enjoy full Skype video conferencing or calls on any VieraCast enabled TV.

Panasonic's DMP-BD65 is a network Blu-ray player. Highlights include a Panasonic Holywood Laboratory Refernce Chroma Processor Plus for Adaptive High Precision 4:4:4 multi-tap processing for even higher color reproduction, ultra fast boot-up of just 0.5 seconds, WiFi ready (optional hardware) to access online content via VieraCast.

The DMP-BDT350 is Panasonic's first Blu-ray player that's ready for Blu-ray 3D content in addition to the plus points mentioned for the BD65 above.

Now that the Blu-ray ecosystem is coming down in prices to make it more accessible to plenty more users, Panasonic is getting ready with portable Blu-ray players for high quality entertainment anywhere on the go. While one can't appreciate the added quality of Blu-ray on such a small screen, once Blu-ray becomes the choice for enjoying movies like DVD has been, it's only logical to have a suitable player regardless whether the small screens are a hindrance to viewing them in Full HD resolutions. Beats having a need to get contend on both DVD and Blu-ray.

On to digital cameras, Panasonic has a new FH series launched. Slim frames, wide-angle zoom lenses, 720p HD Video recording at 30fps are common to all cameras in this series. The top-end model, FH20 as shown here has a 14MP sensor, 8x optical zoom, a 2.7-inch LCD screen, OIS and I.A. mode.

The lowest end of the FH series is a 12MP sensor based camera and 5x zoom.

Two more new models join the FP series. This one, the FP3, has a 14MP camera sensor, 3-inch touchscreen LCD and 720p video recording.

Watch out, SDXC cards are on their way with the 48GB and 64GB editions launched now and a a good deal of Panasonic's new products launched in 2010, cameras to TVs, support the newer and faster SDXC standard.

Philips' Booth

Philips has this new wireless HDTV link which eliminates most of your unsightly cable clutter to your TV. The main unit acts a wireless AV switch box where your AV receiver, game console, Blu-ray player and other AV decks are hooked up to the unit. The package comes with a smaller secondary receiver unit as shown on the inset that can be attached to the rear of your TV. It then interfaces the TV with just a single HDMI connection. Both units then operate wirelessly and thus you can have all your AV equipment much further away from your TV than usual and not have all the unsightly wires.

Philips has a slew of new PAP and PMP devices. This is the Vibe 8GB audio player with FM radio, recorder, 1.5-inch display and given an aluminum finishing. Estimated to be about US$60 and from Q2 of 2010.

On the other end of the scale is this Muse 16GB PMP device with a 2.4-inch display, SD card slot, FM radio, voice recorder and a 3.2-inch HVGA display and even an HDMI output. Slated to launch in Q2 of 2010 at about US$150.

Here's the full gang coming in Q2 of 2010. From top to bottom:- Muse, Cam (with a 2MP camera), Vibe and Raga Sport.

This is the Philips Cushion Speaker. As seen on the inset, the bottom is s comfortable cushion to rest on your lap while the top is flat base for your laptop and it even has speakers built on the front edge.

Ever thought of the hassle of wall mounting your TVs and each vendor has their own bracket? Philips might have tackled that with an easy to mount universal bracket. The curved central bar is one of the design enablers that makes it compatible with a variety of TVs. The mount even has a leveling meter integrated!

viliv's Booth

viliv of course is an established portable computing solutions provider, most famous for its UMPC and netbook class products that appeal to enthusiasts. For 2010, here's the S10 Blade - a convertible multi-touch tablet based on the Atom Z530/Z550 processor, 10.1-inch swivel LCD, 1GB RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, integrated 3G HSPA modem, has an SSD drive for storage and weighs 1.21kg.

Here it is in its converted form.

How about a 399 grams netbook? This is the N5 with a 4.8-inch WSVGA touchscreen, Atom XZ520 processor, 32GB SSD, 1GB RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, 1.3MP webcam and runs on the Windows 7 Home Premium OS. Its dimensions are 172 x 86 x25mm.

Portable media players are also in their inventory of offerings. Shown here is the HD5, a Full HD media player (even supports 1080p MKV playback). It has a 5-inch touchscreen (800x480 pixels), multiple flash capacity points from 8GB to 32GB, HDMI output and a SDHC slot. The PMP runs on the Windows CE 6.0 OS.

The smaller P3 is an interesting PMP device; it can dual-boot between Win CE 6.0 and Google Android. Specs include a 800MHz Coretex ARM processor, 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen (800x480), WiFi, 3G and mobile DTV as an option.

Viewsonic too is getting into the PMP side of things. Called MovieBook, their better offerings come in a 5-inch form factor (touch screen enabled), supports 1080p HD playback, has 8GB of internal memory, OTG support (USB) and HDMI output. 8GB of storage is too little these days for media devices; what more for a device playing 1080p HD content. Hopefully it's cheap enough to still be attractive.

Sanyo announces the world's smallest, thinnest, lightest dual-camera design. It weighs just 142 grams and is 27mm thin. The Sanyo Xacti VPC-CS1 will retail for US$300 from next month.

We've seen pico projectors before, but what about a laser pico projector? Here's the world's first form Microvision, the ShowWX. Using a laser light source it touts to produce brighter and more vivid colors that don't require focus adjustment and can project on to any surface. Seen here, it's projecting video clips from an iPod.

Here it is in action. It supports WVGA resolutions (848x480), a widescreen aspect ratio, 5000:1 contrast ratio, 1:1 throw size, measures 118 x 60 x 14mm and weighs just 122 grams with battery.

Kohjinsha DZ series is a very interesting dual-screen portable mini notebook. The screens can slide in and out as required and the system can be whisked away as usual. Based on the Athlon Neo MV-40 single-core processor and Yukon platform, it's equipped with a pair of 10.1-inch screens, Windows 7 Home Premium, 802.11b/g/n, up to to 4GB of memory, 160GB of HDD, 1.3MP webcam and weighs 1.84kg.

Need a quick fix to enable a bit 3D reality to your existing old screen and content? How about just mounting a Deep-Screen by realview innovations. As seen in this demo shot, it manages to add a perception of depth to your display, thus giving you a pseudo 3D feel.

Don't go looking for speakers in this audio setup from Soundolier - you won't find them; well not in their usual form though. Soundolier specializes in integrated wireless audio technology and in this case, audio beats were pouring out from the lamps and the ceiling fan! And surprisingly they did sound good. These guys must have spent a lot of time fine-tuning their equipment to achieve the desirable output we heard when checking out their goods.

Mirasol is a new e-book display type and it's unlike the current e-ink used by most other readers out there. This one can do color displays and it won't cost much more than current e-book readers. This is still in prototype but Qualcomm hopes this can go into retail by late 2010.

Here's a close-up of the device.

And yes, this is the Nexus One phone by Google. There's enough already said and information is easily obtainable online. We'll leave you with the following video clip of our very last minute hands-on session before the booth was wrapping up:-

Yes, this is what it looks and is named after - Sound Egg.

E-book Readers Galore

A great number of e-book readers were on display at CES this year, which wasn't surprising at all, given the amount of hype that the Amazon Kindle first generated, and then followed up by the likes of Barnes and Noble's nook, as well as Apple's still-mythical tablet device rumored to be making its appearance very soon. Nevertheless, here's a quick look at some of the more interesting e-reader devices that caught our eye.

Thie e-reader from ASTAK sports a number of languages; English, French, Spanish and Chinese included, and comes with a 5-inch e-ink screen. You don't get any internal storage, though the device does come with a built-in SD card slot that accepts the latest 16GB SDHC flash media, for example.

This cool e-reader from Demy is intended for the kitchen foodies, displaying recipes and pictures of select dishes for quick reference during preparation. Recipes are synced from www.keyingredient.com when connected to your PC or Mac via USB if you have a user account, with the device costing US$299.95.

Accessories maker M-Edge is also heading into e-reader territory, with this nifty waterproof case designed for the Amazon Kindle.

M-Edge also produced custom e-reader accessories, such as this The New Yorker themed e-reader case for the American print publication of the same name. We imagine that a custom case featuring special covers from HWM and GaneAxis Unwired would look just as good.

Hailing all the way from Ukraine, the Pocketbook 360 features a 5-inch screen, with 512MB of user-accessible memory. Given its small size, its also unsurprising to note the use of a microSD slot for external storage.

Also on show was the iRiver Story, which was also reviewed in the January issue of HWM Singapore, which is for sale on newsstands now.

E-book Readers Galore

Made by Cybook, the Bookeen Opus is very compact, measuring in at dimensions of 108 x 151 x 10mm, and tipping the scales at just 150g. Internal storage tops out at 1GB, sufficient for approximately 1000 books.

The Aluratek Libre eBook Reader Pro comes with a very interesting proposition: 1000 free e-books when you purchase one, which come on a 2GB SD card. The vendor also claims up to 24 hours of continuous reading before needing a recharge.

Plastic Logic's Que, in their words, is no ordinary e-reader device. Designed with the businessperson in mind, the Que syncs with your Microsoft Outlook account to retrieve your e-mails as well as your appointments for the day. You can even open attachments to view on the e-reader. While the versions on sale now only come with WiFi, you can expect a 3G-enabled variant sometime this year. In addition, the Que is also likely the best-looking e-book reader we'd seen throughout CES.

The entourage eDGe fuses an e-ink panel with a separate color touchscreen powered by Google's Android operating system. This enables links embedded inside PDF documents or e-books that lead to web pages to be opened on the color touchscreen portion of the eDGe. The eDGe is WiFi-enabled, letting users surf the web on the go, as well as to download new e-books as well as digital magazines and newspapers to read.

New to CES by Interead is the Cool-er Compact (pictured left), the successor to what is now called the Cool-er Classic. Featuring the same 6-inch display, the Cool-er Compact sports 2GB of onboard memory. Also shown was the Cool-er Connect, which is a touch-enabled device with built-in WiFi and a 7-inch screen. Interead representatives also mentioned that 3G-enabled Cool-er devices should be out sometime in the first half of this year.

Samson

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Samson Q3, a product aimed squarely at competing with the Flip Mino HD and its ilk with the ability to record true stereo sound. It's one weakness? Video recording is stuck at a resolution of just 640x480.

Sennheiser

The Sennheiser CX680 Sport was designed with an active lifestyle in mind, and with the cooperation of sports brand Adidas. No word on when we'll see one of these in Singapore though.

Sennheiser also had a slew of earphones on display, all of which had the Adidas logo plastered prominently on the box.

Sharp

Appealing to a different group of geek, Sharp had on display their Tokai Challenger, a solar-powered car which won the Global Green Challenge race in 2009.

Riding on the 3D Blu-ray craze, Sharp also had HDTVs with integrated Blu-ray players on display. In the picture above, CES attendees were treated to a live demo of the TV's capabilities.

Pictured here is Sharp's HT-SB500 soundbar system, which brings 3.1 audio to your home theater setup. The system comes with a remote control that also can be used to control a Sharp AQUOS HDTV, assuming you have one as well.

Sharp also has their Blu-ray enabled Home Theater in a Box, with the BD-MPC41U. Aside from a soundbar and subwoofer, you also get two rear channel speakers for the complete surround experience.

If wireless is your thing, Sharp's got their BD-HP70U that connects to your home wireless network with WiFi support.

Shure

The Shure 55SH microphone is a nod to the traditional micrphones used in the past; retro trendy, yet boasting the latest microphone technologies of today.

Here are some new sound isolating earphones from Shure, namely the SE425 and the SE535. Not exactly for the cheap, these babies are meant for the high-end spectrum of the market.

Shure also had a selection of over-ear headphones on display, with the ones pictured above intended for professional use by deejays and the like.

Silverstone Technology

Pictured here is the Silverstone SG07, which according to the rep manning the booth, is still a very early prototype. What's really interesting is the use of a 600W power supply within, given the relatively cramped innards that are typical of small form-factor cases such as these.

Also new to CES by Silverstone is their new FT02 casing; a behemoth of a PC case that's also made entirely out of aluminum.

Another look at the internals of the FT02, this time in sweet, sweet red. Silverstone reps say that they're still mulling over whether color variants will be manufactured for sale, citing manufacturing costs and low consumer demand as factors to consider beforehand.

Here's the FT02's innards again, this time packed with hardware. Note the copious number of drive bays on the left for hard disks, which can be removed without the use of tools.

Skullcandy

SkullCandy was also at CES, displaying their range of funky headphones for the trendy youth market.

More headphones from Skullcandy, this time from their 2XL range.

Spotted at CES was famous geek Leo Laporte, shown doing a live-recording of popular podcast This Week in Tech, or TWiT for short.

For the longest time, we all thought Body Glove made surfing gear, t-shirts and shorts. At CES, we discovered that they also clothe gadgets and tech.

The famous Parrot by Starck speakers now come in a range of awesome new colors.

Random geek sighting: a guy walking around with an array of mini-screens stuck to the back of his jacket. Funky marketing stunt, or just plain geeky? You decide.

While the Singapore market is nowhere close to tasting the potential speed of 4G networks, American provider Sprint is already doing just that.

Not your everyday remote-controlled toy, the Parrot AR.Drone is a light 'quadricopter' drone that's controlled by - get this - your iPod touch. Two cameras on the drone send visuals back to your iPod touch, letting you see what it 'sees', with imaginary monsters and fighter planes to attack.

Meet the new HDMI Type D connector, which isn't much bigger than microUSB, part of the HDMI 1.4 spec which was on show at the HDMI TechZone at CES 2010.