SlingBox owners will soon be able to upgrade to SlingPlayer 2.0. New in version 2 is ‘Clip+Sling', which lets SlingBox owners capture video clips of programmes and share them online with other SlingBox owners at the forthcoming Sling.com site.

Perhaps more useful is the 60-minute buffer that adds PVR-like pause and rewind features to video playback, and the new EPG means that you won't need to wrestle with the Sky+ programme guide on your laptop when you're looking for something to watch.

SlingPlayer 2.0 will be available as a free download in the next few weeks.

Images of the Microsoft's ‘Origami Experience 2.0' for UMPC have appeared on the Origami Project's team blog. Essentially just a new home page and a handful of other utilities that sit on top of Windows proper, the ‘experience' now includes a new ‘Picture Password' system that lets you tap a picture of your choosing to enter password information, though quite how this works isn't explained.

Well, it looks like all the predictions were wrong – Asus didn't announce the Eee PC 2 at yesterday's “WiMax Today. WiMax Tomorrow” joint Asus/Intel/Sprint launch at CES. Instead, it merely confirmed that new models with WiMax and a range of larger screens will appear later this year.

And that's pretty much all Asus had to say on the matter, apart from that it would be sticking with solid-state storage and “an intuitive user interface”. So, not Windows Vista, then.

[The Register]

SanDisk has announced the world's highest capacity microSDHC card with a whopping 12Gb capacity. No bigger than a fingernail, the 12Gb card can hold 50% more data than the currently available largest card (a paltry 8Gb) and according to SanDisk, can store the equivalent of 1,500 128Kbit/s MP3s or 24 hours of MPEG-4 video. 

The card means that it's now possible to pack almost as much music into a compatible mobile phone as Apple's top-end (16Gb) iPod touch, which is more than enough for most people.

SDHC cards of all types do require an SDHC compatible slot and won't work in standard SD card slots. Most relatively recent handheld devices are compatible, however.

The SanDisk 12Gb microSDHC card conforms to the new SD 2.0 specification and adheres to the SD Speed Class 4 Rating – a data transfer speed of around 4Mb/s, in other words. The 2.0 spec also supports cards with capacities of up to 32Gb.

[SanDisk]

Gizmodo has a hands-on photo gallery from CES of a variety of Menlow-based prototype and production UMPCs. We've yet to see a UMPC that wasn't deeply flawed in at least one respect, but with Intel due to give the platform a big push this year, that could change.

It's all down to 'Silverthorne' -- a processor designed for handheld devices and about as powerful as a Pentium M from four years ago. Silverthorne, along with the imminent 'Poulsbo' chipset, make up the Menlow handheld platform (as demonstrated on those UMPCs at CES), and the Moorestown platform (which combines both processor and chipset on a single chip) will follow in 2009.

Menlow will consume around a quarter of the power of current Celeron-based UMPCs; Moorestown will consume around a twentieth. Neither platform, however, is expected to run Windows Vista and Intel is already working with Ubuntu to develop a lean version of Linux specifically for handheld use.

[Gizmodo]

Intel unveiled 16 new processors today, including the company's first 45nm 'Penryn' chips for Intel Centrino-based laptops. All of the new processors are lead- and halogen-free, making them more environmentally friendly. The processors are up to 25% smaller than previous versions, which should trigger new categories category of small form-factor, low-powered, high-performance mobile devices.

There are five 45nm Penryn chips for laptops in the new line-up, the T8100, T8300, T9300 and T9500, running at 2.1GHz, 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz and 2.6GHz, respectively. The fifth processor is the Core 2 Xtreme X9000, which runs at 2.8GHz.

Among the 18 products Netgear launched today was the HD/Gaming 5 GHz Wireless-N Networking Kit (WNHDEB111). The two-piece kit uses proprietary technology to bridge the 802.11n signal running between your broadband router and games consoles or HD TV equipment.

Netgear demonstrated the kit simultaneously running a Halo 3 online gaming session on the Xbox 360 and an HD video streamed from a NAS box to a HDTV, without any obvious lag or glitches -- although such close proximity demonstrations always have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The device runs in the 5GHz band to avoid interference and applies automatic QoS to ensure the gaming and video traffic are given highest priority across the network. It also offers an ad-hoc mode for peer-to-peer wireless gaming.

The HD/Gaming 5 GHz Wireless-N Networking Kit will cost $229 for two units, and will ship later this month.

[Netgear]

Netgear claims its new internal antenna technology will deliver high-speed wireless networking for the HD generation. The new 'Metamaterial' technology crams eight internal antennas into all new Netgear routers, including the freshly announced RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Router.

Netgear claims that, in combination, the eight antennas can direct signal to specifically targeted devices on the home network, without creating signal interference with one another.

Bill Gates' final appearance at CES as CEO of Microsoft didn't turn out to be much of an event - not a single significant new product was announced.

From July, Gates will no longer have a day-to-day role in the running of MIcrosoft, but the thousands of CES attendees who had queued all afternoon to hear his final keynote speech were treated to little more than a humorous farewell video, demonstrations of previously announced products and a guest appearance from Slash from Guns 'N' Roses.