M2O is big on green solutions to problems in our world. Beyond our need for fuel to run vehicles, we need power to run our myriad devices (like my laptop, Blackberry, iPod…). Sure a lot of these devices run on batteries, so that’s not too bad, right?

Well, sorta, because the electricity still has to be generated somehow. Here in BC we’re pretty lucky that a lot of our power is generated by hydroelectric dams, which is pretty green (there is some debate about it), but elsewhere coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power (another tech that is debated as green) is used to generate power.

Fine, so, we know to unplug things, to recycle things, but how can we recharge our devices without the grid? We can’t really help how our power is generated, can we?

Personally I have a Solio recharger, which is essentially a giant battery. I can recharge it via the power outlet or the Sun. What about something else?

Fuel cells.

Hydrogen fuel cells generate power using reactions between good old H₂ and other materials. Typically research on fuel cells has been for cars, buses, and other large fossil fuel consuming machines, but since fuel cells can be very safe and old give off water and heat (that’s because hydrogen releases energy then combines with oxygen to go back to water) making small fuel cells for consumer electronics seems like a great idea. Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies makes the above device. Not much on their site about it, but the science is good. Imagine taking tap water and charging your devices?

Could really free laptops from needing outlets to power up as much.

Yes, I know hydrogen has this nasty tendency to blow up, but these fuel cells are very safe.

I think more exciting than this device is their fuel cell powered bike. No, not because you can cruise at a spiffy 25 KMH, but because the engine can also be deployed to power other things like computers and lights. The surplus heat can be used as, well, heat.

Loving this stuff. I think I’m going to hit up Bradley to get one of the H2 racer sets for the office.

My dog has ... wiis?

Predator Gaming system from Acer. Wonder if it fights back.

At $900 Sony's entry in the Netbook arena isn't for goofing around

Netbook after the drier or a cool phone?

8 megapixel camera, available in Canada soon.

From the Sony launch party.

Looks like cool stuff. I wish I were there to catch it in person, and in focus! .

You can keep up with Bradley’s pics on the go through his TwitPic stream

Okay we have lots of new HD TVs. Check, that was a given. More Bluray players are coming out, even portable ones. Not totally unexpected, but since Blu-Ray isn’t doing that great, I’m a bit surprised. Netbooks galore. We’ve been waiting for CES for the cool stuff to hit so, again expected.

Yeah, Palm has a new phone thingy. I’ve heard both yawns and hoorays on that one, so I’m going to just set that aside. What I’m seeing those are some unifying trends that are pretty exciting, even if they aren’t terribly geeky.

Netbooks are becoming that second computer we all like to have around. Face it, most of us geeks keep old under-powered laptops around just to strip down and check email and such. This is when we haven’t fried the buggers totally, but that’s different.

Sure I have a netbook. Do I use it every day? No. Actually I want to wipe it out and play around with some things again. It’s like a disposable machine for me. Why? Because I only want to rely on it to get me online and do basic stuff.

That’s it. If I save anything to the HD, it’s just temporary.

What I’m seeing now is that we have TVs that are more Internet-aware than ever (I’d hope so) and easier connect to the rest of the stuff in your house; and that’s the key here.

We have gotten to a point where people don’t just have a computer and a printer. No, we have a few computers. We have routers. We have game consoles connected to the Net. More and more folks have devices like AppleTV to stream programs from the net to the boob tube (more than a little irony there in that old moniker, eh?). A family with high speed Internet is the rule, not exception. I doubt that many folks would give it up. I bet cable TV would go first.

Lots of homes are already “One Laptop per Child” homes.

What does this mean for manufacturers?

It means people are going to want to connect “stuff” together. Oh and it has to be dead, freakin’ simple. “Normal” humans don’t have time to tweak routers and stuff.

From where I sit, I’m seeing that come together.

Their OLED picture frame was really cool, but it’s the Kodak theatre HD player that really turned our head.  Connect to your hd tv and watch YouTube (impressively upconverted) or easily share your video and pictures with family members.

As alyways, their products are easy to use, and work together to increase performance.

Video by Bradley to follow.

During CES my job is to keep up with all of the CES news and give a larger view than folks on the ground might be able to see. I’ve been at great conferences like CES and no matter how hard I try, I miss stuff. It isn’t until I get home from the conference do I get to catch up and find out what the big take away was.

Okay, but I’m here in Vancouver how am I going to get the scoop?

I’m not.

The guys are getting the scoops. They are getting the cool demos and cool schwag.

What I am able to get and do is sort through the myriad of posts about CES and see what’s floating to the top. Sure there are going to be lots of product announcements, but is there a unifying theme?

That’s a lot of info. How, pray tell, am I going to be able to sort through it all?

Yahoo Pipes.

I’ve taken general searches for CES (for the moment) plus some CES specific feed and passed them through some sorting and filters to get a single CES feed. I’m going to tweak the source I’m sure, but there are the results for you. Enjoy, share, etc. Now off to read all this stuff…