CES 2006: Picks and Pans

Road Rage:As a CES neophyte, I was well warned to expect long taxi queues and to allow plenty of time to get to vendor briefings. However, nothing prepared me for the chaos that ensued on the roads. A combination of this year's CES apparently being bigger than last year, other expos running simultaneously, and the great weather bringing out slow-moving tourists had a few of my taxi drivers pulling their hair out while we were stuck in gridlock on the strip. Points to Vegas for building pedestrian overpasses, though.

A Lost Generation:Judging from the abundant GPS offerings at CES, I'm forced to conclude that we're a lost generation--as in, a generation of people who easily get lost and are eager to get directions from gadgets. Products I saw ranged from Garmin's pricey nuvi 350 , Sony's first car navigation device, the $700 nav-u NV-U70 (due in mid February) and Fine Digital USA 's FineDrive offerings, which are being sold at large retailers and online for prices in the $500-$600 range. Could 2006 be the year of the GPS?

Best Reason Not to Diet:Hewlett-Packard's R927 is the company's first 8-megapixel camera. Though it's probably rare that you'd need all that resolution for an enormous print enlargement, it gives you more leeway to crop down to a small portion of your photo. This compact camera packs in a lot of processing options for shutterbugs who are wont to do image editing on a PC, allowing you to add borders to your pics, give them a vintage look, or transform them into something like a watercolor painting or cartoon. The oddest effect is called slimming, which distorts the picture slightly to take a few pounds off self-conscious subjects. On the camera's big 3-inch LCD, the results are fun to look at. The R927 will arrive in the spring, and will cost $399.

ReallyLow-Light Photography:Planet82's SMPD sensor chip could make digital cameras more sensitive to light than the naked eye. In very low light, the chip produced an image of objects that I could barely see; a camera with a CCD chip was unable to capture an image. The image was black and white, though company representatives say color support is on the way soon. If this chip proves capable of delivering high enough resolution and low noise, you may never use your flash again.

Two Times Two:You have to hand it to NVidia in upping the ante on its SLI dual graphics card technology. Its new Quad SLI solution, as seen in Dell's snazzy XPS 600 Renegade PC, uses two 1GB graphics boards, each with two graphics processors. Cheekily, each card actually consists of two circuit boards that are connected with a video bridge and some screws. Quad SLI should become available more widely this spring and will allow gamers to play supported titles with smooth frame rates at high definition resolutions up to 2560 by 1600.

Cutting the Cord:ViewSonic's super compact VJ106D projector may not see the light of day until later this year, but its size, battery operation, and widescreen aspect ratio support size drew quite a bit of attention during CES. No wall shall go unprojected, no matter where you are!

Why Bother With Wireless?:Marantz' ZR6001SP is a great take on a networking idea that's been around awhile: using a home's existing wiring to distribute music around the house. The system consists of two parts: the ZR6001 Audio/Video receiver, and the ZC4001 Client, a self-powered all-in-one box that includes two stereo speakers. Great idea, and no flaky wireless streaming issues to deal with. The system will be out in the spring and cost about $1300.

Paperback Ridder?: Sony's Reader , while pricey, certainly represents a quantum leap in electronic book design. I especially like it for its enlargeable fonts (a boon for my mom) and for getting rid of glare (a boon for me, when I read in bed and my husband's asleep). But I'm not sure I'm as excited about the iTunes-esque distribution model. Will Sony Connect really carry all my favorite trashy romances and whodunnits?

But Seriously, Can It Do Cartwheels?:M-Audio, recently acquired by Digidesign, packs two studio condenser microphones, a two-channel mic preamp, all cables, and podcasting software into a box and calls it Podcast Factory Deluxe. The software can also record voice over IP (VoIP) phone interviews and do cartwheels (kidding on that last part). It costs $300 and is available now.