Best of CES

Held each year in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the largest technology shows in the world. This year, nearly 2,700 exhibitors showcased their latest products and services to more than 140,000 attendees. A number of our editors attended this year, and this article highlights some of the hot, new products that caught their collective eye.

Best in their class at CES

Best Bluetooth headset: Aliph Jawbone with noise cancellation

I've grown tired of reviewing new Bluetooth headsets, but the Aliph Jawbone truly surprised me. The most important feature of this unit is active noise cancellation. While other "noise canceling" headsets increase the volume to try to overpower background noise, the Jawbone uses a DSP (digital signal processor) to actively cancel unwanted clamor. I gave it the ultimate test by taking a call while standing in the middle of the Microsoft booth at CES. I asked the caller if they could hear me, and they had no problem with the call. On the other hand, I did need to press the headset to my ear a few times to hear him. But this was just after I received the Jawbone unit, and since it comes with multiple ear pieces and a hidden volume control, I don't blame the headset. I also used it outside in front of the convention center where there was a loud music demo taking place. Again, the caller was not aware of my surroundings.

A silver version of the Jawbone is available from Cingular Wireless stores for $119.99. Aliph will make silver, red, and black versions of Jawbone available soon from their Web site (http://jawbone.com). It is 2-3 times the price of most Bluetooth headsets, but if you use your Smartphone or Phone Edition in noisy environments, it's worth the price.

The Aliph Jawbone

Best memory card: A-DATA info SD with built-in display

The Taiwanese company A-DATA (http://adata.com.tw) displayed a number of storage cards, including one that has a small LCD on the back that displays the amount of free storage space. In addition, the display on the A-DATA info SD card also shows you the first two characters of the volume ID, which would, for example, make it easier to distinguish between cards that hold your Music (MU), GPS maps (GP), etc. (Volume labels can only be changed from a PC with a card reader.) The best part is that A-DATA indicated that the pricing would be similar to cards lacking the display technology. This product won the "Best of Innovations" award at this year's CES.

The A-DATA SD storage card

Best GPS product (if I can get it to work): Spectec SDIO GPS with MicroSD slot

You can add GPS capability to Windows Mobile devices with adapters that slip into the card slots. But turn-by-turn navigation capability requires digital maps that take up a lot of storage space, and you can't use a storage card for this because the slot is occupied by the GPS receiver.

Spectec's solution is a new GPS receiver that comes with a microSD card slot built into it (http://spectec.com.tw). You store maps on a microSD card, slip that into the GPS receiver, and slip the receiver into the Pocket PC's SDIO card slot. Unfortunately, I couldn't get this to work with my Pocket PC. The technical folks at Spectec acknowledged that there is a compatibility issue with devices manufactured by HTC—the majority of Windows Mobile devices on the market. I'll report more on this in the future.

Best Bluetooth adapter: NewtonPeripherals MoGo Dapter