CES 2010 Meta-Coverage: TWiT TV, CNET TV, TechVi & CrunchGear, Streaming from Vegas, Side by Side in This Post

by Don Rose

Recession busted your budget? No time to trek to Vegas? Just feeling lazy? Never fear, lover of gear, The LA Report has collected cool content feeds so you can sit back and watch CES 2010 convention coverage right here, all in one post! It's our first-ever CES meta-coverage, or "coverage of the coverage", to satisfy your info-gathering needs.

The first feed below is TWiT TV - arguably the best tech program-podcast online (a Dream Stream Team, if you will). TWiT stands for This Week in Tech; the host (likable Leo Laporte) does an excellent job, and TWiT content is archived on the Web as well as on iTunes (free). For CES 2010, Leo brought a mega-powerful mobile rig and a team of techheads who share his passion for top tier gear. Watch below (click play button) and check out www.twit.tv/ces as well as the TWiT CES blog.

Watch live video from TWiT Live on Justin.tv

Part 2 of our CES 2010 meta-coverage is from CrunchGear on livestream; like TWiT TV, the Crunch bunch is streaming from the Vegas show with a combination of live and recorded content.

Watch live streaming video from crunchgear at livestream.com

Part 3 of our meta-coverage is from CNET TV. We especially love their Buzz Out Loud show, which features a quartet of pundits going over tech headlines/news with rapidfire commentary. Watch CNET's CES coverage below (click play button).



Part 4 of our meta-coverage is from TechVi and their CES 2010 feed. Watch below (click play button) and check out www.techvi.com.

Watch live video from techvi on Justin.tv

For those of you who prefer reading to watching video, below are some notes summarizing TWiT TV's CES 2010 coverage at Pepcom's Digital Experience, one of the two can't-miss press events at CES every year (the other being ShowStoppers). The most visually appealing (or was it appalling?) sights at the Pepcom pressxpo were the bouncy-boobed booth babes dressed as animals. Oh, you wanted tech info? Okay, read on:

COPIA - a social e-reading experience; some say it may be a Kindle killer. Cost: from $199-299. Book content: over 1 million titles at launch, including newspapers and magazines. From their website: "Any eReader can hold your book. But only one holds your entire reading experience. Introducing the copia reader - the first and only reader with social networking built in." "Holds 1500 books and all of your friends."
BOXEE BOX - brings the TV-content service offered by Boxee* (which provides viewers oodles of content choices ranging from TWiT TV to justin.tv, fora.tv, KidMango, radiotime, PBS, NPR, the often hilarious FailBlog and many more) to an actual mini-settop-box (about the size of a Rubik's Cube with askew angles). One nice feature: you can go to websites and search for content you want, and watch it on the Boxee Box. The box/hardware is made by D-Link, with fast wi-fi, a remote with QWERTY keyboard on the back, and a USB port if you want to plug in a USB drive with video content to watch. *Boxee is "cross-platform freeware media center software with ... social networking features designed for the living-room TV" that lets you "enjoy entertainment from the Internet and computer on your TV" and is "available as a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, AppleTV."

MOPHIE: maker of iPod/iPhone accessories, showed off a credit card reader -- and Leo loves their Juice Pack (the mophie website says juice pack air™ is a rechargeable external battery concealed inside a protective case for the iPhone 3G & 3GS that offers the protection of a hard-shell case while providing virtually twice the battery life of the iPhone alone - all in an ultra-thin, light-weight, low-profile design.
LENOVO U1: under $1000, the U1 features a pullout Linux tablet within a laptop!

GOOGLE NEXUS ONE: new cell/puter handheld gizmo is the first Android phone actually made by Google themselves (rather than a phone made by others that has Google's Android software); buy Nexus One direct from Google for

$529 (website: "B

uy the phone without service and insert your own SIM card. Includes a Nexus One phone case, wall charger, and USB cable. Free shipping") or $179 if you sign up for a 2 year service plan with T-Mobile (official cell phone service of The LA Report, who we love for their near-perfect coverage, superior customer service and super reasonable rates).

Other tech products/services mentioned during the TWiTcast:

CLICKFREE (automatic backup; their website says they are "the worlds easiest computer backup solution. Clickfree carries the widest array backup devices : Hard Drives, DVD Backup, Flash Backup")
GOODREADS (share book recommendations, see what your friends are reading, keep track of what you've read and organize your book lists into shelves, join a book club to discuss favorite books)
SHELFARI (social media site focused on books where members can build virtual bookshelves, discover, rate and discuss books, and participate in online groups)
ZOOM (popular portable microphone used by CBS Tech journalist Larry Magid, who did a simulpodcast with Leo as each veteran technojourno interviewed the other at the same time!)

OOMA (free home phone service - why don't they use Uma Thurman as spokeswoman?)

ENELOOP (Sanyo's electric hybrid bike - which one attendee wheeled by).