Gadgets: SideShow Notebook, New Charger

By RYAN NAKASHIMA

LAS VEGAS – Laptop users who forget to print out addresses or meeting room numbers don’t have to wait for their laptops to boot up to check the information.

A laptop from ASUSTek Computer Inc. has a 2.5-inch secondary liquid crystal display that allows people to check recent e-mails, photos, videos and calendar items using the "SideShow" feature of Microsoft Corp.’s latest operating system, Windows Vista.

"If I’m in the elevator, in the hallway, or even in my car, or in a meeting or something and I want to check my last e-mail or show pictures to somebody, I can just use this ‘SideShow’ feature," said Raymond Chen, ASUSTek’s marketing vice president.

The external display has 1 gigabyte of flash memory and, because it uses little power, should be able to last 50 hours before recharges, Chen said.

The display module can programmed to sync up with selected data on the computer regularly, such as every hour or when the computer powers down. Information is viewable even when the computer is off.

The laptop, which will cost $1,799 to $1,899, is expected to be available after Vista’s Jan. 30 consumer launch.

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On the Net:

ASUSTek Computer Inc.: http://www.asus.com

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LAS VEGAS (AP) – Jumble of cables and power adapters, begone!

Auto parts manufacturer Visteon Corp. is developing a wireless charger for mobile devices.

The base station on which a mobile gadget is placed to be rejuiced plugs into a car’s lighter socket and sits in a cup holder. Visteon expects to sell the chargers for $60 starting later this year.

For now, a separate $30 adapter is needed for each gadget for it to work with the wireless charger. In the future, the company and its technology partner, Fulton Innovation LLC, hope to partner with manufacturers to build the necessary components directly into devices.

The technology works because the base station creates a magnetic field that generates a current within the gadget’s adapter.

The companies – as well as cell phone maker Motorola Inc. and furniture maker Herman Miller Inc. – have formed an alliance to create a standard for the wireless power-up technology, called eCoupled.

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On the Net:

eCoupled, http://www.ecoupled.com

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LAS VEGAS (AP) – A new MP3 player developed by SanDisk Corp. does not need to be tethered to the PC to download tunes.

The Sansa Connect, expected to sell in the United States for $249 in late March, detects Wi-Fi networks and allows instant Internet radio streaming or song search functions. One can even detect friends, send recommendations, see what they’re listening to and grab and download the same music.

A monthly subscription to some 300 radio channels and a database of 2 million songs is expected to cost around $10 a month, said Ain McKendrick, senior director of product marketing for back-end software provider, ZING Systems Inc.

"Part of the vision is being able to go PC-free," he said. "Right now a lot of the MP3 players, including things like the iPod, they’re really PC accessories. They’re not a true consumer product where you can just hand it to anybody and say, `Go use it.’ This product breaks that. You don’t have to use a PC any more."

The player also offers dynamic mixing, where a server will create a 15-song mix similar to the one the user selected. As the 4 gigabyte device fills up, it also automatically deletes songs it knows the user doesn’t favor. The device also accepts songs "side-loaded" from a computer library.

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On the Net:

SanDisk Corp., http://www.sandisk.com

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NEW YORK (AP) – Akimbo Systems Inc., a video-on-demand service that uses the Internet to deliver shows to television sets, said Wednesday it inked a deal to bring video from Yahoo Inc. to its subscribers.

Akimbo, a privately held company based in San Mateo, Calif., said viewers will be able to browse a regularly updated selection of Yahoo’s popular videos, then watch the clips on their TV screens, without extra charge.

Video coming from Yahoo includes featured user-submitted clips selected by Yahoo editors and the most-watched clips of the week and of all time.

The most-watched clips could include professionally produced television and movie video, and Akimbo said Yahoo will clear them for copyright issues before they appear on the service. For amateur video, Yahoo’s terms of service already give the online company broad distribution rights.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. Akimbo’s service, which lets customers access more than 14,000 movies, TV shows and other video on demand, costs $9.99 per month. The latest model of its set-top box sells for $199.99 on Amazon.com.

The partnership, announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, further underscores the convergence of TVs and personal computers. CBS Corp. said Tuesday it will broadcast user-generated video from Google Inc.’s YouTube before the Super Bowl.

CBS also is working with Sling Media Inc. to let users post clips from its TV shows on the Web and share them with friends. Sling Media said it hopes to make similar deals with other networks and officially launch the service in the second quarter of this year.

Also on Tuesday, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled Apple TV, a 40-gigabyte hard drive that connects televisions to computers and the Internet.

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AP Business Writer Jessica Mintz contributed to this report from New York.