New gadgets to go at CeBit

This display from Collevo is rated at IP65, which means it is protected against dust and moderately powerful water jets. According to sales manager Sylvia Tang it is destined for outdoor applications.

This 65-inch LCD monitor from Taipei-based Collevo is believed to be one of the largest LCD touchscreens available. Sales manager Sylvia Tang demonstrates the display, which is sold to schools in the Far East. The company is now looking to expand sales of the screen into Europe, but could not provide pricing information.

This Asus motherboard/graphics combination is meant mainly for serious — and seriously well-heeled — games players, but is also likely to find its way into industrial and high-performance computing applications in future, where eight small displays can be a cheap alternative to a single high-resolution display.

The first eye opener is the Asus Eee PC which gets an upgrade to the Eee 900 model. It will come with Windows XP as an option--at an extra cost of course, due to the license. The operating system will benefit from the enhanced resolution of the upgrade Eee, at 1,024x600 pixels rather than 800x480 pixels. The older Eee 701 will also be made available in Europe with Windows XP. Both will go on sale in April.

The Eee 900 will also come in a Linux flavor, at 399 euros, which equates to around $600 US. The Windows version will be pricier, although it is not yet known by how much.

Asus chief executive Jerry Shen unveiled the Eee 900 on Tuesday at the CeBIT technology fair in Germany. He said the device would help Asus enter the top six of laptop manufacturers within the next three years--it currently resides at the number-seven spot.

Shen showed journalists at the Eee 900's unveiling some sketches drawn up by the designers of the original Eee PC.

Shen also outlined the various aspects of the Eee philosophy, ranging from "compact and light" to "stylish". It remains to be seen how "short boot time" will be affected by the addition of Windows XP.

The Asus/Microsoft press conference drew a large crowd of journalists, pictured here waiting to get in after the event was delayed by a Wi-Fi failure. The connectivity issue was allegedly solved through the use of a T-Mobile HSDPA dongle.

Within its 30mm-thick case it packs an Intel Core 2 Duo ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processor running at 1.2GHz, 2GB of Ram that can be expanded to 4GB, and an 80GB hard drive. It has built-in Bluetooth and 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking, together with an HSDPA datacard and a 1.3 megapixel camera.

The one feature it lacks is a mouse-pointer: that's because the 8.9-inch WXGA screen is touch-sensitive. Dialogue claims up to five hours battery life for the notebook. Prices range from $1,700 to $2,000.

Dialogue chief executive Roland Pinto said the company designed the screen's hinge to allow the whole display to move forward when the person in front tips their seat back. The slender of wrist can type with their hands below the screen, he explained.

Axxen's Skype USB pen has a standard USB connector at one end and a mini jack at the other for plugging in a headset. When plugged into a PC, the pre-installed Skype client fires up.

Wow Technology founder Anders Bergstrom said he expects it to be available for about £130 ($260). A wired version, the WowPad Digi, will cost a little less.

MyStor's solid state hard drives have a 32GB capacity and are available in IDE or SCSI format for €400 euros ($600) and €500 ($760) euros respectively.

This PC built by Foxconn for CeBit 2008 is driving eight displays through four graphics cards--seen here with Foxconn's Lucy Elaine showing it running a flight simulator.