This whole electrocardio business is all well and good, but we must confess our initial disappointment when we realized that the little display on the left palm rest of this laptop was no SideShow apparatus — though we suppose you already knew how we feel about that little bit of Vista goodness that is SideShow. All the same, there ain’t much wrong with this HATO NB electrocardiogram doohicky that MSI slapped onto its latest laptop. The included electrodes can be hooked up to your aesthetically pleasing lady friend, allowing the laptop to record her vitals or even allowing a doctor to remotely examine the patient. You can also print out information the gadget gathers, or place the data on an SD card for doctor perusal. The rest of the details on this thing are sadly lost in machine translation, but it looks like MSI will be showing it off at CES next week, so we’ll keep an eye out. (For you guys: If you look long enough there is a pic of the computer on the right side of the chick).

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Considering your mind is probably more focused on that upcoming trip to the slopes than your thoroughly frozen outdoor pool, you probably aren’t in any dire need of a floating iPod speaker system in the midst of January, but nevertheless, Atlantic’s bringing it to you. Aside from always staying on the sunny side of whatever liquid it’s in, the plastic shell also touts a pair of (presumably weak) stereo speakers and the ability to house your dock-connecting iPod. Reportedly, the device is waterproof enough to withstand pool parties and showers, and can supposedly operate for 30 hours on just four AA batteries. While the EGO has been floating around (ahem) briefly, the firm plans to officially launch it during next week’s CES, but those eager to get their swim trunks on in the middle of winter can find one now for around $115.

[Via TGDaily]
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Although glitzy, stat-filled jerseys are certainly sufficient ways to get information off your chest (ahem), a new vibrating vest could give “body language” an entirely new meaning. Joining the air-conditioned and insulating renditions, this snazzy vest features a “tactile display” on the back, which is created by 16 small vibrating motors that are connected to an internal wireless control unit. The jacket “writes symbols and messages on its wearer’s back,” and while the actual writing resembles Braille more than text, it can supposedly be used to “send important commands to soldiers or firefighters, warning them of imminent danger when ordinary radios cannot be used.” Commands are beamed to the vests via a wirelessly-enabled computer, and can stealthily inform platoons to stop, look in a specific direction, run, or slow down. The US Army is partially funding the research, as it hopes to investigate different ways to communicate when hand signals and / or radio transmissions aren’t effective. During initial testing, results have shown nearly flawless interpretation by participants, and while we’re not exactly sure when we can expect rumble-equipped gear to grace our armed forces, the problem of “excess noise from the motors” has to be quelled before hitting the battlefield.

[Via BoingBoing]
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Panasonic is giving a bump to their 3CCD line-up of cams this morning with the introduction of their VDR-D310 and NV-GS320 models. The VDR-D310 records to DVD-R DL in addition to the usual DVD-R/RW/RAM formats for up to 138 minutes of recordings. The NV-GS320 records to miniDV tape. Both models shoot 3.1 megapixel pictures and feature a 2.7-inch LCD and 10x optical zoom lens supported by Panny’s MEGA optical image stabilization to keep the bur to a minimum. Each camera also shoots pictures directly to SDHC although only the GS320 can record video to the new SD 2.0 card format. They hit later this month in Japan with the the VDR-D310 going for about Â¥95,000 ($798) while the NV-GS320 should demand only Â¥75,000 ($630). See the NV-GS320 after the break.

[Via Impress]
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We’re all about watching new “world’s (insert adjective here)” gizmos become a reality, and we certainly don’t mind the occasional dash of overkill, but Ultra Products‘ forthcoming power supply takes “insane” to another level. In what’s presumably the world’s largest, most powerful PSU to call an ATX case home, the 2000-watt Modular X3 comes in at 10.25-inches in length and will reportedly fit “wherever a PC Power & Cooling 1000-watt version will”. The +12V rail alone is rated at 1800-watts, which means that it can purportedly handle a 150A load, and just might cause some sort of small disaster if actually achieved. Nevertheless, the smorgasbord of connectors allow for more power connections that most could even fathom needing, but Ultra believes that this PSU should remove all worry over whether or not your rig “has enough juice.” While it’s easy to brush this off as completely absurd, the latest AMD scorchers combined with a few NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI R600 cards could easily eat up a good bit of the supplied power, so if a ginormous power supply was the only thing missing from finishing up your energy-sucking rig, Ultra’s X3 should be available sometime this quarter for “less than $499.”

[Via Digg]
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Hot on the heels of all this last minute, pre-CES HD DVD-related action is the SD-H903A, which Toshiba touts as “the world’s first dedicated PC-based HD DVD burner” that writes “to all main optical discs.” Aside from the obvious (albeit expected) hand-to-the-face to BD-Rs in that last claim, the burner does manage to write nicely to HD DVD-R (single and dual-layer at a measly 1x), DVD +/- R, DVD-RAM, DVD +/- RW, CD-R, and CD-RW. Additionally, it’ll include an 8MB buffer, and if all goes well, should play back all your precious HD DVD titles without complication. While we’ve no idea how much coinage will be required to pick this (admittedly sluggish) drive up, sample shipments are scheduled to take off this month, and we should get a good look at just what it’s capable of at next week’s CES.

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LG is already bringing 1080p content and a hybrid Blu-ray / HD DVD drive to CES, and it just wouldn’t make sense not to have brand new displays too, so the company plans to unveil a slew of new plasmas next week. The literally biggest news, however, is that the company’s 71-inch 1080p plasma HDTV that started shipping early last year, will drop its MSRP from $70,000 to a mere $14,999.95 (we can assume losing the 24 carat gold paint helped drop prices a little). Since not everyone can take out a wall to fit their new plasma TV, LG is prepping many smaller models for next week’s show. Each and every one is capable of “full HD”, ready to accept and 24, 30 or 60 frame rate 1080p source you throw at them. The 42- and 52-inch PC5D series represent the “vanilla” HDTVs, including Clear Filter Pro technology to reduce reflection, Extreme Contour Compensation to improve color transitions and LG Simple Link connectivity to control compatible HDMI-CEC devices. The PY3D line comes in 50- and 60-inch sizes, featuring three HDMI inputs and USB Media Host capability to playback music and photos (but not video) from connected devices. The PB4D series builds on those features by adding 160GB HD DVRs integrated into 42-, 50- and 60-inch plasmas with LG’s “time machine” time shifting technology, and a newly added ability to record video at 480p from any external source via the component jacks. Last but not least of course is the 71-inch 71PY1M, with the most important feature of being bigger than your neighbor’s plasma (unless you live next door to Mark Cuban). Whether you’re looking for a simple 1080p plasma, media hub, DVR or just a massive HDTV at a “low” price, it appears LG will have a plasma for everyone at CES 2007.

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