CES: Mobility at the ShowStoppers event

CES 2008 in Vegas doesn't seem quite as busy on the show floor, but there were a ton of press at the Digital Experience! and ShowStoppers events. There isn't a ton of new and breakthrough devices, but there are some cool products if you look around a bit. I had a chance to check out a few mobile devices, accessories and software solutions at Digital Experience! and ShowStoppers. You can check out my image gallery that shows some of what I saw these last couple of days.

	Image Gallery: Mobile gadgets and accessories at Digital Experience! and ShowStoppers at CES 2008 in Vegas.

I covered most of what I saw at Digital Experience! so the rest of this post is focused on what I saw at Showstoppers last night. There were over 120 companies at the event and I cruised through every row trying to find the latest and greatest in mobile products. Some of the companies I enjoyed hearing more about included Archos, Etymotic, Garmin, Otter Products, Pharos, Neuros, Simulscribe, BlueAnt, Bug Labs, Lenovo, and Retrevo. As you can see there was not of ton of mobile companies, but there were a few more that I am already very familiar with and did not have the time to visit, such as Kingston, Parrot, Opera, Mobivox, and more.

I have heard a lot about Archos products in the past, but this was the first time I had a chance to hold them myself and check out their products. They just announced the Archos TV+ WiFi Digital Video Recorder. I also checked out their 607 and 706 WiFi portable media players and may have to check one of these out as a solution for my portable media desires.

I am in the hunt for a good Bluetooth headset since hands-free solutions are required in Washington State in July of this year. I have heard that the Etymotic earphones are one of the best for high quality sound and was very interested to check out the EtyBlue Bluetooth headset with removable boom. The comparison test blew me away and convinced me to give the headset a try. If the actual audio clarity is as good as the test then I'll be sold. I should be evaluating a set of these soon.

Another Bluetooth headset I saw was the upcoming BlueAnt Z9 headset that is fully voice controlled. You use voice commands to pair the device and perform other functions.

I had a chance to meet with my friends at Neuros Technology and was pleased to see they received a nice piece of coverage on the Neuros OSD over on New York Times. The Neuros OSD allows you to free your media by recording content from your video source and easily getting it converted to various mobile formats for viewing on the go.

The SimulScribe visual voicemail service looks like a great solution for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and other mobile phones and I plan to give it a try. You can use it to consolidate voicemail from your office, home, and mobile phone.

One of the coolest products that I saw that may cause me to pull out the credit card was the Bug Labs modular Linux mobile device. Geeks who like to tinker and hack are encourage to try Bug Labs and hack away. There is a BUGbase that you build upon and then insert modules like a LCD touch screen display, GPS receiver module, digital camera module, and motion detector/accelerometer. Unfortunately, they did not have a working model to see in action. There is special pricing available now for early adopters so if you are a mobile geek who likes to tinker then check out their site.