CES 2008: Huge thanks to the following companies…

CES-sign-logo.jpgThere are a couple of companies out there in this plugged-in world which Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny would just like to raise their foot-long margaritas to, who’ve helped with kitting us out to the max, ensuring our laptops are as light as the free beer served at CES parties, and we won’t turn an embarrassing shade of red when a Gizmodo buy walks past and spies us using a digital camera held together by duct tape. It was an emergency internal operation gone wrong after a seaside accident, I swear!

A huge thanks goes out to these…

CES 2008: BT Vision to use Xbox 360 consoles as set-top boxes

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One exciting snippet of news from Bill Gates’s keynotes speech last night, once again concerning us Brits, was that they’re partnering with BT to offer the Xbox 360 as their Vision set-top box.

This is yet another collaboration between the two giants, with Microsoft’s Mediaroom already actually powering their Vision broadband TV service since late 2006. This deal with Xbox 360 might be just what BT need to pull Vision…

CES 2008: Texas Instruments DualView technology spells death for split screen gaming (in a good way)

Co-op gaming has been on the rise over the past couple of years as there’s nothing better than buddying up with a friend to take on the armies of evil. The problem is that if you actually want to be sat beside your friend while you play, you’re going to have to sacrifice half of your screen just so they can see what they’re doing. Selfish bastards. Well not anymore. Texas Instruments is showcasing a new screen technology that displays two separate image sources at the same time on a DLP HDTV screen, meaning that each player can enjoy full screen gaming whilst sat beside and watching the same TV as their partner.

CES 2008: Sony’s sub-$200 PC Blu-ray drive

Following Warner’s Blu-ray announcement and HD DVD’s sheepish cancellation of its press conference, the movie side of Blu-ray is looking rather peachy right now. However, there’s still the PC end to consider – there already more than a few HD DVD laptops and PCs out there, and the lower cost of HD DVD discs makes it a relatively appealing choice of storage medium. Sony is at least to keen to tackle one aspect of the price disadvantages that Blu-ray tends to suffer when compared with HD DVD by launching a $199.99 Blu-ray PC Drive.