HUGE SHOW: Attendees filling the aisles at the 2013 International CES at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. - AFP
Being such a massive exhibition, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) always has upcoming products by the truckload. Here are a few of the ones we found particularly interesting:
nVidia Project Shield
One of the big announcements at CES 2013 was nVidia's Project Shield, a handheld gaming console running on the company's Tegra 4 processor and the Android operating system.
Project Shield looks like what you would get if you slammed an Xbox 360 controller and a 5in 720p display together.
This handheld runs many Android games, but it has a trick up its sleeve - much like the Nintendo Wii U, Project Shield can also stream desktop PC games from a compatible PC via WiFi to the handheld.
This means that players can move away from their TVs and play a desktop game on the Shield while their spouses watches a movie.
Xi3 Piston
The Piston from Xi3 was probably best known by another name at CES by various gaming journalists - the Steam Box.
Although it is not the official name nor called that by gaming company Valve who had invested in Xi3 to help produce the Piston, this tiny gaming console will indeed run Valve's Steam digital distribution service.
Although pretty small, the Piston runs on AMD's Trinity platform which features a 3.2GHz quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, four USB 3.0 ports, four eSATA ports and four USB 2.0 ports with up to 1TB of storage.
That's enough power to run many games on the market today, including the graphics intensive ones.
Pebble Watch
Making an appearance at CES was a successfully funded Kickstarter project, the Pebble Watch.
This smart watch has an e-ink display with customisable displays so you can have a different watch face whenever you like by simply downloading a new skin on to it.
We're not talking about differently designed watch hands or an analogue display - the Pebble can completely change its display to any of those but it can also display time in all sorts of funky ways.
However, the reason the Pebble is interesting is that it comes with Bluetooth to connect to your smartphone, as well as the ability to install apps.
These apps can access GPS on the smartphone to display speed and distance, or control music on your smartphone.
CubeX
3D Systems, one of the pioneers of consumer 3D printers also showed off the CubeX, a high-end 3D printer with the largest build volume of any current models.
Just to give you an idea, it can print objects about the size of a basketball in one single print job.
The printer itself can use either ABS plastic or PLA at the same time, and even comes with either a single cartridge edition which prints in one colour, all the way up to a three-cartridge model which can print three colours at the same time.
The printer's layer resolution is reasonable although not the finest available, at 125microns.
Huawei Ascend Mate
Huawei's Ascend Mate deserves a mention because it seeks to dethrone all other Android phablets with its massive 6.1in screen.
It may not be a Super Amoled screen but it has the same 1,280 x 720-pixel resolution as most tablets, and is protected by Corning Gorilla glass.
Ascend Mate also has a fast 1.5Ghz quad-core processor, a large 4,050mAh capacity battery and 8-Megapixel camera for pictures.
Huawei expects to start shipping the Ascend Mate by the second quarter but the price has yet to be announced.
Sensus Touch
Canopy's Sensus touch-sensitive iPhone case has to be one of the most interesting gadgets at this year's CES.
Apart from protecting the underside of your iPhone, the Sensus also adds a touch surface to the back of the device. The case offers multi-touch response for up to 10 fingers to the entire back surface of the phone.
The additional touch surface benefits users as they would be able to run their thumb on the underside of the phone when scrolling up or down when surfing, without their finger blocking the view.
Other potential applications include mobile gaming for apps that support the case.
Canopy is targeting to launch the Sensus for the iPhone 4/4S and iPhone 5 by the middle of this year for USD69 (RM208).
GoPro Hero3
GoPro has announced its Hero3 mountable camera and it's tougher than ever as it is waterproof up to 60m deep.
The rugged model is smaller, lighter and its 12-megapixel sensor can capture up to 30 photos per second.
It also offers a wide variety of video recording options that include 1440p at 48fps (frames per second), 1080p at 60fps and 720p at 120fps.
It also has built-in WiFi connectivity and can be controlled via a remote or smart device.
The Hero3 is available now from their website for USD399.99 (RM1,200).
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX Predator
Kingston came out of left field with the world's first 1TB thumbdrive at this year's CES.
Besides an awesome name, the HyperX Predator is a small but mighty USB 3.0 flash drive that can hold as much data as most bulky external hard drives.
It has a rated read speed of 240Mbps read (megabits per second) and write speed of 160Mbps.
There is no word yet on the product's availability and pricing.
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