Since Skype has announced that it will support HD video during conversations, we thought it would take a year until we see a camera that would allow you to use this feature. Turns out, it wasn’t that long. FaceVision has announced a brand new HD camera called the TouchCam N1 camera. Simply connect the camera with the USB cable and there you go, 720p HD resolution video. No more pixelation when we see your face, though for some of our readers, we suggest you don’t get this – unless you want people to see your face, or take the time to put makeup on to cover those blemishes on your face.

Still, I don’t even know why we need a HD camera or even HD video during Skype calls, but apparently it’s wanted by users of Skype.

We all know that typing on the iPhone is a big hassle, especially when your message is going to be very long – that, or you just felt like writing an essay on your iPhone via email. Now, there’s a new keyboard without jailbreaking or hacking it. Called the iType, it’s basically a QWERTY keyboard and has a dock station for your iPhone so it can connect to it. It also won’t drain the iPhone’s battery as it has its own.

According to the Register, ION (the makers of the device) expect this out in the first half of the year with a cost of £70 (approx. US$112.23).

Intel has decided to follow in Android, Apple, Blackberry and Nokia’s footsteps in opening up an app store. This endeavour, however, will not be mobile phones, nor for laptops, but for the netbook laptops. Called the Intel AppUp, it will allow users to find, download and purchase software that would run fine on the Atom processor. Applications selected will run on either Windows or Moblin-based operating systems, but will also offer applications that use Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight in the near future.

Intel has already signed up Acer, Asus, Dell and Samsung to bring this to their netbook range and will collaborate on the store. The program is currently in beta and can be downloaded from its website.

LG is bringing out the Rumour Touch (or, the Rumor Touch if you’re an American) to the US carrier Sprint, but you can also see this coming to other countries. The phone boasts a 3-inch touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera with video recording, a microSD card slot, 3.5mm standard headphone jack and a QWERTY keyboard, making it easy to type out emails or SMS messages with ease. It also has a continuous talk time of up to 7 hours.

There’s not really much to say about this, mainly because the press details were vague. It will be available in the US in the first quarter. You can, however, start to preorder the device.

Move over LCD, LED is starting to pick up. LG has announced that it will release the E50 Monitor series, which will become LG’s flagship monitor series for LEDs. Coming in 20-inch, 21.5-inch and 23-inch sizes, it features a new technology called “Dual Screen” that automatically divide the screen to view two programs at once – though you could do the same thing by the “Show Windows Stacked” function.

The 23-inch class will be the only monitor in the line to provide 1080p resolution; but all three have a power saving of over 40 percent and a “Mega” contrast ratio. The monitors are also 0.69-inches thick (not surprising, LED monitors are slimmer than LCD).

There will also be an E40 monitor series, which will only come in a 23-inch size. This series will incorporate “the same core functionalities” of the E50, but what features that both monitors will share remain unknown.

No word on availability and pricing.

Dr. Dre has added Sean “Diddy” Combs to his headphone line, joining Lady Gaga, as Monster announced that they will be introducing the Diddy Beats pair of earphones. Sporting what they claim a “high-tech aluminium and leather-wrapped housing and high polished enamel” in a silver chrome and black finish, they will set you back US$179.95.

It also features that little thing that control your music in your iPod and handle calls from the iPhone, though I think Apple sells headphones with that same feature with a price tag lower than that.

Looks like tablets are really getting popular at the start of the decade – mainly because of the Apple rumours. Now, another company we have never heard of has decided to launch their own tablet. Called the Vega by ICD, it is a 15-inch touchscreen table that will have a T-Mobile UK SIM card inside so you can connect to their 3G network. It will also have Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Vega tablet features a NVIDIA Tegra 250 mobile web processor for “uncompromised Internet browsing” and 1080p video playback even if it is undocked from the base. It will also have a 32GB internal SD card with a microSD card slot, a 1.3 megapixel camera, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth, FM radio, an accelerometer, dual digital microphones and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The device is being showed off by NVIDIA and is operating on the LTE network provided by Verizon Wireless. Yes, that’s right. LTE. That’s better than 3G – because its supposed to be better since its a 4G technology.

No word on pricing and availability. Gallery is below.

eBook reader announcements are rolling in, especially when CES’s actual start day happened. DMC Worldwide, a company we basically never heard of (in Australia, that we know of), has announced that it will be releasing a eBook reader lineup known as the COPIA, and it will have two models – the OCEAN and the TIDAL (and yes, we also thought they were pretty lame names).

The OCEAN is also subdivided with a 6-inch model, a 9-inch model with 3G and another 9-inch model without 3G connectivity to purchase books on the fly. Meanwhile the TIDAL features a 6-inch screen, but also comes in three models, one without touch, one with touch and no 3G, and one with touch and with 3G connectivity.

All will have an ePaper display, with 4GB of internal memory (with the exception of the TIDAL model with no touch, it has 2GB of internal memory) and  has support for WiFi 802.11b/g (again, the TIDAL model with no touch doesn’t feature this) and they also have an earphone jack, microphone and a microSD card slot (yet again, the TIDAL model with no touch doesn’t have that).

Pricing will start between US$199 – US$299, and will be available for purchase online in April. It will hit retail stores in June. Gallery is below.

The (PRODUCT)RED line has the support of Dell, Microsoft, GAP and Apple; and now it will have the support of Dr. Dre and Lady Gaga as Monster able has announced that there will be a special edition of the Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. Anyway, the (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition Beats Solo Headphones is a standard headphone with an integrated sound-isolation.

It also will have a new feature call “ControlTalk” that will allow it to control your iPod’s music and allow hands-free calling on the iPhone.

If you don’t know what PRODUCT(RED) is, it is a simple initiative where you purchase a product that is red by participating companies and a certain amount will go to the Global Fund to support AIDS programs in Africa – oh, and Bono started the initiative.

It will hit store shelves at several US and UK retail shops in early February with a price tag of US$229.95.

Straight from CES, Intel have announced the WiDi HD. Working over wireless, you can stream your HD media to your television set via a HDMI connection. Your PC will need a Core i3, i5 or i7 processor together with the receiver box which will set you back $100. Intel demonstrated netflix from a laptop with Windows 7 streaming over to a TV.

Netgear will be the first to provide the receiver box for the TV called “Netgear Push2TV PVT1000″. The Toshiba Satellite E205 will also be the first laptop to have native Intel  WiDi support.

Remember the Arc Mouse, that really cool and portable mouse that can be folded up for portability? Well, Microsoft has finally paired it up with the Arc Keyboard, released today at CES. It’s thin and like its brother, it is wireless and has a range of up to 15 feet. It also has a on/off button so you can preserve the battery, and a four-way directional pad, so the four buttons of the left, right, up and down effectively fit on this button.

It will be on sale on February 21; and the US, it will be sold exclusively at Best Buy. It will have a recommended retail price of US$59.95.

After updating the Inspiron Mini line, Dell has brought out an update to the Inspiron 14, 15 and 17 laptops. The new laptops have been redesigned for “on-the-go media consumption” and have a new thin chassis, 16:9 HD displays and will have an Intel Core i5 processor that will start at US$849 and are available now. There will also be versions with a Core i3 processor that will start at US$569 later in the month.

The desktop lineup also gets an update with the Inspiron 580 and the Inspiron 580s. These will feature either a Core i3 or Core i5 processor and will have a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of DDR3 memory. You can buy them now, with the starting price tag of US$499. Gallery of the Inspiron 17 laptops and the 580 desktop are below.

Featuring a 5-inch screen and will be Android powered, Dell has released images of its new tablet concept. And that’s about it, virtually no details have been released other the first two – and that’s usual from all Dell product teasers. Why use a 5-inch display? We don’t really have an answer for that yet. But apparently it will ship later this year – according to the Direct2Dell blog. Gallery is below.

We all knew it would be making the product announcement. Plastic Logic has finally revealed the QUE proReader, an eBook reader – though they claim it is so much more – that is super slim and is suitable to read newspapers thanks to its large crisp display. With 8.5 x 11-inch dimensions, it has signed up a number of newspapers, including the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Fast Company – all which join other announced titles like USA Today and IDG publications like MacWorld and PC World.

It will be sold in mid-April 2010, while preorders have started today. Later in the year, Barnes and Noble will start selling the QUE. It will come in to models: the 4GB that will cost US$649 and US$799 for the 8GB.

… because that is so possible. Well, now it is. This is the Alienware M11X. Alienware is known for their gaming laptops, and this is no different. According to them, it will demonstrate the power of a 15-inch laptop but it is not a 15-inch laptop. This is a 11-inch laptop and is a sub-US$1000 notebook. We don’t really know what is inside but all we know is that it has 6 1/2 hours of battery life; a NVIDIA GPU which is you can switch to it without restarting or logging out; have a DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA and it looks thin.

Gallery is below.

Remember the Palm Pre and how we got excited over the phone – then that hype died down? Well, Palm has another announcement today; it will be bringing the Palm Pre Plus (above) and Palm Pixi Plus to Verizon. The Pre Plus still looks the same  and comes with the Touchstone recharger and a 3-megapixel camera, but it will have 16GB of on board storage. The Pixi Plus also looks the same with no other changes. Both phones, however, will support CDMA, unlike the Sprint models – they support CDMA2000.

They hit Verizon on January 25 this year. Gallery is below.

More eBook readers are being released here at CES, with Spring Design revealing the Alex – claiming that it is the only dual screen Google Android-based eBook reader to integrate web browsing and reading. The device features two screens – one 3.5-inch LCD screen and a 6-inch EPD screen. I should note that the Barnes & Noble nook also features two screens and uses the Android platform, but is restricted to only books. The colour screen allows it to act as a virtual keyboard and access to the growing number of applications from the Android Marketplace.

It will connect using Wi-Fi, 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM networks; while it can read books using the Adobe ePub and PDF formats or simple HTML and text documents. It also has a removable microSD card slot.

It will be sold on the website from February 22, 2010 with a price tag of US$399.

Panasonic has announced that it will bring out the SC-ZT2, a new wireless audio system that says that it can transmit the audio from the Full HD 3D Blu-Ray Disc Player without the need of a cable, also known as wireless. Its “advance proprietary properties” allow users to enjoy Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD 7.1-channel surround sound despite having two speakers – which are basically poles (which Panasonic say its to minimise unwanted sound reflection).

It will be available in June. Pricing has not been revealed as of yet.

Since the iPod launched, there have been a lot of third-party accessories – ranging from unknown brands most likely from China to Sony and Panasonic. Speaking of Panasonic, they have introduced the SC-SP100 (it’s that little black dock in the above image with the iPhone docked in it), a 2.1-channel audio system that is compatible with your iPod and iPhone. It also features a integrated subwoofer and will also work with an normal AUX cable to connect other MP3 players.

It will be available later in the month, though no word on actual date and pricing. Gallery is below.

Panasonic will be adding three new HD camcorders to its product line for 2010 — the HDC-HS60, the HDC-TM55 and the HDC-SD60 — which promise to be perfect for portability without sacrificing the HD quality of the footage. They all feature a 35.7mm wide-angle lens, which Panasonic says that it is perfect for shooting in a variety of different scenarios like self-portraits and outdoor landscapes.

All three have a 25x optical zoom, and can extend to 35x zoom with its Intelligent Zoom feature; along with the expansion of its Intelligent Auto (iA) with the addition of Face Recognition and Intelligent Scene Selector.

But what are the differences? The HDC-HS60 feature a 120GB hard drive and can be expanded by a SD, SDHC or SDXC card; while the HDC-TM55 have 8GB flash memory and also feature a slot to expand the memory with a SD, SDHC or SDXC card. The HDC-SD60 will only have the SD/SDHC/SDXC card slot.

Availability and pricing have not been announced, but “will be announced 30 days prior to shipping date” – so remember that! Gallery is below.

SANYO has announced what they call the thinnest, smallest and lightest camera, the Dual Camera Xacti VPC-CS1 – and this time, it can record in HD (1920 x 1080 pixels). It has an 8 megapixel lens to shoot pictures, 10x zoom, a mini HDMI port to view the HD video recorded in the clearest picture it can be and is compatible with the Eye-Fi card – allowing your images to be uploaded to a computer automatically without plugging it in.

This will come in one colour – silver – and have a price tag of $299.99. It will hit retail stores in February this year.

Featuring a 7-inch colour touch screen, Sony has brought out a competitor to the popular Chumby with the dash, the “personal Internet viewer” – according to its press release. The device also features an internal accelerometer that allows you to view it in portrait mode or landscape, built-in stereo speakers, a headphone output jack and a USB port to connect to electronic devices.

The device seems to suit the bedroom as it can be an alarm clock and a radio – granted if you have a Wi-Fi connection at your house. It also will have 1,000 applications – including apps from Blip.tv, Crackle, Epicurious and NAVTEQ, and will be able to run multiple applications at the same time.

The dash will be out in store shelves in April for US$199.

Microsoft has added new additions to the Xbox Live service, including a new Games Room – giving players a chance to play the old arcade games from Atari and Konami on both Windows PCs and Xbox 360 – but only the Xbox 360 will allow you to challenge your friends. Over 1000 games will be released throughout the next three years, though 30 games will be initially launched. Expect this in Spring.

BREAKING NEWS: It’s official. Microsoft has revealed that HP will be developing a new touch-enabled slate PC that will feature Windows 7 during its keynote today. Microsoft showed it off by using the Amazon Kindle’s Windows application. Microsoft and HP has confirmed that it will be launched later in the year, just no word on the pricing or the actual date. So Apple, look out now. Gallery is below.