Following the prediction before the holiday shopping season that prices for Blu-ray players would fall further into the $150-to-200 range, Memorex has announced its MVBD-2520, a Blu-ray player for $199.99.

The device, due to ship in early summer, includes Profile 2.0 or BD-Live via an Ethernet port, enabling consumers to download extra features and online bonus content, as well as firmware updates. It uses 1080p but can convert up from 480p, 720p, and 1080i.

The first of NetGear's three big product announcements at CES this morning is its Internet TV player set top box which carries on it, among the usual Web-based offerings, a built-in BitTorrent client.

Netgear's Internet TV delivers Internet content like other set top boxes available today, but ups the proverbial ante by including a video search engine called "Vtap" that combs through the associated Flash video sites, downloadable CinemaNow rentals, and even available BitTorrent files.

For people whose phones are crammed full of photos, music, video, and other space-intensive content, SanDisk has announced a 16 GB microSDHC card.

Phones from vendors such as Nokia, Google, and Samsung use microSDHC cards. (Similar cards are also produced by Nokia and Toshiba.) The card comes with a MobileMate Micro Reader that plugs into a USB 2.0-compatible port, which makes it easier to put data onto and take data off the card.

For those who like to make a fashion statement with their solid-state memory -- as well as for those who keep losing the caps on the darn things -- Lexar has announced two new families of USB drives that don't have removable caps.

JumpDrive TwistTurn has a rotating case (really, "JumpDrive SwitchBlade" would probably describe it better, but that name probably didn't test well), while JumpDrive Retrax clicks in and out like a ballpoint pen. Each model comes in multiple sizes, with colors mapped to the size: 2 GB in white, 4 GB in red, 8 GB in blue, 16 GB in gray, and 32 GB in black.

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co., Ltd. will be previewing 3D technology on handheld 3-inch and 9-inch LCD displays that don't require special glasses to work.

The technology works by integrating a 3D film with the backlight modules of small- and medium-sized LCD displays that use Optically Compensated Bend (OCB) mode to deliver clear, true autostereoscopic viewing. Left and right eye images are focused sequentially into the viewer's eyes, allowing for full resolution of the display panel, the company said.

Speaking to an overflow crowd in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, executives from Korean CE giant LG Electronics were expected to highlight built-in Internet connectivity in new HDTVs, among other features.

[11:01:30 AM] LG is pleased to be kicking off the 8am first-day press conference.

Recent iSuppli data shows that the market for LCD panels continued to decline through the holiday season, as demand for TVs, notebooks, monitors, and anything with a 10" or larger LCD panel languished.

With declining demand from both the consumer and corporate sectors, LCD manufacturers reduced their production to a fraction of capacity. Hardware analysis firm iSuppli expects that the conditions of the economy will continue to disrupt the LCD supply chain well into 2009, and could have a severe impact on revenue until the market is stabilized.

TiVo viewers are already accustomed to finding content textually through a menu, even if typing on a remote is a pain. But soon, a new feature will enable them to find Internet videos alongside their regular HD media.

Betanews tests of a late beta of the new TiVo Search feature reveals the presence of a very sophisticated underlying search engine, not only capable of estimating what you might be looking for -- the way Google tries to complete your query when you're typing it in -- but also associating content you've selected for viewing or recording with other content with a similar theme or with matching cast members.

If CES is a banquet, CES Unveiled -- the opening press event -- is like a tasting menu personally selected by the head chef. You'd expect the most luscious morsels, and possibly a bit of gastronomic overload by the end of the evening.

This year's go-around was no exception. Such events, at which a selected group of vendors show their shiniest new toys to the people most hungry to see shiny new toys, have a tendency to feature a beauty queen -- one product that's both interesting and irresistibly photogenic. Only at a tech show would the beauty queen look like Wall-E, but there it is: The cherry-red Minoru Webcam, propping itself "on its elbows" atop a monitor, attracted crowds so large that it was hard at times to approach nearby booths, let alone the 3D webcam itself. The $90 gadget includes five pairs of 3D glasses for your viewing pleasure.

The founders of the High-Definition Multimedia Interface, which advanced the propagation of HD but angers many who dislike the specification's digital content control mechanisms, have been awarded an Emmy for their work.

The HDMI spec, released just over six years ago, manages one or more inputs in over 620 million products shipped so far; by the end of this year, 100% of digital televisions are expected to have at least one HDMI input.

LAS VEGAS - At CES this week, iGo will introduce a surge protector, a laptop charger, and an electrical outlet, all designed to conserve on power by temporarily stopping the flow of electricity to plugged-in devices once they've been fully recharged.

The company's new "green" products thereby eliminate "vampire" or wasted power, said Alison Copeland, senior direct marketing manager, talking with BetaNews tonight at the CES Unveiled press preview Tuesday night.

LAS VEGAS - This week's CES show will mark the North American rollout of a handheld device billed as the world's first pocket-sized DJ system.

Tonium's Pacemaker is not just a portable music player but a portable mixer, said Anders Friman, Tonium's CEO, speaking with BetaNews at Tuesday night's CES Unveiled press event in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS -- At CES this week, a company called "The Power Mat" will roll out a slick portable "mat" designed for charging up to about six mobile phones at a time.

The mat works with all sorts of mobile phones, contended officials in a booth at the CES Unveiled press preview event Tuesday night. The devices can be charged simply by placing them on the mat, which comes with its own power cord.

At the CES Unveiled press event tonight, Novatel Wireless gave a first look at MiFi, a pocket-sized WiFi hotspot for connecting up to five users in a local area to the Internet over a cellular connection.

Novatel actually introduced Mi-Fi on December 9. "But this is the first time MiFi has ever been shown outside of a lab," said a rep in the Novatel Booth.

As the netbook platform takes shape this year at CES, AMD is giving a more focused picture of what the inside of that platform could look like...but not too focused, at least not for a few days yet.

What AMD had been calling its "Yukon" notebook processing platform and will now call...something else, was officially unveiled this morning with HP effectively beating AMD to the punch. Its new dv2 line of netbooks will include AMD's new Athlon Neo processor, the centerpiece of the CPU maker's new netbook platform.