With many of us spicing up our lives with all the power we can fit in one hand, WowWee introduced Cinemin at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight. It’s a line of hand-held micro projectors that are due out this spring.

They use Texas Instruments’ DLP technology, similar to what’s in high-def TVs, classroom projectors and larger-scale theaters.

What’s cool about this device is that you can connect your portable video player, be it an iPod, iPhone or Flip, and project an image measuring up to 60 inches onto a surface up to 12 feet away. The bedroom blinds could be your movie screen.

The pico projectors come in three flavors:

• Cinemin Swivel, the one at right in the foreground in the picture above, sports an adjustable 90-degree hinge that lets you shoot your video to the moon — well, at least the ceiling — if you prefer to watch videos the way you stargaze. It costs about $300 and is roughly the size of a candy bar. The company says it has a three-hour battery life and full volume control.
• Cinemin Stick, the one on the left above, has internal memory and an expandable SD card slot. So you could take the card out of your digital camera and pop it in for a quick-draw photo slide show before your friends can politely decline watching the pics of the latest family trip.
• Cinemin Station, the one that resembles an iHome clock radio, is the big daddy of the family. The projector and controls are on top of the box, which serves as an iPod dock. It boasts a better speaker system — and a bigger price tag: $400. 

So on that flight that no longer offers you a movie and a meal, you could pack your own movie and popcorn. The world is your screen. And this way, you’re less likely to get a crick in your neck from staring down at a 2-by-4-inch screen for a couple of hours. Just hope that hyper kid in the seat in front of you actually sits still that long.

– Michelle Maltais

Photo credit: WowWee

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New hand-held to make you stare at the wall — or even the ceiling

Induction chargers are nothing new. Electric toothbrushes have used the technology for years. Until recently, however, the method was too slow to work on power-hungry cellphones, cameras and laptops.

The latest crop of induction chargers have finally caught up to the traditional plug-in-the-wall method. One example is Powermat, which showed off its product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight.

What makes wireless induction chargers so alluring is that they free absent-minded geeks from having to keep track of their chargers and periodically having to untangle the rat’s nest created by these blasted cords. Powermat showed off how its chargers can juice up iPods, hand-held game consoles, cellphones and laptops all at once. The company’s president, Ron Ferber, promised to wirelessly charge a wall-mounted flat-screen television at the company’s CES booth later this week.

Of course, the mat itself needs to be plugged into the wall, so it’s not completely wireless. But it does cut down the number of wires required to charge devices.

Ferber estimated that the Powermats will hit stores this fall. The mats will come in five versions: family mat for charging up to six gadgets, a smaller fold-up mat for travel, PC mat for charging laptops, desk mat that comes with a wireless speaker and a bedside mat with a rechargeable clock.

Each mat will cost around $100. But that’s not all. You’ll also have to buy receivers — doodads that connect your devices to the mats and conduct the charge. Those will set you back around $30 a pop. So waving goodbye to wired chargers also might  mean parting with a good chunk of change.

– Alex Pham

Photo credit: Powermat

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Charge! Induction chargers light up CES

Cobra Electronics has taught its radar detectors a new trick: they also detect red light cameras and speed cameras.

The Chicago company does this by maintaining a database of intersections known to have red-light cameras and stretches of road with speeding cameras. The database currently has more than 5,000 intersections, speed camera locations and popular speed traps. But it’s being updated twice a day by Cobra employees who are tasked with finding and verifying new locations by calling various cities, police departments and local businesses near major intersections. Due out in the spring, the detectors are priced from $389 to $439, depending on the model.

Users download the database and updates from their computers via a dongle that’s equipped with GPS. Connect the dongle to the Cobra radar detector and, voila, you have the ultimate traffic ticket-avoidance device.

Of course, the company insists that its detectors exist to enhance safety; red-light cameras and speed cameras are generally installed in areas with high accident rates. To show that it means it, Cobra also included in its database intersections that have high accident rates but don’t have the traffic robocops. It also detects signals that ambulances and fire trucks can use in an emergency to turn oncoming traffic lights green. In this case, the device encourages drivers to be more alert to these vehicles and drive more cautiously.

“It doesn’t enable you to speed,” said Christopher Kooistra, a Cobra marketing manager who showed us the device at a sneak preview for the media at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “It simply warns you when you’re under surveillance or when you’re approaching a dangerous intersection.”

Dangerous to your health, but at $250 or more for each traffic ticket, also dangerous to your wallet.

– Alex Pham

Photo: Cobra XRS 9960G radar and laser detector. Credit: Cobra Electronics

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A radar detector that also alerts drivers to red-light and speed cameras

Apple showed off the new version of its iPhoto image editing software today at the Macworld expo. The application will tie in with the most popular photo-sharing websites, Facebook and Flickr, allowing users to post their snapshots without the need to download additional plugins or purchase MobileMe. Support for uploading to Picasa Web Albums is notably absent, but Google’s new Picasa for Mac has that covered.

iPhone GPS, soon with photos? (Photo credit: Rpongsaj via Flickr.)

The soon-to-be-released iPhoto ‘09 incorporates signature features of each social networking website. Users will be able to tag faces in photos and view all their pictures of a particular person, just like on Facebook. And like Flickr, the software also will use GPS data recorded by some cameras (the one on an iPhone, for example) and display the location they were taken on a Google map.

The faces and places data carry over to images uploaded to Facebook and Flickr, respectively.

I can think of two consumer devices that could benefit from this photo data. (Hint: they’re both touch-screen gadgets made by Apple.) But Apple hasn’t said yet how this could be applied to the iPhone and iPod Touch. After all, Phil Schiller, the company’s senior vice president of marketing, did say in his keynote that today was “all about the Mac” (well, before he went on to talk about iTunes and other Apple software).

But let’s think about this for a second. Does the iPhone have a photo viewer? Check. Google Maps? Check. Contact lists? Check. Imagine flipping through your contact list, picking a friend’s name and getting a list of all the photos that person is tagged in.

Or what about having all your pictures mapped on your phone? Aha, those annoying “camera would like to use your current location” messages that keep popping up on our iPhones are starting to make a lot more sense.

– Mark Milian

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Could new iPhoto person and location tagging carry over to iPhone?

The good folks at the Consumer Electronics Assn. were kind enough to give us clueless journalists a CliffsNotes version of the Consumer Electronics Show taking place this week in Las Vegas.

As the world’s largest technology trade show, CES is regarded as a good place to sniff out trends. Though a few of these trends are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, they do show how technology has seeped into every pore of our lives. Without further ado, here are CEA’s four predictions of what’s hot at CES, and in the consumer electronics market, this year.

1. Green gadgets: Though not new, environmentally friendly electronics will generate more buzz this year than ever. However, consumers are confused about what all that means. According to a CEA survey conducted last year, 40% of shoppers were confused by green marketing claims, 60% said they wanted more detail about what those claims meant and 65% believed companies overstated their green credentials. Companies that answer this confusion and skepticism face potential reward: More than half of consumers said they were willing to pay an average of 7.5% more for environmentally friendly electronics.
2. More-intuitive interface: The revolution that Nintendo created with its Wii video game console and Apple with its iPhone will spread. Consumers will be able to talk to, make gestures at or manipulate their gadgets like never before. Though keyboards won’t disappear, the number of ways people can command their devices will expand.
3. Cutting the cord, but adding strings: Gadgets will increasingly come with fewer cords and accomplish more tasks wirelessly. But devices will increasingly come with "strings" — services that sometimes require users to pay an extra fee to use. Think subscription service for real-time traffic information on a GPS.
4. Internet everywhere: The ability of gadgets of all sizes to connect to the Internet and download or stream content will be more prevalent in 2009. Nearly all Blu-ray disc players, for example, will come with the ability to retrieve additional bonus content. Sling Media can now deliver your local TV programs to your iPhone.

Will consumers embrace these trends? You decide.
– Alex Pham

Photo by genewolf via Flickr

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Four technology trends at CES

So much for 2008. Though 2009 looks just as grim, companies at the Consumer Electronics Show are seeing a few rays of sunshine.

The Consumer Electronics Assn., the industry group that puts on CES, projects growth in organic LED displays, digital book readers, Blu-ray disc players and so-called netbooks, or lightweight laptops.  Despite a 0.3% projected decline in overall consumer spending in 2009, people will continue to spend a large chunk of their income on technology.

“Technology’s share of consumer spending compared to other durable goods has never been this high going back to the 1960s,” Shawn DuBravac, CEA’s chief economist, said this afternoon during a state-of-the-industry preview for the press at CES in Las Vegas. That share, DuBravac said, is expected to grow, thanks to four technology trends that are expected to unfold in 2009 — the appeal of environmentally friendly electronics, wireless gadgets that can be used in more places, expanded access to the Internet and a growing number of ways people can interact with their devices, from voice to gesture.

“Consumer electronics has become a necessity, not a luxury,” said Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis.

Here are CEA’s 2009 forecasts for wholesale revenue growth for a few key segments:

• Organic LED displays: +149%
• Digital book readers: +110%
• High-definition flash camcorders: +106%
• Blu-ray disc players: +62%
• LCD televisions with 120-or-higher-megahertz refresh rate: +57%
• Netbooks: +80%

But as consumers delay, substitute or outright forgo purchases, some categories will take a hit. Consumers are likely to delay buying a new desktop computer, for example. Some may substitute a a less expensive netbook or laptop for a new PC. Other categories feeling the pain include aftermarket car audio and home audio systems, DuBravac said.

– Alex Pham

Photo by Alex Pham / Los Angeles Times

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Goodbye, 2008! Hello, 2009! Consumer electronics industry looks forward to growth amid recession

Yay, Apple granted my Christmas wish! OK, it was a little tardy, but that’s not much of a surprise. Nor was the announcement by Apple that, in tandem with dropping DRM from all its tracks by the end of March (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group’s labels had been the main holdouts), it would start charging higher prices for hits and lower prices for, err, the great mass of tracks that not many people buy.

The only real surprise was that Apple would begin selling DRM-free tracks to iPhone users through AT&T’s network, instead of just through Wi-Fi. The move could crater AT&T’s wireless-music offers from Napster and eMusic, which require users to pay a premium for tracks. Some label executives have clung to mobile as a last bastion for DRM-protected, premium-priced content; Apple’s move makes that stance even less tenable than before.

As for variable pricing, I’ve weighed in before on the need for record companies to try to make more money by charging less for music. The deal with Apple is a half-step in that direction. But it’s also clearly an effort to extract more dollars from those who are already buying tracks, rather than grappling with the bigger problem — the steady reduction in spending on music. As the latest year-end results from Nielsen SoundScan show, the number of tracks sold, individually and collectively (in CDs, LPs or downloadable albums), dropped about 8.5% in 2008. That’s marginally better than the abysmal results from 2007, when total sales were down almost 10%. But the fact remains that the rise in single track sales hasn’t compensated for the decline in albums, and the trend lines don’t suggest that it ever will.

You could argue that the demand for single-track downloads is less elastic (that is, less price sensitive) than the demand for albums, so raising the price of popular singles could, in fact, stop the slide in sales revenue. That’s how Hollywood has overcome the slow but fairly steady drop in ticket sales at the multiplexes: by bumping up ticket prices. But there’s a crucial difference between the labels and the studios when it comes to pricing leverage: If you want to see a new film on a big screen, you’ve got to go to the multiplex and buy a ticket. If you want to hear a new hit song, there are countless ways to do so online — some of them free and legal. My guess is that the demand for music is pretty elastic, and that the labels would have more luck lowering prices than raising them. But hey, that’s just my guess.

– Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times’ Opinion Manufacturing Division.

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Apple raises prices as music sales slide

Talk about frakin’ cool.

To help die-hard fans count down to the final episodes of "Battlestar Galactica," Tara Gelsomino has created Battlestarbook: the epic Sci Fi Channel series told through faux Facebook status updates:

"Kara Thrace has changed her status from Single to It’s Complicated."

"Lee Adama has changed his status from Single to It’s Complicated."

"The Cylons created an event: The Destruction of the 12 Colonies."

"Commander Adama became a fan of Earth."

"Dr. Gaius Baltar became a fan of himself."

The Facebooking of "Battlestar" has become an Internet hit, much to the surprise of Gelsomino, an imaginative acquisitions editor for an audiobook publisher.  Ironically, the 33-year-old Rhode Islander was never much of a sci-fan fan until last spring, when she was persuaded by relentlessly glowing reviews to rent past seasons of "Battlestar" on DVD and catch up on the cult series. Soon she was hooked just as surely as Apollo on Starbuck.

"I was blown away by what a smart, character-driven show it was," she said. She also liked the reverse gender politics and feminist portrayals, particularly what she called Katee Sackhoff’s "fearless and phenomenal" portrayal of Starbuck.

Soon after reading DeeDee Baldwin’s Austenbook and observing a flurry of friends changing their relationship status to "It’s Complicated," she decided to spoof the ever increasingly complex web of relationships on "Battlestar" with a specific news feed for the show.

"I couldn’t help thinking that if they were all on Facebook, every single one of them would have an ‘It’s Complicated’ status," she said.

The result was Battlestarbook. The response from sci-fi sites such as i09.com and The Escapist stunned Gelsomino, who has been lobbied for sequels. "Battlestar" concludes its run this spring — unless the Cylon regeneration ship turn its sites on extending the life of the cult series.

"I’m considering doing more episodes," Gelsomino said. "Colonel Tigh is just itching to be Superpoked — pre-eyepatch, of course."

– Jessica Guynn

Photo: Katee Sackhoff as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Jamie Bamber as Lee "Apollo" Adama. Credit: Carole Segal / Sci Fi Channel

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Friending Sci Fi’s ‘Battlestar Galactica’

After fighting with record labels over its everything-for-99-cents stance, Apple today said it would finally start offering different songs at different prices. Apple is the No. 1 music seller in the U.S., so the fact that it’s finally doing what capitalists everywhere have always done — charge more for, say, a hot new Lil Wayne track and less for an old tune by Yanni — is sure to ripple through the music industry and could give consumers more reasons to buy digital downloads.

In the new iTunes pricing system, songs will cost either 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29 apiece. In a press release, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs (who let Senior Vice President Phil Schiller handle today’s Macworld keynote address) said that "many more songs" would cost 69 cents than $1.29. Apple said it would set the prices based on what the record labels charge it. The company started giving content owners a little more pricing flexibility last year after a major dispute with NBC Universal; Apple agreed to let NBC sell some of its movies and TV shows for prices other than usual $1.99 it had charged for videos.

Another big change announced today: Apple’s entire music catalog — 8 million songs today and the remaining 2 million by the end of March — is going to be available in versions that are stripped of anti-copying software. That means that you have the option to say goodbye to the digital handcuffs that limit the type of digital media players you can transfer music to and the number of times you can burn a playlist to CD.

Apple previously had offered DRM-free music from only EMI Group, but it said today that it had reached similar deals with the other big three record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group. ITunes users who have bought music in the past can upgrade their songs to the DRM-free format, which Apple calls iTunes Plus, for 30 cents a song or 30% of the cost of an album.

Finally, Apple is letting iPhone 3G owners download music to their hand-held devices via the 3G network like they currently can via Wi-Fi.

– Chris Gaither

Photo: Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller delivers the keynote speech at the Macworld show. Credit: John G. Mabanglo

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Apple offers variable pricing, more DRM-free music on iTunes

– Our favorite entry in the Mac rumor pool: Apple laptop with no keyboard! The Onion

– Looking forward to the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show this week, it might be helpful to look back at what Raymond Kurzweil predicted a decade ago. Slashdot

– One thing Kurzweil nailed was the prevalence of small, lightweight computers, such as the Pavilion dv2 that Hewlett-Packard is announcing today at CES. CNet

– Kurzweil, however, overlooked the day when you can clone your own set of choppers. Washington Post

– But you won’t have to wait for a new version of Skype 2.8 for Mac. It comes out today. CNet

– Also for Apple fans: Google releases Picasa for the Mac, finally. But how does it stack up with iPhoto? TechCrunch

– For Motorola, the future is green. The struggling company introduces a cellphone made of recycled bottles at CES. Motorola

– With California’s no-texting-while-driving law, many people may be left "textually frustrated." Urban Dictionary

– Viewers spent more than 4.5 hours on average watching online video in November, up 40% from an average of 3.25 hours a year earlier, ComScore says. NewTeeVee

– Sling Media to let users sling TV shows to their iPhones. TechCruch

– Alex Pham

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Around the Web 1.6.09: Mac rumors, Kurzweil predictions and textual frustrations