“The mPower Reserve Battery offers an unprecedented minimum shelf life of 20 years and has an immediate activation to full power. Through an intricate battery design, mPhase developed a way to eliminate power dissipation before initial activation.”

The torch uses an intense, high-performance LED, and has an accessory USB connection to charge your mobile devices. It’s slated to arrive in March, but we hope to get a better look at it at CES in January. [CNETand Yahoo News]

The reason this is even a subject again is because of an oddly (and perhaps tellingly) vague piece posted on the the WSJ’s Digits blog by Ben Charny, who flat out claims that that Apple plans to use CES to replace Macworld, which it walked away from some time ago:

Apple plans to attend the show’s 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.

That sounds clear enough, but it’s buried in a piece that seems to be about how the chief executive of the CEA, Gary Shapiro, can’t get in touch with Steve Jobs. But hey, he’s probably just being vague, and drew his conclusion from quotes that he didn’t include! That’s what journalist do, sometimes! Except the meeting from which Charny drew his conclusion was a dinner with multiple attendees, one of whom happens to be ex Engadget editor and current CEA advisor Ryan Block, who took issue with his reading of events:

[I]t’s also specious and flatly wrong. I was seated directly across from Gary, and present for the entire conversation, wherein a dozen or so other journos chatted with him and one another. When asked about the CEA’s ongoing contact with Jobs, Gary joked that every once in a while Steve might even return his email — to which we all laughed knowingly. Yep, that’s our Steve. Shapiro went on to mention that Apple was a great and long-standing supporter of the efforts of the CEA, but that their only direct involvement was sending a check each year to pay their membership dues.

As far as the WSJ post goes, this is pretty damning. But it really just rules out Charny’s version of this dinner, not the possibility that Apple will actually go to CES. As far as that question goes, we’re left with the same evidence we had last time rumours like this went around, in January. The verdict, then and still, is that they probably won’t: January’s a pretty terrible time to launch new products, but more to the point, Apple doesn’t even care about industry trade shows—which CES epitomises in all the worst ways—anymore. Their statement from all those months ago hasn’t been followed up:

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple would gain nothing from going large at CES, so until a credible story comes along that says otherwise, that’s the word. [WSJ via Engadget]

Apple announced this year that they would no longer attend the decade-old Macworld conference, leading some to speculate that the company would shift their focus to CES. Well, the CEA is now shifting their focus to Apple, but why?

The floorplan for CES 2010 sees the iLounge—the section for Mac accessory retailers—expanded to six times its previous size. Why would they do this? Macworld, despite Apple’s absence, is still happening, albeit one month later, so it’s not like CES is addressing a trade show void. On the surface, it looks like the CEA might actually be trying to seduce Apple into attending their conference.

But just as before, something about such rumours is odd: Apple left Macworld because it didn’t need Macworld, so a move to CES, which they need even less, would be hard to understand. A more likely explanation is that CES is just trying to kill what remains of Macworld. There may not be a void in the Apple tradeshow world right now, but that doesn’t mean the CEA wouldn’t like to create one, which they would gladly fill in 2011. [CNET]

Really though, somehow Hoffman manages to capture the tone of the event, the absurdity of so many of these products and the people selling them. If only the clip included 200 pans of identical digital cameras, flat screen TVs and journalists proudly toting official CES 2009 backpacks, you’d be missing nothing other than the smell and complimentary after hours booze.

[via bbGadgets]

Revealed at CES, this Coke vending machine from Sapient has a completely interactive touchscreen front panel that lets you view the product before you purchase it—just like how you would in the grocery store. Simply select which bottle of pop you want, give it a spin to peruse its ingredients, marvel the barcode, and check out whatever else you need to know about it before purchasing it (with either cash or a credit card).

Sapient’s Coke machines are set to be available sometime soon in the 190+ malls owned by the Simon Property Group. However, the rest of the world may have to wait until 2010 until they could touch one of these babies. View the very first hands-on first impressions below. [Engadget Thanks Peter!]

Using the iPod-esque controls and the screen, the user can display and record measurements, adjust case lengths and convert measurements between imperial and metric. Definitely a smart design, but when DIYers might be able to get their hands on it is unknown. [Gearlog via Newlaunches via Coolest Gadgets]