In the headset world, it is hard to make a product that stands out. Psyko Audio Labs introduced there 5.1 headphones at CES this year. Apparently, they stood out enough for CES to give them there "Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Award". I took a few minutes to look and listen while I was at CES.
Running from booth to booth and meeting to meeting, I did find the time to stop by the Buffalo suite to check out what's in store for the next year from them. I was excited to hear that they were going to bring back there wireless products. There wireless products were very popular in the modding community due to their ability to be flashed with DD-WRT. I sat down with a few people from Buffalo I wasn't really sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by very down to earth people who just want to get the word out that they are back in the wireless market. They had a whole selection of interesting products that I found interesting.
In my travels around CES I saw countless different designs for keyboards and mice. I set out to find a booth from our friends over at Razer, counting down to CES they were really hyping up an upcoming product that they would announce the first day of CES. Razer decided to skip out on the booth this year and instead had a meeting room. It wasn’t hard to find the Razer meeting room considering it was fully covered in black and green designs. I went inside and meet up with Nicholas Depalmer, you might remember the name from our “Interview with a gamer”.
My first meeting of the week was with a company called ioSafe. IoSafe designs and manufactures disaster proof storage solutions. They aren't new to the scene having been around for the past 4 years with a focus on business grade products. This year at CES they are introducing a new line of personal products for the average consumer. With the promise of 1500 degree flames and 10,000 gallons of water to try to kill a hard drive I signed up with some excitement. I scheduled my meeting with ioSafe in the evening to get the chaos of CES started. For some reason they wouldn't allow ioSafe to do their torture tests in the convention center so they rented out a house just off of the strip. I was picked up in a nice Limo directly from our hotel and driven out to their house. On the way there I had a lot of time to talk shop about ioSafe's decision to jump into the personal market with their "Solo" model, along with more details on how they where able to keep the hard drive cool while it's running but protecting it from fire and water any other time.
Our good friends at Coolermaster decided to forgo the trouble of having a booth at CES this year and instead go all out with a suite in one of Vegas's famous hotel casinos. The money saved not having a booth they were able to pickup the penthouse suite in the Palms hotel. They invited both my wife Alex and I to their CES party on top of our scheduled meeting. We showed up to their party late after a long first day walking the CES floor. Even though I had an upset stomach and a head ache I made it anyway. When you get invited to a penthouse party in Vegas you can't turn that down, lol. Once we got there I noticed right away that the view was amazing. After being introduced to all of the important people from Coolermaster USA they gave us a tour of their current and upcoming products. The following pictures were taken the next day at my meeting; I didn't have the camera when we came to the party.
When given the chance to interview Nicholas Depalmer a professional gamer from Team Pandemic we jumped at the chance. Considering how many people play games and how few manage to find a way to make a living from it I thought it would be interesting to see how he did it. It turns out his back story was very interesting. If you would like to read even more about Nicholas you can also check out his website at propeekay.com.
GELID Solutions designs and manufactures innovative, virtually silent & high-performance CPU coolers, case fans, thermal compound and other computer hardware for both gamers and silent enthusiasts. They provide computer hardware distributors, retailers and system integrators with top quality one-stop thermal solutions – from bearings to thermal compound, from design to shipping, from the molding of the fan to the print on the box – with state-of-the-art machines and experienced staff. Expect to see more of them around very soon; in fact we will be taking a first look at their thermal compound over the next week. Take a look at there website to see what they are all about! www.gelidsolutions.com
Computex was all of last week. Interested in hearing about upcoming product releases and seeing pictures of the amazing displays I spent most of the week digging for anything I could find from some of our main sponsors. Noctua send us a few pictures and some information on there display at Computex. Click to check out the pictures and see the upcoming products.
It looks like Razer wants to compete with other soft mouse pad company's like Steel Series. With pricing starting at just under $15, it looks like they are ready for a fight.
Razer Goliathus – US: $14.99, 19.99 & 24.99; Europe: €12.99, 17.99 & 19.99
Goliathus Speed / Control 355mm x 254mm x 4mm Goliathus ? Speed / Control 444 x 355 x 4.3mm
Los Angeles, CA – May 2008. The internal DIY liquid cooling system has always been the top choice of gamers worldwide. To fulfill the heavy demands of these players, Thermaltake is launching a brand new series of DIY liquid cooling systems, the ProWater Series, and the first model to be introduced is the new “PW850i” that incorporates the latest production techniques and technology of the internal liquid cooling segment.
Vienna, May 5th 2008 - Noctua presented today its new premium class CPU cooler NH-C12P. Being equipped with 6 heat pipes and the award-winning NF-P12 120mm fan, the NH-C12P achieves excellent performance and outstanding quietness of operation. The down-facing c-type design allows for lower height and also provides additional cooling for motherboard components through two Airflow-Gaps.
LOS ANGELES, CA – May 2008 – After the success of “Armor+ Series” engineers at Thermaltake has worked around the clock to improve and innovate another and better chassis. Armor+ Series was launched at Computex 2007 a super tower allowing consumer to fully utilize the advance graphic technology. Today Thermaltake announced a new member of the Armo+, “Armor+ MX” a middle tower chassis with countless advance features.
The newest BAWLS Guarana flavor is here! Unleash your inner geek with BAWLS Guarana G33K B33R – the first-ever high caffeine root beer, spiked with guarana! G33K B33R has a smooth, refreshing root beer taste with enough guarana caffeine to make it as strong as a cup of coffee. It’s the perfect drink for any gamer, techie, student or root beer fan in need of a tasty BOUNCE! We named this new drink “G33K B33R” to thank our loyal fans who have always looked to us to keep them bouncing. Thanks for your support, guys! Available in our new brown, bumped glass bottle, G33K B33R will be available at www.ThinkGeek.com, Microcenter, Sheetz Convenience Stores, and select BAWLS retailers nationwide April 1st. Nutritional Info: Serving size: 1 bottle; Calories 130; Total fat 0g; Sodium 35mg; Total carbohydrate 36g; sugars 36g;
Razer announced this past week at CeBIT that they are planning on bringing out an entry level gaming mouse. Tailored to the needs of gamers that require speed and precision, the Razer Salmosa is the perfect introductory mouse for gamers that require a light and agile mouse. The Razer Salmosa is also one of the lightest mice of its class currently available on the market. Equipped with the Razer 3G Infrared Sensor, the Razer Salmosa is the definition of speed and value for gamers that are just beginning their search for a gaming-grade mouse.
