Color display, Barnes and Noble partner and a great price

Pandigital, a company best known for creating wireless digital photo frames, took a novel step forward with the introduction of a $200 full-color e-book reader with multimedia capabilities and a Barnes & Noble affiliation. In addition to the unit’s e-reader functionality, you can store photos, music, and movies, and use the device as a photo frame when you’re not reading.

The Down Low

The first version of the Pandigital Novel is a 7-inch eReader with an integrated and very fulfilling Barnes & Noble eBook Store experience. The comparatively large screen is a full-color LCD touch-screen display. It has Wi-Fi connectivity and a full set of reading enhancements, like a dictionary and notetakers. You can run a browser or play music while you read, since it’s multitasking capable, but the Internet search is not integrated into the book experience itself.

One of the cooler things on my list is a night reading mode where the text inverts from black-on-white to white-on-black. (If your spouse complains about your nocturnal reading habits this is a great answer.) It’ll also take advantage of the cutting edge Barnes & Noble LendMe technology, making it one of the first e-readers to work like a 14-day lending library.

I called Ross Rubin, an NPD analyst who monitors e-books, for his opinion. He believes that Amazon and Barnes & Noble have an advantage (presumably over iTunes), since both have vast databases of avid readers. “Barnes & Noble is reaching out to be the default bookstore on such devices as this one, the Plastic Logic device, and the forthcoming RCA e-reader from Audiovox,” says Rubin.

One of the tradeoffs of using an LCD screen is a shorter battery life, significantly shorter than the Kindle’s e-paper screen. One of the other tradeoffs is using Wi-Fi (home and hotspots) versus the Kindle’s data connection that works anywhere.

On the plus side—let’s face it—the iPad, a device with many similar features, costs $500. The Pandigital Novel is $200. The new Pandigital Novel eReader is an Android-based system, though it does not yet support downloadable apps.

The end result? Affordable, handsome, and a welcome contender to the e-reader plus world. It’s on my list as the closest thing to an iPad at one-third the price. And I’m betting that future versions will take more advantage of the Android operating system.

To make sure that the apps garnered a public life, I, along with Reyne Rice from ToyTrends  gave the following presentation.

get-pr-at-app-camp

Sign of mom’s importance to the tech scene are everywhere.  This year, you’ll see Hallmark going mobile for those of you too busy to send a card from your PC. Or you can choose to have Hallmark pick one and send it for you.

But that’s just the icing on the Mother’s Day cake. Here are a few other ideas:

 Acer at Wal-Mart

Acer Aspire at a WalMart near you

One of the best deals of the season is this violet-colored (they call it amythest) Aspire One netbook. I’ve been using mine for a few weeks and have been pleased with the weight, the  battery life, and most of all the price ($286). Your mom will thank you. Her shoulders will thank her.

Fit Moms

Whether mom’s a gym rat or an armchair athlete, she’ll get lots of use out of Fitbit. For $99 Fitbit monitors your exercise and calories burned, as well as your sleep patterns, using either its base station to transmit wirelessly or by attaching it to your PC.  Clip it onto your clothes and forget about it until you’re ready to analyze your bodily data.

The Kodak Slice: Built for Sharing

 

Photo Sharing At CES 2010, Kodak made it abundantly clear that moms were the Chief Memory Officers with a series of videos capturing mom-fluencers on camera. The new Kodak Slice is not inexpensive ($349), but it’s an amazing compilation of features like 14-megapixel resolution and style. You snap your photo and immediately tag it to share on your favorite social networks. The LCD’s touchscreen interface lets you adjust your picture settings. It’ll also let you tag a face in your photo and then recognize that person evermore.

Personalized Flip Slide

For pocket documentarians, it’s the Flip SlideHD. Not only does it shoot up to four hours of HD video, it makes it more fun than ever. You can order a variety of different cases or have your own personal photo on your Flip. A big red record button, a 3-inch screen, and the ability to play video on your HD-TV (with an HDMI Flip cable) make this the best Flip yet ($279).

Bluetooth Bracelets

If mom is on the cutting edge, you’ll want to present her with Atomic9’s Bluetooth Wristband Speakerphone. Seriously answer calls by talking to your wrist. Or just tell it who you want to call. You’re unlikely to lose it because it’s strapped on, but if you do, no problem. It vibrates when you’re 30 feet away from it.

The sentiment turns out to have been shared by a number of companies on the call. Six months later, Radsliff is now the Board Chairman of Agetek Alliance, an alliance designed to promote an awareness of the products and services aimed at an aging population as well as to pump up the public profile of its members.  Other  Agetek members include ClearSounds,a maker of devices for assistive hearing, Jitterbug , a cell phone and service plan aimed at older users,  and  First Street an online and offline catalog of boomer products. For the full list of members of for information about joingin visit the Agetek website.

Is there a place for an organization like Agetek?  You tell me.  Every hour 330 Americans reach the age of 60.  That’s almost 8000 a day or roughly 2.9 million a year rushing headlong towards towards  Agetek’s demographic.

*Disclosure: The Agetek Alliance held its first meeting at an event that my company produces at CES called the Silvers Summit.

The handsets come in a few varieties and they’re all designed by Michael Young, a designer with a distinctly Zen sensibility. If you like what you see at Muji or MOMA you’ll love this.

The entry model looks very retro and has a great weighted feel to it. You plug it into the speaker jack on any smartphone. I used the MM02 with Skype and an iTouch to make phone calls all day. The benefit was that I could use other apps while talking… a big benefit for those of you who have ever tried looking up a number while you’re speaking into the phone.

The MM03 Curve is a familiar-looking arched handset with Bluetooth support and the MM04 is the top of the line. Its sleek silver design can be turned horizontally and used as a docking station/speakers or held in your hand for speaking. With Bluetooth, Brunner says, he’s seen people place their iPhone near a window for good reception but sit at their desks and speak on their handsets.

Reasons to like Moshi Moshi:

• It means Talk Talk in Japanese;
• It lets you keep your touch screen away from your face (and face lotions and sunscreens); and
• It protects you from the mobile phone’s radiation.

Of course, it’ll set you back anywhere from $79 to $199 depending on which model you choose, and your friends may chuckle when they see you using a handset, but let ‘em laugh. Handsets are enjoying a bit of a renaissance.

From my perch I see Blackberry’s

First Generation Smartphone Grows OOOOLLLLDD

interest waning; its major strengths are pushed email and a wide variety of phones with keyboards.  If you’d rather type than touch it’s the way to go.

Apple’s iPhone has matured as a fabulous media/entertainment device.  Apple’s own website touts iTunes, HD video capabilities, and millions of apps on its own list of accomplishments.  Yes, it also searches the Internet and well, but…

Google Android’s got search, navigation, and mail at the soul of its machine. Androids ships with strong connections to Google’s apps and services, including App Pack Gmail, Google Talk, Messaging, Voice Mail, Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.  Apple’s iPhone can certainly handle the same tasks, but the emphasis is on media–my photos, music, video.

With this logic, my clear choice was the Google Nexus One, but yours might be very different.  (And after Apple’s news that it would go after the Nexus One and other Android phones for violation of patents, I’m getting that cold feeling back in my feet.)

Other reasons I find Google phones appealing:

Less Is More: Apple passed the 150,000 mark for apps developed for iTunes. It could take the better part of a day to sort through crossword puzzle choices.  Android has only 20,000, Blackberry less still. Me, I’d rather have an edited list of best of breed apps than a free for all. I find iTunes offers hundreds of apps for each of my interests, but a large number of them turn out to be underwhelming.

Google Docs: As someone who knows how to get things done in Microsoft Office that even Microsoft can’t do, change does not come easy to me. I find many aspects of Google Docs inscrutable, but as sharing docs amongst devices and collaborators is becoming increasingly important, Google’s got the lead.

Though I expect Google will push its way into the content market (e-books from the Google store, for example, will be able to be read on most computers, phones, or e-book readers), I’m not going the single device route quite yet. My iPod Touch is still the best way to enjoy music, podcasts, photos, and videos.  And my Amazon Kindle is still the best screen format for e-books. But, when it comes to business, my soul is going to Google (at least this year).

This year’s show feels a little recession strapped in that the toy manufacturers are packing volumes of value into their packages and not designing big expensive toys.

There was a time when plush animals costing thousands were plentiful on the floor.  Today’s show was a bit more austere but amazingly creative, which goes to show you that having less can sometimes be more.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Lego: Lego introduced a new breed of  board games at Toy Fair. Your job is to build the game out of Legos (and decide the rules of engagement) before you play.  It’s a brilliant idea–a twist on the family board game, capturing the love of Legos. What a mashup!  The digerati are awaiting Lego Universe, the company’s huge online world. Most of the games, like Pyramid (pictured here), are priced between $10 and $20.  At the high end, Creationary costs $24.

Mattel: Mattel’s star of the show was a dog collar aptly named Puppy Tweets. Once the collar is placed on the pup, he can send a tweet (or is it a woof directly to Twitter).  The USB collar uses Bluetooth to communicate with Twitter so proximity is important. For $30 it’s pure unadulterated fun–a mashup of pets/gadgets and social media. You can follow your dog and have them make other doggie friends on Twitter. 

E-readers: I wondered when the first e-readers for kids would appear and they have. Systems like Leapfrog’s Tag Reader have been serving the function of e-readers for a long time. Fisher Price announced a super-duper 5-in-1 product called the iXL. It’s a 3- to 6-year-old’s rendering of My First iPod, combining a photo album, e-reader, notebook, game machine, and music player into one crash-proof device.  Price: $80.

TRAKR: One much buzzed about fave on the show floor was Wild Planet’s new Sky Video TRAKR.  At the upper end of the price range ($129), this packed-with-technology gizmo is a toy that looks like a tank/robot.  You control it with a gameplayer-like remote control that has a small LCD VGA-quality screen, joystick, and buttons.  Using simple downloadable programs or even creating your own programs, the TRAKR transmits color video and audio and data.  It can memorize a path to your kitchen or be trained to scare the pants of your mom when she enters your room.  It’ll even have night vision just to make things interesting.

Talkatoo: Of course some of the coolest products are found in the recesses of the Javits Center, usually start-up companies with some very passionate owners.  For instance, there’s talkatoo–a small, colorful pendant that allows for a 30-second voice recording.   For $16 bucks, you can carry your kids’ voices everywhere with you.

TV Hat: Now here’s one that’ll have you laughing and shaking your head in amazement. But no one will be able to see you because you’ll be under the TV Hat.  This sub-$30 hat (or visor) has a tiny pouch for you to insert your iPhone or other video player. Underneath the hood, a prism brings the image into focus and built-in earphones create your own private studio.  As long as you’re comfortable looking like a cross between a Klu-Klux Klan’er and a HAZMAT worker, you will fall in love with the TV Hat–a poor man’s solution to TV glasses.  (Imagine each kid in your car wearing these in the back seat! You might get pulled over for kidnapping!)  Of course it made the worst of show list over at http.bored.com, but it’ll either be the next pet rock or not.

Geocaching: For the family that likes finding its way together, GeoMates Jr. from Apisshere is an entry-level $70 GPS.  It’s filled with 25,000 geocache locations from all over the country. Geocaches are markers or hidden boxes or anything you want that you place somewhere and mark its coordinates on a GPS map.

My Ami: Finally there’s My Ami–created by a mom after giving her kid an iPod and watching it tossed from the shopping cart one too many times. My Ami is a bear that conveniently holds the iPod or iTouch securely and out of harm’s way.  There’s the suction cup version for strollers or car seats and the clamp-on for shopping carts. Advocates of less screen-time for little ones will go apoplectic over this one, but hey, for many moms, it’s whatever it takes to get you through the day.

The signs of the impending wreckage are everywhere. In London, they’ve padded certain phone poles to stop overly focused texters from walking into them. In the U.S., approximately 40% of automobile accidents (one occurs every 13 seconds) are based on inattentiveness, with cellphone distractions being the primary cause. Facebook makes it way too easy to fritter away the day trading repartees with kindergarten buddies, leaving you wondering where the day went. Our kids are more comfortable texting it than saying it. The latest study from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds our kids spend more than 50 hours of screen time each week. Not 50 serial hours though; they just multitask screen time better than the rest of us. (The homework/iPod/Facebook/texting/TV combo is fave.)

But this week was the high tech equivalent of the fat lady singing. The original zealots have started to defect and ponder what tech hath wrought.

The first time I heard Jaron Lanier speak, he was a dreadlocked college student talking about something he coined “virtual reality.” He talked of avatars floating around new worlds. Well, he’s just written a new book (that’s right, a book) called You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. In the book he laments that some of the Internet’s most basic tenets like anonymity and crowdsourcing (the notion that the crowd always knows best) have made the Internet a place where quality information is hard to come by.

Last week in Davos at the World Global Summit, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, slipped off the tech bandwagon when he suggested that kids would have a “deep reading” problem—reading for deeper cognition—because of the proliferation of instantaneous (never mind small-screened) devices.

And on Tuesday evening (for the few of you who don’t watch On Demand), you can see Digital Nation, a PBS special devoted to the yin/yang of living digitally. Does it bring us further apart or closer together? Open our minds to new ideas or shut them down? There you’ll find Douglas Rushkoff, another early cheerleader for all things digital and a co-producer of the program. Rushkoff makes the Internet sound a bit like Woodstock—the ideal that will never be realized again and admits that he does not use the Internet for fun.

There’s some truth to the notion that, like Woodstock became Altamont, the Internet became big business. But there’s even more truth and an imperative to the notion that we’ve got to learn some new digital survival skills. Those who know how to get the information they need and then get out will be the smart ones moving forward. Those who learn to control the Internet, and not vice versa will win. I could surf the web all day for more anecdotes in defense of my story. Discipline, willpower, and knowing that none of you have the attention to read this in its entirety trump more surfing.

The TVs came to CES in a dizzying display of shapes and sizes. Mobs of people wearing special 3D glasses made it feel like you were walking into the cast of Mission Impossible. All were staring at cathedral-sized walls of 3D piled upon 3D. Those of us old enough to remember the red/blue cardboard glasses we got at the movies remember that the only decent part about the 3D experience was faking those “scary moments” as an excuse to grab the hand of a dates.

After three decades of hibernation, 3D is back to stay. The buzz on the street was that the Samsung quality was unbeatable. One of the features that people really loved, called proximity sensing, turns on the TV for you automatically when you pop into view. Most of the TVs on the show floor were LCD TVs that use special active shutter glasses. The glasses provide the illusion of 3D by switching quickly between your two eyes.

Panasonic, unlike the others, will stick to plasma and will be first to market a reasonable TV. And LG’s Infinia line of 3D-ready TVs has just the hint of an edge. Mostly it is just a beautifully designed thin piece of glass.
It wasn’t only 3D TVs–the Acer Aspire 3D is the world’s first 3D notebook. And since it starts at $799 it’s a great way to get your feet wet with 3D without drowning in expensive 3D televisions. The Sony PlayStation demonstrated future 3D qualities as well.

Bottom line: 3D glasses, though much improved, are still kinda creepy to watch TV in. Viewing from a side angle blurs the picture, and there’s still very little content to choose from.

Right now it’s a tough sell. You need to witness 3D in the flesh or you’ll be disappointed with what you buy. Animations look more natural than sports or nature photographically, probably because you’re willing to believe animation can have little butterflies flying around your head.

To my eye, real images like landscape footage seem either to be jumping at you in multiple steps, or sometimes recessed into a background that sprints out at you. Sony and Nvidia’s 3D both looked incredible, but it could have just been better footage. As of now, 3D filmmaking requires a special, very expensive film camera made by just a few manufacturers like Mitsubishi and Sony.

After 30 years of watching CES cycles of product introductions, I’ve got a rule about this. Three years from CES to mass market, so watch out, they’re coming at you–in 3D.

But just you wait. Already ESPN, Sony, Discovery, and IMAX have announced 3D networks. (Ouch about that hockey stick in my face!) As they say in CES Land: It’s not a matter of why, it’s a matter of when.