CES: Sony's Flip rival, a portable Blu-ray player and the green tech hype

Sony's answer to the Flip

Flip Video was one of the gadgets of 2008, so it's no surprise that the rest of the tech industry is trying to muscle in to regain a bit of market. Flip was a best seller at Christmas in both the UK and US, so what can the big boys do to compete?

Sony's answer is the MHS-PM1, so the consumer electronics giant clearly isn't getting any more user-friendly with its gadget names and hasn't learnt from Flip's one-syllable success.

The Webbie HD series of cameras launches in April in the US and will undercut the Flip on price; the PM1 has a 1.8" screen, has a 4x digital zoom and will sell for around $170.

Sony's MHS-PM1 camcorder

Flip's Mino HD, for comparison, has a 1.5" screen, selling at $229.95. Flip has a built-in 4GB memory, but you'd have to fork out extra for a Sony Memory Stick if you want a PM1 with any more than the 12MB embedded memory.

Both of those are up against the Kodak Zi6, which sells in the US for $179.95. It comes with 128MB of memory than can be upgraded with memory cards and has a 2.4" screen.

Blu-ray on the go

Companies always like to squeeze in a first if they can, even if it means making a product no-one really needs. Bring on Panasonic's portable Blu-ray player - what the Japanese tech giant claims is the world's first.

The DMP-B15 will go on sale this May in the US. It has an 8.9" screen, three-hour battery life and an ethernet connection that will enable VieraCast; that means Amazon Video On-Demand, Picasa, YouTube and Bloomberg news, amongst others. Another first is its DMP-BD70V - a dual Blu-ray and VHS player. How many minutes until VHS is obsolete?

The Panasonic DMP-B15 portable Blu-ray player
The Panasonic DMP-B15 portable Blu-ray player

CES gets greener

Despite shrinking by around 30% in terms of exhibitors and visitors, according to the tech gossips, the green technology section at CES has grown this year. The Greener Gadgets Tech Zone that debuted last year at just 520 square feet this year reached 3,000.

As Katie Fehrenbacher wrote on GigaOm: "After spending days walking amidst rows of 82-inch flat screen TVs and pocketing useless tchotkes from hundreds of vendors at the show, you couldn't imagine a more perfect event to embody the ultimate in consumerism and waste."

Green gadgets at CES include all manner of mobiles and laptops made from recycled or biodegradable materials, fuel-efficient or sustainably powered devices and no small amount of token 'green' products from the big tech firms from the quirky to the downright responsible.

Among the products being rolled out this week will be Samsung's more energy efficient, ultra-slim Luxia LED TVs which run on 40% less power than a traditional LCD, and Toshiba's Super Charge Battery that can be recharged 6,000 times and can reach a 90% charge in just 10 minutes.

There was also the much written about Motorola MOTO W233 Renew mobile, the production, distribution and operation of which has been fully carbon offset by Motorola through a partnership with CarbonFund. The shell of the W233, says the release, is 100% recyclable and the plastics made from recycled water bottles.

Made from recycled plastic bottles: the Motorola W233 Renew
Made from recycled plastic bottles: the Motorola W233 Renew

John Biggs at CrunchGear is, for one, not convinced by Motorola's green tokenism. "100% recyclable? So is everything, given enough processing. Plastic comprised of recycled water bottles? Want a cookie? What about the 5 million RAZRs now paving the bottom of countless rivers?

"Even if they offset their carbon credits with the good wood elves of Sylvan Glade, this is still a phone and it will still end up in a filthy landfill picked over by the poorest of the poor in rural China."

He does have a point, and that is that consumer electronics firms need to take a year off while no-one is buying anything anyway and come back with some "real" green tech in 2010. Just an idea.