Nextar is bringing the big guns to CES this year with their upcoming frog-shaped “Ribbit” MP3 player. Besides the unique design, it features 4GB of storage space and an OLED screen for only $US25.
Samsung’s Highnote slider phone is another Sprint exclusive with a hidden speaker that reveals itself when you slide the phone face down. Even in the middle of a press event, you could hear the speaker at work, and for what it was, it didn’t sound excessively tinny or distorted. galleryPost('highnotehands', 3, '');
“The lightbulb is dead. Long live CFL!” may be the chant sounding around the world as we switch to the energy-efficient fluorescent lighting, but this has its own problems—something the LED bulb from Frog Design is intended to fix. It’s arguable the CFLs are bad for the environment, with plastic parts, electronics and mercury inside, and they emit a harsh light and can’t be dimmed. LEDs are more efficient, potentially longer lasting, are dimmable and need less components. Frog has decided that to get consumers to adopt LEDs, and for ease of use, it’s simplest to package them in a traditional glass enclosure, complete with screw-fit contacts. It’s a design I’ve secretly thought about for ages: making it into a real product has just one difficulty… bright enough, white enough, long-lasting diffuse LEDs. [Yanko Design]
