HDMI

This is the week of the Internationale Funkausstellung (er, International Consumer Electronics Show) in Berlin, which is pretty much just what it sounds like. It's one whopping, European CES. The trouble with IFA for us on the State-side, though, is that a lot of companies forget one key thing: the magical Internet can cross water. Because of that, a lot of "new product announcements" are "things we have already seen," so it takes a little more effort (and flexing what's left of my undergrad German skillz) to figure out what's worth paying attention to.

Over the last two days, the IFA press preview has kicked up some real goodies -- even before the show floor opens to the public today. IFA '09 has already shown us a real taste of how our home theaters will look in the next half-decade, laptops on serious diets, and a couple cool new toys.

At long last -- and after we jealously watched Sharp's debut in Japan last year -- wireless high-def TVs have come to the States. LG's 55-inch LHX LCD television features a separate "media box" that sources like cable boxes and Blu-ray players plug into. (Other products from Sony and Geffen are add-on units.) The box beams digital video and audio to the one-inch-thick TV using 60-gigahertz technology from SiBeam called WirelessHD.