From The CES Show Floor #1

Okay, not really from the show floor because getting WiFi there is about as easy as finding a Snapple in the Mojave and grabbing a press room PC means a gladiator duel. But it is from the Jesuit priest’s house in Henderson–yes, we’re staying there again because InfoWorld won’t pay our travel here. (Send your indignant complaints about this to InfoWorld executive editors and higher, please.)

Meanwhile, here are some sweet things we saw with an SMB spin to them at this year’s CES (and, yeah, there’ll be more later). First the Flybook. An Apple affiliate may have come out with the first Apple tablet at the MacWorld show, but the Flybook just blows that out of the water.

First, figure it’s an ultra-portable format (that’s my hand for size reference). Second, it’s got enough muscle to run a full version of Vista. Third, it turns into a tablet. Fourth, it’s got GPRS connectivity built-in, which not only means broadband Internet, but if you stick the right SIM card in there it’s got phone features built-in. Very cool. Fifth, it includes Bluetooth GPS. Just flip it into tablet mode, activate the Bluetooth GPS, drop it on your passenger seat and you’re getting directions. Very sweet. Plus, it’s made by an Italian company, so it looks great–here’s a better image than my homemade photo above. Bad news is twofold: First, it’s being sold in the US mainly through Barney’s–yeah, that’s the NYC or Beverly Hills department store where a button down shirt costs about a grand. Means we’re not going to like the price once they finally tell me what it is. Second, battery life allegedly bites. Too many RF extras and too small a batter form factor. Then again you can opt for a laptop batter life extender, but that’ll take away from the ultra-portable pleasure. Hey, life is full of compromises.

Next, I liked this deal from Packet8. It’s another Internet-based VoIP plan. But it’s cheap ($20/mo for most home/small biz users) and it includes this handy video phone box. We demoed this at the show, and it wasn’t George Jetson-perfect, but it worked fine for me. You can even set up a three-way video conference out of the box. The devices will be sold direct or via Office Depot, so they’re not hard to get. Small biz owners can get them in the $20/mo residential version, but slightly larger companies should opt for the $40/mo Packet8 Virtual Office service, which extends the whole thing via a hosted PBX function. Lets you use your existing phones but adds all the digital VoIP goodies. Next comes the best looking Bluetooth earwig I’ve seen yet. Okay, it’s not the geekiest thing, but this is the kind of thing you see at CES. It comes from Bluetooth hardware maker Aliph, and is disturbingly called the Jawbone. Aside from the Hills-Have-Eyes-style name, it looks cool enough to win a design award here at the show and it also includes an ambient noise damper. Much easier to hear, and I verified that at the booth. Plus, it looks good enough to be paired with the Flybook. It costs $120 and is availalbe only at Cingular stores for the time being, tho it should work with any Bluetooth-compatible phone. For now, I’ll stop with Buffalo Technology’s newly minted TeraStation Pro II. This is a step up from last year’s version 1.0, but is still the same 1TB-2TB NAS device designed specifically for SMBs. New features include a built-in UPS (very cool idea) that guarantees orderly shutdown in the event of trouble as well as a Disk Quota Management feature, which will let the local admin assign disk space to users rather than having the gobble it all up. The device still has 10/100/1000Base-T connectivity and can also still accept USB-based storage expansions. And, yeah, the price is still between $1000 and $1700 depending on how much disk space you’re looking for. There’s way more here at the show, but it’ll have to wait until later.

Next, I liked this deal from Packet8. It’s another Internet-based VoIP plan. But it’s cheap ($20/mo for most home/small biz users) and it includes this handy video phone box. We demoed this at the show, and it wasn’t George Jetson-perfect, but it worked fine for me. You can even set up a three-way video conference out of the box. The devices will be sold direct or via Office Depot, so they’re not hard to get. Small biz owners can get them in the $20/mo residential version, but slightly larger companies should opt for the $40/mo Packet8 Virtual Office service, which extends the whole thing via a hosted PBX function. Lets you use your existing phones but adds all the digital VoIP goodies. Next comes the best looking Bluetooth earwig I’ve seen yet. Okay, it’s not the geekiest thing, but this is the kind of thing you see at CES. It comes from Bluetooth hardware maker Aliph, and is disturbingly called the Jawbone. Aside from the Hills-Have-Eyes-style name, it looks cool enough to win a design award here at the show and it also includes an ambient noise damper. Much easier to hear, and I verified that at the booth. Plus, it looks good enough to be paired with the Flybook. It costs $120 and is availalbe only at Cingular stores for the time being, tho it should work with any Bluetooth-compatible phone. For now, I’ll stop with Buffalo Technology’s newly minted TeraStation Pro II. This is a step up from last year’s version 1.0, but is still the same 1TB-2TB NAS device designed specifically for SMBs. New features include a built-in UPS (very cool idea) that guarantees orderly shutdown in the event of trouble as well as a Disk Quota Management feature, which will let the local admin assign disk space to users rather than having the gobble it all up. The device still has 10/100/1000Base-T connectivity and can also still accept USB-based storage expansions. And, yeah, the price is still between $1000 and $1700 depending on how much disk space you’re looking for. There’s way more here at the show, but it’ll have to wait until later.

Next, I liked this deal from Packet8. It’s another Internet-based VoIP plan. But it’s cheap ($20/mo for most home/small biz users) and it includes this handy video phone box. We demoed this at the show, and it wasn’t George Jetson-perfect, but it worked fine for me. You can even set up a three-way video conference out of the box. The devices will be sold direct or via Office Depot, so they’re not hard to get. Small biz owners can get them in the $20/mo residential version, but slightly larger companies should opt for the $40/mo Packet8 Virtual Office service, which extends the whole thing via a hosted PBX function. Lets you use your existing phones but adds all the digital VoIP goodies. Next comes the best looking Bluetooth earwig I’ve seen yet. Okay, it’s not the geekiest thing, but this is the kind of thing you see at CES. It comes from Bluetooth hardware maker Aliph, and is disturbingly called the Jawbone. Aside from the Hills-Have-Eyes-style name, it looks cool enough to win a design award here at the show and it also includes an ambient noise damper. Much easier to hear, and I verified that at the booth. Plus, it looks good enough to be paired with the Flybook. It costs $120 and is availalbe only at Cingular stores for the time being, tho it should work with any Bluetooth-compatible phone. For now, I’ll stop with Buffalo Technology’s newly minted TeraStation Pro II. This is a step up from last year’s version 1.0, but is still the same 1TB-2TB NAS device designed specifically for SMBs. New features include a built-in UPS (very cool idea) that guarantees orderly shutdown in the event of trouble as well as a Disk Quota Management feature, which will let the local admin assign disk space to users rather than having the gobble it all up. The device still has 10/100/1000Base-T connectivity and can also still accept USB-based storage expansions. And, yeah, the price is still between $1000 and $1700 depending on how much disk space you’re looking for. There’s way more here at the show, but it’ll have to wait until later.