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CNN Saturday Morning News
Discussion on Comdex Technology Show
Aired November 23, 2002 - 07:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRIS OSBOURN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, James Bond, of course, is not the only one who can get some very cool toys. The Comdex Technology Convention has been showing off gadgets in Las Vegas all week and our very own Inspector Gadget, Daniel Sieberg, is here with some new gadgets to show us just in time for...
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: I'll take that as a compliment.
OSBOURN: ... yes -- inspector Gadget. Well, it's kind of a double shot. Because you've got cutting edge technology and some very cool things, correct?
SIEBERG: Right, absolutely. You know, Comdex has come down a lot in the last couple of years. We were there just this past week looking at all sorts of gadgets and products. A little less attendance than in the last couple of years, but still touting lots of innovation and lots of pretty cool stuff.
And what we've brought back are some finalists from PC Magazine's awards for best of show, best gadgets in the show.
So we're going to start with sort of the biggest ones on the table here.
Now, the idea behind this is a combination of technologies here that are being used. The -- we've got a laptop here but it doesn't need to be used with a laptop -- in fact the idea behind this wireless monitor is its meant to be used with your desktop PC. So you can have it on your desktop, and you can take your monitor with you, and we've got a ViewSonic Smart Display.
It's using Microsoft Smart Display software. The idea here, you can just get some resolution on the screen. If you want to go and sit on your couch and surf the web you can take this with you wherever you go -- it's the portability factor that they're sort of touting with this technology.
It was just recently released. ViewSonic is the only one currently making this airpanel display -- this is about a ten-inch one. It goes for a thousand dollars.
The 15-inch one goes for about $1,300, so not cheap. This type of technology is going to be used by what we call "early adopters," people who just can't live without this technology, but, again, the idea is portable -- portable web browsing -- it uses a wireless connection between your PC and the monitor, so it's an evolution of the monitor and this thing, so you can just take it with you instead of those big bulky monitors you've got on your desk.
OSBOURN: It's incredible. You're the perfect person to ask about this. You hear a lot about wireless web technology. This is some of the cutting edge web technology and the wireless sense of it. How does it compare to a desktop in terms of the web experience; is it comparable now? Has it gone that far?
SIEBERG: It is comparable -- it depends of course on how far away you go from your source -- you don't want to be too far away. It gives you about 100 feet, roughly. If you want to be surfing the web and doing that sort of thing. Otherwise it starts to drop in and out; you don't get your connection so well. But this is the ViewSonic Smart Display -- the airpanel. As I say, works with just about any laptop -- you do need to be running Windows XP, which is the most recent version of Microsoft's operating system.
OSBOURN: Pretty much anywhere; you can go on, check your e-mail, surf the web.
SIEBERG: Yes, it doesn't have a keyboard, as you can see, it uses a stylus to do all sorts of things -- but from one stylus to another, people may have been hearing about tablet PCs -- we've got one here; this one was also voted as one of the finalists in the show. This is the Toshiba Protege, now it's fairly straightforward looking, but what you can see here is this monitor swivels around so it's -- it looks like a typical laptop or notebook as we swivel the monitor around here, you'll see that the screen will now change and the -- and the -- the -- you know so you go from the landscape to the portrait and it also uses digital aid so now that's the key thing when you have a tablet PC is it allows you to write on the screen and then of course to carry it around like a laptop it's got the features of both, essentially.
OSBOURN: So you can also say what you write in that sense.
SIEBERG: You can say what you write and you can also print it out and do all sorts of things. Now this is just one of about a dozen manufacturers who are making these tablet PCs using Microsoft's operating system tablet PC -- this one a little bit higher end it goes for about $2,300 but the specifications or the power of it is comparable to a typical laptop it's fairly powerful but at 1.3 GHz processor it could feasibly do just about anything you want to do on the web and surfing and doing all of that.
OSBOURN: Small compact convergence -- I wanted to ask about price, because it looked like it would be expensive.
SIEBERG: Yes, this one, about $2,300 -- it's still one of the higher end of the tablet PCs that are on the market now, but it's definitely popular, and then we're going to go from here to one of the cell phones that was voted as one of the finalists on the show floor.
This one's from Nokia called the Nokia 3650 that probably the most interesting thing about this is it's typically like a normal cell phone the Nokia phone you can also see the numbers here at the bottom here are shaped like an old rotary phone, and it's also got a camera built in so if we can go to the camera feature and it's got a digital camera -- so if I'm out walking around and I see a product I want to take a picture of it and say send it to somebody and tell them gosh I -- is this what we want to buy this couch, you can use it as a digital camera and send your pictures over the web using this Nokia 3650 camera.
Now this one goes for between about $200 and $400 but if less than $400 -- it's not on the market yet, this one's coming out early next year -- as is the ViewSonic which is...
OSBOURN: Cutting edge -- cutting edge...
SIEBERG: Right, this is like early cutting edge.
OSBOURN: You can take your picture on that?
SIEBERG: You can take a picture.
OSBOURN: And then send it to a hard line?
SIEBERG: Right you can send it to anybody you want over e-mail and, of course, it is also a cell phone, as well, so it's got all sorts of different features.
Now one of the ones that was perhaps most talked about and actually won best in show while we were out there is the Fossil or the abacus TDA watch.
Now we talk about James Bond -- this is where convergence comes in. This is an early prototype. This is also not available till about mid-next year. It's going to go for about $200 -- the idea is there's a stylus -- people know that you have to use a stylus when you're using a PDA -- and personal digital assistant. You would type on the screen with this little tiny stylus it's one of the things that got the most buzz out of this show. It's going to go for about $200. It uses the palm operating system, Palm 4.1 -- so it's got all the features you would have, an organizer, you know, a timetable, a calendar, all the things you would think of -- with a typical palm pilot -- but it would be the size of a watch. And, by the way, it does tell the time. And, as I say, it goes for about $200. Now if that's just too small for you to look at there is also a keyboard that one of our producers just really enjoyed this is from pocket top...
OSBOURN: Excuse me, Dan, we're going to toss it back over to Catherine...
SIEBERG: Oh, absolutely, yes...
OSBOURN: And say we thank you for this cutting edge technology and the demonstration with all of this stuff; it looks very good.
Aired November 23, 2002 - 07:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRIS OSBOURN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, James Bond, of course, is not the only one who can get some very cool toys. The Comdex Technology Convention has been showing off gadgets in Las Vegas all week and our very own Inspector Gadget, Daniel Sieberg, is here with some new gadgets to show us just in time for...
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: I'll take that as a compliment.
OSBOURN: ... yes -- inspector Gadget. Well, it's kind of a double shot. Because you've got cutting edge technology and some very cool things, correct?
SIEBERG: Right, absolutely. You know, Comdex has come down a lot in the last couple of years. We were there just this past week looking at all sorts of gadgets and products. A little less attendance than in the last couple of years, but still touting lots of innovation and lots of pretty cool stuff.
And what we've brought back are some finalists from PC Magazine's awards for best of show, best gadgets in the show.
So we're going to start with sort of the biggest ones on the table here.
Now, the idea behind this is a combination of technologies here that are being used. The -- we've got a laptop here but it doesn't need to be used with a laptop -- in fact the idea behind this wireless monitor is its meant to be used with your desktop PC. So you can have it on your desktop, and you can take your monitor with you, and we've got a ViewSonic Smart Display.
It's using Microsoft Smart Display software. The idea here, you can just get some resolution on the screen. If you want to go and sit on your couch and surf the web you can take this with you wherever you go -- it's the portability factor that they're sort of touting with this technology.
It was just recently released. ViewSonic is the only one currently making this airpanel display -- this is about a ten-inch one. It goes for a thousand dollars.
The 15-inch one goes for about $1,300, so not cheap. This type of technology is going to be used by what we call "early adopters," people who just can't live without this technology, but, again, the idea is portable -- portable web browsing -- it uses a wireless connection between your PC and the monitor, so it's an evolution of the monitor and this thing, so you can just take it with you instead of those big bulky monitors you've got on your desk.
OSBOURN: It's incredible. You're the perfect person to ask about this. You hear a lot about wireless web technology. This is some of the cutting edge web technology and the wireless sense of it. How does it compare to a desktop in terms of the web experience; is it comparable now? Has it gone that far?
SIEBERG: It is comparable -- it depends of course on how far away you go from your source -- you don't want to be too far away. It gives you about 100 feet, roughly. If you want to be surfing the web and doing that sort of thing. Otherwise it starts to drop in and out; you don't get your connection so well. But this is the ViewSonic Smart Display -- the airpanel. As I say, works with just about any laptop -- you do need to be running Windows XP, which is the most recent version of Microsoft's operating system.
OSBOURN: Pretty much anywhere; you can go on, check your e-mail, surf the web.
SIEBERG: Yes, it doesn't have a keyboard, as you can see, it uses a stylus to do all sorts of things -- but from one stylus to another, people may have been hearing about tablet PCs -- we've got one here; this one was also voted as one of the finalists in the show. This is the Toshiba Protege, now it's fairly straightforward looking, but what you can see here is this monitor swivels around so it's -- it looks like a typical laptop or notebook as we swivel the monitor around here, you'll see that the screen will now change and the -- and the -- the -- you know so you go from the landscape to the portrait and it also uses digital aid so now that's the key thing when you have a tablet PC is it allows you to write on the screen and then of course to carry it around like a laptop it's got the features of both, essentially.
OSBOURN: So you can also say what you write in that sense.
SIEBERG: You can say what you write and you can also print it out and do all sorts of things. Now this is just one of about a dozen manufacturers who are making these tablet PCs using Microsoft's operating system tablet PC -- this one a little bit higher end it goes for about $2,300 but the specifications or the power of it is comparable to a typical laptop it's fairly powerful but at 1.3 GHz processor it could feasibly do just about anything you want to do on the web and surfing and doing all of that.
OSBOURN: Small compact convergence -- I wanted to ask about price, because it looked like it would be expensive.
SIEBERG: Yes, this one, about $2,300 -- it's still one of the higher end of the tablet PCs that are on the market now, but it's definitely popular, and then we're going to go from here to one of the cell phones that was voted as one of the finalists on the show floor.
This one's from Nokia called the Nokia 3650 that probably the most interesting thing about this is it's typically like a normal cell phone the Nokia phone you can also see the numbers here at the bottom here are shaped like an old rotary phone, and it's also got a camera built in so if we can go to the camera feature and it's got a digital camera -- so if I'm out walking around and I see a product I want to take a picture of it and say send it to somebody and tell them gosh I -- is this what we want to buy this couch, you can use it as a digital camera and send your pictures over the web using this Nokia 3650 camera.
Now this one goes for between about $200 and $400 but if less than $400 -- it's not on the market yet, this one's coming out early next year -- as is the ViewSonic which is...
OSBOURN: Cutting edge -- cutting edge...
SIEBERG: Right, this is like early cutting edge.
OSBOURN: You can take your picture on that?
SIEBERG: You can take a picture.
OSBOURN: And then send it to a hard line?
SIEBERG: Right you can send it to anybody you want over e-mail and, of course, it is also a cell phone, as well, so it's got all sorts of different features.
Now one of the ones that was perhaps most talked about and actually won best in show while we were out there is the Fossil or the abacus TDA watch.
Now we talk about James Bond -- this is where convergence comes in. This is an early prototype. This is also not available till about mid-next year. It's going to go for about $200 -- the idea is there's a stylus -- people know that you have to use a stylus when you're using a PDA -- and personal digital assistant. You would type on the screen with this little tiny stylus it's one of the things that got the most buzz out of this show. It's going to go for about $200. It uses the palm operating system, Palm 4.1 -- so it's got all the features you would have, an organizer, you know, a timetable, a calendar, all the things you would think of -- with a typical palm pilot -- but it would be the size of a watch. And, by the way, it does tell the time. And, as I say, it goes for about $200. Now if that's just too small for you to look at there is also a keyboard that one of our producers just really enjoyed this is from pocket top...
OSBOURN: Excuse me, Dan, we're going to toss it back over to Catherine...
SIEBERG: Oh, absolutely, yes...
OSBOURN: And say we thank you for this cutting edge technology and the demonstration with all of this stuff; it looks very good.
