CES: the iPhone and iPod product showcase

CES was officially opened by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer during a patchy keynote speech last night, but the star of the show wasn’t there.

That’s right, Apple isn’t attending, but it may as well be at the event, which this year appears to be transforming itself into an iPhone accessory hotbed - here’s three small examples to prove the point.

(Incidentally, from what we hear the queue to get into the Ballmer keynote was pretty much an iPhone showcase, with a nice population of Apple laptops taking their places in the chorus line. Go, Win 7...)

iPhone laser projector

Microvision is demonstrating its mini projector for iPhones and iPods at CES which it will launch in the US in March and in the UK later this year.

The ShowWX is described as the world's first laser pico projector. "By using lasers as the light source we guarantee better focus than other display technologies and the colours are more vibrant," said a Microvision spokesperson at the CES Unveiled press preview event on Tuesday evening,” report here.

Slightly larger than an iPhone, the mini projector can project a widescreen, WVGA (848 X 480 pixels) image onto virtually any surface at sizes of up to  100-inches.

Sony’s iPhone-controlled Blu-ray player

We like this - a Blu-ray player that’s equipped for control via an iPhone. The company introduced three players and three home theatre set-ups at CES, offering such handy extras as WiFi and iPhone controls using a free Sony App which you should be able to pick up via the iTunes App Store.

The App allows an iPhone/iPod touch to function as a remote control that includes the ability to access a Blu-ray Disc’s details such as jacket artwork, actor, and production information as well as search for additional video clips online.

Slashgear tells us: “The three standalone decks kick off with the Sony BDP-S770, the 3D-ready player, with integrated WiFi and ethernet, IP Content Noise Reduction, HD upscaling, DLNA streaming, Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio support and speedier start-up/disc-loading; it will arrive in Summer 2010.  In Spring 2010 you’ll be able to pick up the Sony BDP-S570, which also has integrated WiFi but lacks 3D support, and the Sony BDP-S370 which requires a separate WiFi adapter.”

The press release informs: “When connected to a broadband Internet network, the models instantly stream movies, videos, music and more from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube™, Slacker® Internet Radio, Pandora®, NPR, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and over 25 total providers through the Sony BRAVIA Internet Video platform.”

Panasonic’s iPod picture frame

We like our digital picture frames, we like that we can change the image on them from time-to-time, it makes us feel all modern and tech-savvy and probably truly depresses our friends when they see our (admittedly extremely poor) photography skills on display, but now there’s a solution...

If a mate pops by and happens to be a better photo-taker than yourself and they have a few images stashed on their iPod, then they can simply plug their media player into the newly-introduced Panasonic digital photo frame and - ‘boom’ - they’ll see their image on display. Wo0t!!

Additional features of the frame? It’s WiFi photo frame with a built in CD player and a hidden iPod dock.

Oh, and unrelated, Panasonic also introduced two new Lumix digital video cameras - we like the brand, and think these will be worth a look.

A final note - there's a bevy of interesting iPhone-happy (or iPod) products out there at CES this year, as another example take a look at the Pandora/Pioneer iPhone-savvy car radio systems... or tell us about what you've seen at the show in comments below..