It's usually easy to deride products that are honored as Best of Innovations at CES because the awards are announced a full month before the event begins and before most experts have had a chance to check them out.
Also, the best products are always kept under wraps until they're announced at the event itself, leaving the premature 'Best of' list in the dust.
But this year, for a change, it looks like we might have some keepers.
iLuv's $200 iNT170 Internet Radio won the best portable gadgets category award and its attractive design and easy compatibility make it an attractive option. The iLuv iNT170 is Wi-Fi enabled, has an Ethernet port, and provides access to hundreds of internet (and FM) radio stations, 40 of which you can preset on the dock.
But on the surface, the best thing about it seems to be its low power consumption (at 15 watts), which would allow you to leave it on all day and not worry about a detrimental effect on your wallet or green initiatives.
In 2006, iLuv was one of the first companies to come out with a small iPod dock that allowed a user to record TV programs directly from the display set. That iLuv dock took in the input from a variety of sources and converted into MPEG-4s after pre-selecting for length. It wasn't a huge seller but received some good marks, which bodes well for the follow-up iNT170.
The other gadget we're into is the Psyko 5.1 gaming headphones, which 'won' the best design and engineering award for headphones. The headsets come with a 5.1 surround sound and promise to have zero latency, since they come without the crap digital processing that usually gets in the way of easy listening.
According to the manufacturer, these also come with precision directional audio that realistically positions a player within the audio space of a game. This means it could allow a player to react faster to a nearby blown shell in a shooting game and hear it a moment before another player. Sounds tricky, so expect for us to try this out soon to make sure the claims are accurate.
In the meantime, we'll have play through Gears of War 2 through the glitchy in-speakers of our crappy and old-timey (1995) Toshiba TV.
