The gadget's the thing

LAS VEGAS -- Forget about the press conferences, joint-venture announcements, concerts, and speeches. The International Consumer Electronics Show was really about one thing: the gadgets.

From cars that plug into wall outlets to wireless phones that download music and personal robots that can dance to your tune and more, this was the place to be if you wanted to see what's cool and new in the world of gizmos.

With hundreds of exhibitors and an estimated 130,000 attendees spread out among two convention centers and dozens of seminars last week, it was impossible to see every new thing at the show. Nonetheless, here's a sampling of some of the products of the very near future.

Devices for moving movies, music, and television programs off television sets and computer screens were all over the show. But one stood out among the field: Sling Media's Slingbox, a small, lightweight box that can take video from your DVD player, cable box, or digital video recorder and ship it to you for viewing over the Internet anywhere in the world. This all happens at no charge beyond the cost of the $250 box itself.

Slingbox isn't new but a software upgrade announced last week lets it move video to mobile devices as well. That means, in the words of Jeremy Toeman, the company's vice president of market development, that a Patriots fan on vacation doesn't have to miss a game as long as he's got an Internet-connected device or wireless phone on a high-speed network.

And it couldn't be easier to use. Sling's software creates a visual replica of cable, satellite, and other remote controls on your computer or wireless device, so you'll already be familiar with how it works. Expect Slingbox to make a big impact in 2006.

Of course, most people still want to watch TV on a TV, and high-definition sets should continue to drop in price thanks to several new Asian brands hoping to enter the US market this year. Xoro Electronics and TriVision are among the companies that already make flat-panel HDTV sets overseas and came to the electronics show hoping to reach US shelves. And they won't mind selling the TVs cheaply if they need to.

''If it's the same price as Sony, we cannot sell, so we have to be cheap," said Jun Han, president of Xoro Electronics, based in Shanghai.

Another company in the same mold, ED Digital, won't sell its sets cheap, but its technology could be worth the extra cost. ED will start selling 30-inch LCD sets with built-in WiFi antennae at $1,999 in the United States this spring. The WiFi hookup will allow the sets to carry the Digitrex brand name to find pictures, music, and video on any computer in your house running Windows Media Center software on your wireless network. Pricey, yes, but it worked well in demos and the convenience factor could justify the expense for some.

Of course, not every gadget with a wow factor had something to do with home entertainment. A company called Magna Donnelly wants to put a new rear-view mirror with an attached camera and pop-out video screen in your car. The 3.5-inch monitor lets you check for objects while you back up, and can also display directions or maps if linked to a navigation system.

The company says future applications may include voice recognition, letting you call the shots to control the mirror and many other functions in the car. Magna's mirror should be available by the spring on at least one General Motors model (the company wouldn't say which).

And of course, there were the robots. There was a wide variety this year, from those that could vacuum your floor to those designed to wow engineering students and those that just looked cool. In the latter category was the Robonova-I from Hitec Robotics of Poway, Calif.

It can walk, do flips, cartwheels, or even dance on its own based on moves you program it to remember. Hitec says it will cost less than $1,000. Hard to say if that's a lot for a casual robot user to pay, because it's hard to say who the casual robot user is.

Not far away from where the Robonova was showing off its moves was Zap's Xebra electric car, a tiny, three-wheeled contraption that charges its battery when plugged into a wall outlet, and goes up to 40 miles per hour. Of course, you'll only be driving for about an hour, because 40 miles is it's maximum range on one charge.

Seems unlikely to catch on, but with gas prices as high as they are, who knows?

Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.