Photo Galleries

The Convention Flunkies

In a month hardly lacking in choices, the Grouse unveils his picks for the pits

<
IMAGE 1 OF 5
>
slotMusic
SanDisk
When SanDisk teamed with the backwards-thinking music industry late last year to announce the slotMusic initiative, it sounded like an Onion headline. In the year 2009, someone is going to sell prepackaged, individual music albums on SD cards with cover art, liner notes and everything? In this age of the iTunes wireless store, a company actually believes that consumers want to purchase and carry around a new form of locked, physical media? But, this wasn’t a practical joke and at CES SanDisk debuted a $99 portable slotMusic player and some new slotRadio cards, which are basically 1,000-song, genre-specific mix tapes. Sharp even got into the action by announcing the first third-party slotMusic-compatible home stereos. Why?
Tags
Gear & Gadgets
<
IMAGE 1 OF 5
>
<
IMAGE 2 OF 5
>
Blu-ray Audio
iStockphoto
Looking to capture that market of the three or four dudes who buy DVD-A discs, Pioneer announced at CES the creation of a new and still unnamed audio-only format for Blu-ray players. The new format is described as “2-channel high resolution digital” and is geared for home use where the need for compression is less of an issue. Unfortunately for the fledgling format, even Pioneer stops short of calling it an improvement on existing technology (the LP), saying only that the new format “rivals 2-channel analog sound.” Unless it’s superior, why bother?
Tags
Gear & Gadgets
<
IMAGE 2 OF 5
>

More Photo Galleries

2.1
Gear & Gadgets
ABCs of CES
Twenty-six things we loved, hated and just couldn't avert our eyes from at this year's Consumer Electronics Show
24
1
0
Gear & Gadgets
Letdowns at CES
A rash of long-promised products finally debut at this year's CES. Was it worth the wait?
24
1
0
Gear & Gadgets
The Sony G3
A digital camera with built-in web browser
24
1
0
Gear & Gadgets
First CES Products Emerge
A robo-telescope, quick-starting laptops, and 3-D glasses everywhere
24
1
3.55
Gear & Gadgets
The PopSci Staff Boom/Bust Holiday Gift Guide
We hit up the entire staff of <i>PopSci</i> to see what they're dreaming of, what they're expecting, and what they'd recommend to you
24
1
0
Gear & Gadgets
Middleweight Camera Championship
A series of comparison shots from the showdown of smaller “big” cameras from Canon, Olympus, and Panasonic
24
1

Popular Tags

Gear & Gadgets

Regular Features

The Grouse with Jon Chase | Tech's shortcomings exposed

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Flickr Block Header

Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!
Current theme: Australia

Featured

Gear & Gadgets

The MegaGoods Roundup
Our biggest collection yet: over 200 of the year's best gadgets, goods and gizmos
Battle of the Ultra-Mobile Linux Laptops: Cloudbook vs. EeePC vs. My Old Thinkpad
How much portable Linux goodness can you get for $400?

Popular on Popsci

Most Viewed

Gear & Gadgets

Most Commented

Gear & Gadgets

Most Emailed

Gear & Gadgets

Today on PopSci.com

Origami Optics
23622
9
1
Habitats for Humanity
23517
9
2
Making a Hopping Robot
23625
9
3
(Re)Building a Better Town
23572
9
4
Handheld Spy Chopper
23619
9
5
A Wearable Motorcycle
23309
9
6
The Future of Mobile Computing
23610
9
7
The Physics of Batman
23293
9
8
Great College Pranks
23227
9
9

Drupal web development by Ping Vision.

Copyright © 2008 Popular Science

A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.