Windows Mobile in dashboard

I like this concept from Celio because it leverages the smartphone platform, and more importantly, your data. They showed me this working mock-up. Look close because the automobile dashboard is solely a representative picture. It’s the 7-inch touchscreen display that’s real. That screen is commonly available as an option on autos, but what’s uncommon is to see Windows Mobile on it.

Yup, it’s another application of Celio’s technology in action. Concept only for now, but I could see it become reality. Smartphones are gaining traction over feature-phones, for one. And folks want access to their data all around them. If your existing phone and data plan can provide connectivity to the car, think about what you can do. Tap a contact name and have Google Maps directions appear without any typing or steam personalized audio from your home to your car. While a full-fledged PC and OS work here as well, this has to be far less costly while providing a good portion of the same functionality.

Dell's $99 Mini 9

We heard that subsidized Dell netbooks were coming and now they’re here. For a limited time, anyway. Dell just announced that from now until the end of January, you can nab a Dell Mini 9  for $99 after a $350 rebate. Of course to get that deal, you’ll need to commit to a two-year AT&T data plan commitment. Essentially, this deal is structured the same as the Acer one that hit Radio Shack last month.

Specs for the subsidized Dell Mini 9 include: 1.6GHz Atom, 8.9-inch display, 512 MB of RAM, 8GB SSD, 4-cell battery, integrated HSDPA and Window XP. Note: pencil not included. I’m still not sold on a subsidized netbook, but that’s because I use multiple devices and prefer an external 3G adapter. Folks that don’t want to rely on WiFi hotspots or don’t have a 3G phone to tether might find this to be a good deal.

Here at the Microsoft Windows Mobile booth. Where’s the flash? The cool new devices?

OQO Model 2+

I spent some time at the Intel booth this morning at CES and was glad to see them with an entire display of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).  Intel has been pushing MIDs for a while and it is good to see a fair number of units coming to fruition.

I could only get photos of a few of the models due to the crush of people crowding the displays.  This was easily the busiest display booth I have seen yet at CES showing how popular portable computers have become, at least with the crowd that attends the CES.  Intel is using the term MID loosely as they had a few netbooks on display too so that may have played a role in the big crowd.

I got a chance to play with the newly announced OQO Model 2+ that Intel was showing off due to the Atom processor inside.  The OQO has an OLED screen, the first on a PC as far as I am aware.  The screen looked nice and bright but not much different than the displays on all the other non-OLED displays being shown.  While I was snapping photos of the OQO display model it went dead and had to be replaced with another unit.  I hope that’s not significant.

I played with MIDs from Aigo, Benq, Compal and others.  My favorite device of all I saw was the UMID, a tiny clamshell laptop MID.  The UMID seemed to garner a lot of interest with attendees which leads me to believe that folks are naturally drawn to the laptop form factor.  That’s why I think netbooks have done so well, it’s a form people are familiar with and can envision how it would work for them.  Enjoy these photos snapped in the Intel booth after the jump.  Please forgive me for any poor images, the lighting was terrible and the crowd was jostling me every time I tried to take a picture.

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I had a chance to run through the Asus booth and it’s amazing how much focus is on the Eee PC line. Asus has a decent amount of floor space and I’d guestimate that at least half of it is devoted to netbooks. I was joking last night that I’m waiting to see Asus “create” a new model that was exactly the same as an older one. How they keep all these straight with the minor feature differences is beyond me.

I did get my hands finger on the Asus Eee PC T91 to tap the resistive touch-display. Since the unit was looping a vid, all I could do was move the cursor around: nothing earth-shattering in the experience as it’s the same as any other decent resistive touch panel. I was happy to see N10J with the improved keyboard. Have a walk around with me….

Gadget freaks that we are we are always on the lookout to spot great mobile gear in use in public.  It gives us a feel for how far into the maintream particular types of mobile gear are penetrating.   We pay special attention to the mobile gear we spot in use at the CES convention to help us spot trends.

We expected to see netbooks in use at the CES and we haven’t been disappointed.  What has surprised us however is how much the lowly netbook has penetrated into the press corps here at the CES.  Sure we expected to see members of the press who cover technology to be savvy about the mobile benefits of the small and light netbook but even so the number of netbooks we’ve seen in just a few days has been staggering.  Everytime we enter a press room or bloggers lounge at the CES we are sure to see multiple netbooks in use with fingers flying over the keyboards.

One time yesterday I walked into a crowded press room and started counting netbooks in use on the tables and gave up after hitting 20.  That is easily the most netbooks I have ever seen in one room before, and that includes retail outlets.  The lowly netbook is here to stay no question.  What is really cool is seeing how often netbook users are approached by others wanting to know how well they work.  The conversation quickly turns to how easy netbooks are to travel with and use in mobile settings such as the convention.

I would have to say that the various EEE PC netbook models are the most popular netbooks in use at the CES if you lump all models together.  I’ve also seen quite a few MSI Winds (or rebadged variants) too.  I have only seen one Dell Mini 9 and no Acer Aspire Ones.

I still think the Pogoplug from Cloud Engines is appealing. Perhaps not for tech-savvy folks, but for people who want a plug-and-play solution to remotely access any USB drive at home. When we reported on the device, there were a few questions, so we asked them on the floor at Showstoppers. The room lights were dimmed for no apparent reason during the very short vid, hence the dark and grainy nature of the video. At least you get to see it the same way we did. More important are the answers we hear about security and number of drives you can connect.

The press was all over the Sony Vaio P with its insanely high resolution small screen.  We were not the only ones covering it at the CES as Jenn Lee of Pocketables got a hands-on session with the P.  She has a lot of photos and impressions written about the P.  It must be nice, she says she’s going to buy one.

Microsoft released Windows 7 for public beta today and it’s limited to the first 2.5 million people. You can find the download here on Microsoft’s site for either 32- or 64-bit. Actually, you can find the link to the download to be precise. Folks all over the CES show venue, on Twitter and Facebook are reporting that it’s difficult to actually get the bits for the beta. Either everyone’s trying at once or the servers are taking more of a beating than Mike Tyson in his last boxing match.

In any case, I’m not sure I’d wait too long before trying to get Windows 7 because I have a feeling those 2.5 million downloads will eventually get used up fast. After the slowdown, of course. I’m hoping to grab a copy when I return from CES on Monday, so somebody save me a spot, OK? I was already surprised with how well it was running on an Intel Atom netbook, and that was just the pre-beta. Hopefully, it’s even better now.

Slacker on iPhone

Here I thought the Slacker folks were all done at CES, since they outed their free edition for BlackBerry devices yesterday. Nope, they’ve got another platform in the works, although it’s not available just yet. Dave Zatz cajoled the Slacker team to open up their loose lips: they’ve got a working iPhone client coming as early as today to the App Store.

Nice arm-twisting Dave: you got news on a secret project and all we got was the standard show on a BlackBerry. Heck if Slacker could cache hours of music for offline use on my iPhone, I’d download it ASAP. Unfortunately, no dice on Apple’s platform: you need to be connected, just like Pandora. I’ll give it a closer look when it hits, but I’m not sold on switching audio clients  just yet. My gut says that Apple won’t allow for cached music in an app like this. Pity.