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The TwoStep comes in purple and two other colors.

(Credit: Samsung)

Pardon us for not telling you about this last week, but we were pretty busy with all the cell phone news at CES. On Friday, however, Samsung announced that its new TwoStep was coming to U.S. Cellular.

Why …

All things considered, this year’s CES had a surprising amount of innovative–or at least interesting–tech for cameras and camcorders, beyond the usual bigger/faster/cheaper we’ve come to expect from the show.

Though each manufacturer took a different approach to pumping up its HD camcorder lines, they all …

Originally posted at CES 2009

The Palm Pre takes Best of CES.

(Credit: Palm)

Though cell phones are just a small part of CES, the category made a big splash at this year’s show with the first cell phone to win CNET’s Best of CES award. But the Palm Pre was not the only device in Las Vegas; new devices also debuted from Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and LG, to name a few.

In the smartphone category, the obvious star was the Palm Pre, which scored a hat trick by winning not only the aforementioned Best of CES award, but also the Best of CES award in the cell phone category and the People’s Voice Award. The Pre restored a bit of faith in Palm and more importantly, pushed the capabilities of a smartphone. The Pre promises to offer true multi-tasking on a phone and dazzles with its unique user interface, design, and features.

In addition, the Palm Web OS and App Store will only expand the Pre’s (as well as future Palm Web OS devices) uses and capabilities. By raising the bar, Palm has certainly sent a message to its competitors and we suspect they’ll step up and respond, which is always good for us since it will bring more innovation.

While the Pre might have grabbed much of the CES spotlight, it wasn’t the only smartphone to debut at the show. T-Mobile announced the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 and T-Mobile Shadow, while HTC introduced its HTC S743 smartphone. Nokia also announced that it will bring a U.S. version of the Nokia E63 to market in the coming weeks, and we finally got some hands-on time with the Nokia N97. Looks like 2009 is shaping up to be another action-packed year for the smartphone space.

Motorola earned a Best of CES nomination with its Surf A3100 smartphone. The touch-screen device offers multimedia features in an eye catching design. And better yet, it puts a nifty and user-friendly spin on the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating.

Moto also introduced the Renew W233, a phone made from recycled water bottles, and the rugged and tough Tundra A76r for AT&T. We got a close look at both models. And though it wasn’t introduced in Las Vegas, CES gave us our first opportunity to handle the style-centric and posh Motorola Aura….

Originally posted at CES 2009

Before the world went high-def, Panasonic made a point of upgrading many of its camcorders to 3-chip models; now it’s happening again, as Panasonic rolls out its 3MOS chipsets in its prosumer 2009 AVCHD camcorders. And at 2 megapixels per chip, they’re each reasonably high-resolution, as well. However, …

Originally posted at CES 2009

Netgear shows off its Internet TV Player at CES 2009.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)

The main networking themes at CES 2009: faster, greener, and more diverse.

The nicest surprise, however, was not a product but the return of Buffalo. After two years of court sanctions, Buffalo now has regained the right to sell networking products in North America. It’s interesting that in the Chinese calendar, 2009 is also the year of the Ox.

The company offers a few sleek-looking routers, both Wireless-N and Wireless-G. In my experience, Buffalo offers great budget routers, which are affordable and yet reliable at the same time. This is good news for consumers.

While Buffalo’s portfolio doesn’t contain anything revolutionary, Trendnet D-Link showed off new Wireless-N routers that offer speeds up to 450Mbps, a 50 percent boost from its cap of 300Mbps. This is achieved by adding more single streams to an antenna, much like adding more garden hoses to better the watering. The new technology uses three signal streams per antenna.

The new speed is based on a common standard, and therefore, once certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, routers and adapters from different vendors will inter-operate at the new high speed.

Speaking of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization, together with In-Stat, released at CES a report saying that the consumption of Wi-Fi chips increased by 26 percent in 2008. The group expects this momentum to continue into 2009.

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Originally posted at CES 2009

Will 2009 be the year when frivolous, ’80s-throwback iPod boomboxes go huge? Don’t hold your breath.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CBS Interactive)

CES 2009 delivered a surprising amount of MP3 player-related product announcements compared with last year’s show. No, I didn’t see any “iPod killers” out there, but …

Originally posted at CES 2009

(Credit: LG)

It looks like the LG CF750 Secret may be coming over to AT&T, according to this listing on LG’s U.S. site. Hopefully it’ll have many of the features found on its Asian/European counterpart, like the 5-megapixel camera, 3G, a touch-sensitive display, support for …

(Credit: Cool Hunting)

That hat you see to the right is smokin’. No, it literally is. Chilean fashion designer Alexandra Guerrero made it from recycled cigarette butts.

Through her new company, Mantis, Guerrero combines purified smokes with natural wool to form a raw, textured material that can be woven into …