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The Re Remote is a small accessory for your iPhone that turns it into a remote control for your home theater. The $70 dongle pairs with a special (free) app that lets you set up your phone just like a normal universal remote, with activities, macros, learning ability, customizable buttons — the whole bit. The dongle communicates via infrared, so it's perfectly compatible with most gear, and yes, it will work with the iPod Touch, too.

That's all well and good, but is the fundamental premise of the product — using your phone as a remote control — really sound? Strangely, I'm leaning towards no, mainly because I remember some surprisingly serious arguments over the remote control in my household growing up. I really wouldn't want that happening with my iPhone. Sure, you could just use the Re/iPhone combo as a secondary remote, but then why have it at all? Anyone dying to have this? If so, it should be out by spring.

New Kinetics

Smart dudes at Nanosys are figuring out a way to make the colors of LED lights more vivid, while using the same amount of energy as current LEDs. How are they accomplishing this feat? Why, they're using nanotechnology, of course.

They slather this nano goop over blue LED lights, because that color is the most energy-efficient. This strange semiconductor material changes the colors of those LEDs, resulting in a rainbow of hues that look a whole lot brighter.

Best of all, this nanotech can make the color rendering index (CRI) of warm white light look a lot more appealing. Bravo. Expect to see this tech on laptop displays, HDTV screens, and lighting fixtures by the end of this year.

Via Treehugger

You read that right. A plasma HDTV 152 inches large measured diagonally. 6.5 feet tall, 11.5-feet wide. The size of nine 50-inch sets. And it's real. Panasonic was using it to demo its 3D inside a presentation room, and a factory to mass produce them will be online in about a year.

What was showing were several ultra high-def clips in a format called 4K, which is technically 4096 x 2160 pixels - that's 8 million pixels, four times the resolution of today's puny 1920 x 1080p 2 million pixel displays. It even has a wider 17:9 aspect ratio.

No word on price, but there is a market for this beyond the Sultan of Brunei - commercial settings, Hollywood studios, small theaters, for instance. But five, 10 years from now, our walls could very well be adorned with a screen this size - or it could be the wall. Remember, 10 years ago, a then huge 50-inch panel cost $15,000.

A lot of new ebook ereader makers are trying to beat the ballyhooed Apple iWhateverthey'llcallit, due to be announced in 16 days (but who's counting) to the punch, but it's likely a needless rush. Ereaders will be a quarter to a third the price of the Apple iWhoziwhatzit, and will have their own dynamic market. After all, most cellphones phones sold are cheap talking/texting models, not the iPhone despite the sturm und drang.

Which brings us to the enTourage eDGe - that's their pretentious spelling, not mine - "dualbook," which is more than an ereader and less than the Apple iUknowwhat, and, at $490 when its available next month, is priced between a dedicated ereader and a tablet PC.

eDGe edge, seemingly, is its two screens - a 9.7-inch E Ink epaper ereader screen on the left and a 10.1-inch color LCD touchscreen tablet on the right. The right LCD side runs Android, but it's unclear both which version and if eDGe can run any of the apps currently available for Android phones. You can surf the net, email, play videos, view photos, and a pop-up touch keypad supplies text capabilities. On the left, you can write on the screen with a stylus. When not being used, the two screens fold together facing each other, creating what looks like a netbook from the outside.

You can fold the eDGe backward so each screen faces out, but we're not sure if the touchscreen LCD turns it self off when you've got the E Ink screen facing up.

The two eDGe screens speak to each other. You choose an ebook from your side-loaded EPUB book library on the LCD, and read it on the epaper screen. Tap an imbedded picture on the left, and it appears in color on the right.

Technically, eDGe has no 3G whispernet connectivity, but does have WiFi (b/g, no n), Bluetooth 2.1, an SD card slot, a 3 MP camera/video recorder, stereo speakers in the hinge, 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks, and it runs for six hours on its rechargeable battery. The specs don't indicate a longer battery life for the E Ink side.

Most folks agree an epaper screen is easier on the eyes when reading a book. eDGe's 9.7-inch screen is larger, which means fewer page turns, than the 6-inch screens found on the Kindle, Nook, et all.

But to us, the eDGe seems like an inelegant - and bulky - alternative to both an ebook and Apple's iTabletslatepad, or any tablet PC. There is some clever - but not really compelling - interplay between the two sides. Plus, at 3 pounds, its twice as heavy as an individual ebook or tablet PC. If you only want to read and not do whatever you do on a tablet (and vice versa), you'll be carrying around a lot of dead weight, which defeats the whole portable purpose.

"Dear Pete,

First, I want to say I'm sorry. When you said I'd need a "laptop with wireless" I should have known a 1956 Smith Corona Clipper was a stretch, even though it was technically correct. I stand by my decision to use a Polaroid camera though. Tests prove it's faster than digital.

Regards,
Curtis Walker"

@Hak5Darren's video
@NBCUNI video & photo
(and for the record, I think I managed to beat the guy with the iPhone.)

While 3D HDTV is wowing those who can see, Intel is thrilling the vision-impaired with its Intel Reader. This text-to-speech handheld looks like a bulky digital camera but can simultaneously scan and read aloud any printed matter in real time. Intel describes it as point, shoot and listen.

On the bottom of the Reader is a sophisticated camera that "sees" the text, and Loquendo text-to-speech (TTS) software "reads" the text and displays it in large characters on the Reader's LCD screen while reading it aloud in either a male or female voice. Words are highlighted as the Reader reads, and lets you know when you've come to the end of a page. As with all TTS gadgets, you can vary the speed and pitch of the read-back voice.

During our demo, the Reader read a book flawlessly, if a bit drone-like; Kindle's cleverly-inflected synthesized speech sounds like Liev Schreiber by comparison. But inflection isn't the point here. Unlike the Kindle, while only reads books you pay for, the Reader can read anything put in front of it. Intel will sell the Reader not only to the vision-impaired, but into the education market and for the learning-disabled.

You can also buy a tray that's looks like an overhead projector. It holds a book or magazine down under a plastic strap and the Reader is hooked into a crane extension above it, the camera pointed down and the screen facing out.

At $1,500, the Reader is a bit pricey; the tray runs another $350.

Fuji grabs the honor as the first-ever 3D digital camera. You can now buy the Fuji W1, a stereoscopic 3D 10 MP model with a 3x optical zoom and a 2.7-inch LCD 3D viewfinder, for $600 through Fuji's online store. You can also shoot regular old 2D photos as well.

The W1 also captures 3D videos, stored in a new format called .mpo, based on the multi picture format (MPF) standard. As with any digital camera, images and video are stored on an SD card, but you'll need around twice as much space as you would for 2D photos to store 3D stills and videos, which are limited to around 2 GB (around 20 minutes) for a single clip.

Since there aren't any 3D HDTVs for sale yet, you can view your stills and video on any Nvidia-equipped 120 Hz PC monitor with a DVI connection, and/or you can buy Fuji's 7-inch digital picture/video viewer frame ($500). You don't need glasses to view stills or video on the frame. It uses a technology called "parallax barrier" to create the 3D effect, but it has a tiny sweet spot. Viewing in anything other the perfect position, you see double images. Fuji is chatting up 3D HDTV makers to try and get them to include SD card slots that can read the still and .mpo video files.

You also can get hard copies, which sort of look like larger versions of the holographic cards you used to get inside of Cracker Jack boxes, but uploading your 3D image files to www.seehere.com - or so we were told. There's nothing on the site indicating 3D printing capability.

When we shot this video of Intel Infoscape at CES 2010, we couldn't believe what we were seeing: a mere laptop driving two 7-foot screens, displaying 576 cubes hooked up to 20,000 info sources, including 20 live video feeds. Seems impossible. Touch one of the cubes, and an infobox displaying that content tumbles forward. Wow.

"Take THAT, NVIDIA," says Intel to its chiphead nemesis. The techno-tour de force is "powered by a single all new 2010 Core i7 processor w/ Intel Hyper-Threading technology and Intel HD graphics," crows Intel. Of course, graphics giant NVIDIA has processors that can do this kind of stuff, too, but it's never been displayed with such drama.

This was a mind-blowing demo of the Core i7 processor, handling boatloads of data and graphics at the same time. The graphics on the giant screens were a tons of fun to move around with their uncanny quickness and smooth motion, and the whole thing felt super responsive, Giving us a peek into the future, it seemed a lot like that computer screen in the movie Minority Report. It was the most spectacular demo we saw at CES 2010.

Via Intel Inside Scoop

Gelaskins is a Canadian company that makes stunning tech covers for a variety of gear, including iPhones, gaming devices, and laptops. You can even bling out your Kindle. Their products have always been attractive, more like works of art than just a bland, monochrome skin. Now, they've teamed up with Marvel Comics and National Geographic to produce a line of skins that are really unique.

The removable vinyl protective layer doesn't offer any cushioning, but it does protect against scratches. If you don't like any of the available artwork, you can also upload your own. Prices range from $15 - $30, depending on the size and complexity. After spending so much money on fancy gear, isn't it worth it to spend a few bucks more to protect it, especially if you can make it look so very good?

Walking around the convention floor, you frequently run into gadgets that make you think, "Yep, I'm at CES." Need an example? Take a gander at that microwave up there running Android. Sure, we knew it was coming. That doesn't mean that it isn't kind of funny to see a microwave running Android, though.

The company behind the unholy union, Touch Revolution, also tossed the mobile OS on a washing machine. In theory, that'd also mean apps that would make sense on either, making for more robust options all around. An app for nuking hot pockets, anyone?

That's not the only craziness we saw. See that first item in the gallery below? Yeah, those headphones have a little surprise for you. Check them out!

Via Ubergizmo

Here's another contender for best home theater keyboard. The latest version of Cideko's Air Keyboard is scarcely larger than your palm, but gives you full keyboard and mouse control of your home theater PC. The wireless keyboard also gives you transport controls for all your media, while the motion sensor inside moves the mouse cursor as you tilt the keyboard.

It's a prototype thus far — we tried its predecessor with the same tech inside, and it's easy to use and works well. This latest model has rounded styling that felt just right in our hands, and adds earphone and microphone ports. Cideko reps say the Air Keyboard ships this summer at an undetermined price. One to watch.

Cideko