Woo hooo, Velvetron’s first “Live from CES” post.

Okay, so you’re probaby thinking, hey, CES started days ago, this isn’t day 1. Well, it’s day 1 for me. A little personal note, this is my first trade show and Velvetron’s first as well. To be honest it’s a bit intimidating, the sheer number of product here in is simply astounding. Despite that, i have come across a couple interesting items this morning.

Since the major news sources are probably doing a fine job covering the larger product releases, I figured I’d try to show a few of the smaller products I found interesting this morning.

To start, I present you with GelaSkins

This cool removable vinyl protector is made for iPods, iPhones, other phones, and laptops. Doesn’t seem to leave any sort of residue, and some how manages to make sure you don’t have any ugly air bubbles under the skin. And to top it all of, it’s made in Canada. I thought these were a really cool way to protect those precious Apple items, and the made in Canada aspect really won me over.

Now on to an interesting company that goes by United Pepper.

This company hails from Belgium and is producing incredibly cute USB accessories (currently a webcam, and a USB hub, although they showed me a prototype Card reader as well). They try to minimize their ecological impact by using recycled packaging and renewable materials (such as Kapok instead of polyurethane foam for stuffing). In addition they follow fair trade policies and have been audited to show that they adhere to fair trade criteria. I was very impressed to see these products. With CES dominated by asian produced goods, this is the only company I’ve found so far who is dealing with Asia but making a conscious public effort to show concern for their workers. They don’t have a US distributor yet.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for my first report. Sorry for the lack of “from the floor” pictures. Hopefully I’ll grab more this afternoon. Now it’s time for lunch, and then to go see some more gadgets!

[Image source: GelaSkins.com]
[Image source: unitedpepper.org]

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology — Santi @ 2:28 pm