I’m still a bit skeptical about the need for a $99 monochrome device that simply provides an offline copy of Wikipedia, but I had a chance to play with the WikiReader today, and found myself utterly entranced with the random button. The device itself is light and simple, and if I had to sum up the monochrome display and touch screen in one word I would definitely call it ‘usable’, but I instantly warmed up to that ‘random’ button you can see in the lower left corner which provided a kind of a ‘word-of-the-day’ calendar experience. Now

The idea of a microwave oven or a washing machine running Android might seem like a bit much, but the company behind these two concepts, Touch Revolution, actually has a pretty clever product. Their Android-powered NIM1000 Touch Module can be integrated by an OEM into a wide range of products (hence the proof of concept microwave and washing machine on display) adding gesture-based touch controls to almost any device. It saves a company from having to research and develop their own touch-screen hardware and software, and because it does run Android, the possibilities of what

Even though it may be digital, looking through a gallery of someone’s photos on an LCD picture frame can be just as tedious as flipping through an actual photo album or sitting through a slideshow. But Casio hopes to make things more exciting?, interesting maybe?, with their new Digital Art Frame which essentially lets you apply a small collection of Photoshop-like filters to your photos. The effects include water color painting, color pencil sketch, pointillism, gothic oil painting, oil painting, pastel painting, airbrush and fauvist oil painting, and are cheesy enough

ASUS and Bang & Olufsen have been hanging out. They’ve decided to have a bro-mance. And we have to admit, this is one slick laptop. That polished aluminum exterior looks great. But it has more going for it than that. Check out those dual touchpads that supposedly give you a DJ turntable-like experience. The high-def, 18.4-inch display is even flanked by B&O ICEpower speakers. Honestly what’s not to love? Under the hood there’s a Core i7 processor, NVIDIA GeForce GT 334M graphics, support for up to 1280GB of storage (with dual drives), a slot-in

Remember Vestalife’s ladybug? The insect inspired speaker system for the iPod sure has come a long way. At CES 2010, Vestalife took the opportunity to launch several new designs. Among them are the LadyBug 2 and the Firefly. The new designs are bigger, which of course means larger sound, are prettier and more streamlined. The new versions are also compatible with the new iPhones and iPod touch. They do look pretty cute for insects. [Ubergizmo]

[CES 2010] Shuttle has a slew of new models all lined up for the new year, and if you’re looking for a compact solution that offers performance at the same time, perhaps you might want to consider their offerings. The 2010 models will include a redesigned All-in-One machine with an Intel D510 processor within alongside integrated Intel GMA3150 graphics, while the J series is broken down into three parts – entry-level, mainstream and high performance, where the first two come with integrated graphics while the latter boasts

3M is more than just scotch tape and to prove it they’ve announced a new multitouch LCD at CES 2010. The 3M Display M2256PW is a 22-inch, high def multitouch LCD for professionals with a resolution of 1680 x 1050. Professionals meaning anyone who needs up to 10-finger input with fast response time. Tom Cruise will want to check it out to practice for a minority Report sequel. The Windows 7-compatible display features DVI and VGA video inputs, an audio input, and USB ports. 3M is all set to show off some conceptual applications that they currently have in development for

The new Marvell Plug Computer is packing a 2GHz Armada 300 processor, WiFi, Bluetooth and a hard drive. But alas, it isn’t for all of you consumers. So you and your smudgie fingered hands can’t have one. The unit is marketed as a development platform for building embedded devices. Nothing on price yet, but remember this isn’t for you. It’s for developers. You are just browsing. That’s it. Nothing else to see here. Move along. [Press Release] VIA [Engadget]

As usual Oregon Scientific has outed some new products at this years CES. First there’s the $129.99 i.wakeup Sunrise Clock arriving in February, that simulates dawn’s early light. More specifically it uses “gentle light to help users wake up naturally without the usual disturbing sounds of a blaring alarm.” The company is also introducing two new Appliance Managers. One is an advanced wireless version for $79.99 to help users keep an eye on how much energy up to eight appliances are using. The second is an individual version for $29.99 that keeps track

This is what I call a beautiful laptop. Powerful too. ASUS has just launched its newest Republic of Gamers laptop at CES. The G73hj manages to make other laptops look puny. I love those angles. It features a Core i7-720QM CPU, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 8-channel HD audio, up to 1TB of HDD space and DirectX 11 compatibility with the internal ATI Radeon HD 5870. That display is a 17.3-incher with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, Blu-ray / DVD drive, 8-cell battery, a 2 megapixel webcam, 802.11b/g WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1, an 8-in-1 card reader and a mini-VGA connector.