As part of the announcements at the MacWorld keynote speech today, Steve Jobs introduced the new Apple Time Capsule - a appliance designed to help facilitate wireless, automatic data backups from all the Macs in your home. The device works with machines running the Leopard OS along with the Time Machine software to automatically create back ups of everything on your Mac computer, hourly if you would prefer, and from multiple different Macs.

The Time Capsule coincides well with the launch of the MacBook Air since one of the common needs for an optical drive is to back up data. Since the Air doesn’t have an internal CD or DVD drive the Time Capsule makes a nice solution to provide wireless data backups to the notebook. The integrated software lets users look through history for lost files or even restore the system to a previous point in time.

Haier America (?!) this week used CES as its platform for getting into the wireless MP3 player market. It unveiled a new line up of flash and hard drive based portable media players which make use of online services like Rhapsody to collect content wirelessly. This players are called the ibiza Rhapsody and it is available now in at least a 30GB hard drive model.

The ibiza Rhapsody players for Haier let you, in summary, have “Wi-Fi enabled access to unlimited digital entertainment possibilities. With the ibiza Rhapsody, consumers can now enjoy the Rhapsody digital music service, AOL Video and other digital content from just about anywhere there’s an available Wi-Fi hotspot.” You can also directly subscribe to a variety of podcasts from the player and enjoy an integrated FM radio.

Get the full details after the jump.

In addition to a few other neat robots, WowWee has introduced Rovio, a new “telepresence” robot that’s outfitted with the latest in micro-GPS technology from Evolution Robotics. Rovio has a Wi-Fi-enabled Web-cam that allows you to patrol your home while you’re away, via an Internet-enabled PC, console or mobile phone.

This one is an interesting looking robot. With the new GPS system you can drive the robot with shortcut “go-to” commands. For instance, “go to the dining room”. This makes it easy to control the robot remotely over the Web or even from your mobile phone. It also has what they call a “patrol mode” where it automatically sends you pictures of locations you want to check.

Linsys has a new wireless gaming adapter they are showing off at the annual CES conference this week in Las Vegas, boasting it as the first dual-band wireless-N gaming adapter on the market. The WGA600N rids the need for stringing CAT-5 cable from your router across the house and into the room with your game console(s) by providing a fast wireless adapter to connect them.

The new gaming router from Linksys will connect to the ethernet port of your Xbox, Playstation or Gamecube and bring online gaming or head-to-head matches with other games to your console without having to string the wires. The adapter can then connect to older 802.11a/b/g networks if needed or gets higher bandwidth when its available through a wireless-N network. According to Linksys the setup is pretty simple too, with no drivers needed. Just plug the adapter into the Ethernet port of your console and it will find the network and connect up.

Sometimes it seems like we have been ripped off in regards to the future we were promised so long ago. You know, how we were supposed to have humanoid robots in every home and hover cars all over the skies. Those things are coming for sure, it’s just alot slower then we thought. At least the video phone is here and getting better all the time.

Creative’s WiFi Video Phone seems just like those futuristic video phones we’ve seen in movies and TV. It will allow you to have typical audio conversations as well as video conversations. Some of the specs are: WiFi, Integrated webcam, 7-inch display, H.264 video, VOIP, Audio and video out, Contact list, as well as a Calls list. No info on pricing or availability, but it should be fairly soon.

Finding a Wi-Fi signal won’t be a hassle anymore with this watch, plus it actually manages to look good. It will give you the wi-fi signal strength at the push of a button. The strength is displayed as a number from 0 to 8 and lets you know if you need to move a little closer to the access point.

The Watch also has some other features like an alarm and countdown timer, plus a bright EL backlight. To me it’s main selling point is that it actually looks good while finding Wi-Fi. It’s not just a weight for your wrist that’s been hit by the ugly stick and given a strap. The price is a very respectable $30. Never be without Wi-Fi again.

Samsung and T-Mobile are teaming on a new mobile phone which supports the latter’s HotSpot @Home service for placing calls over 802.11 wireless networks. The Samsung Katalyst is priced around $80 with rebate and service plan.

The Samsung Katalyst is a slider style cell phone which lets you make calls over wireless Internet networks such as those found on your home network or at T-Mobile Hotspots. The call can be carried over to T-Mobile’s regular network when one leaves a wireless zone. One can instant message with others on several different networks using the Katalyst and also make use of wireless Bluetooth technology for hands-free communication.

JetBlue recently announced that they along with Yahoo and RIM will be offering internet access through Wi-Fi connections during their flights. The airline is currently going to run a trial of the service giving passengers free, in-flight access to their Yahoo email and IM services and allowing Blackberry users access to email and IM as well, but phone calls using the mobile devices are still prohibited. If the trial goes well JetBlue expects to give full Wi-Fi access to passengers, making those long trips much more tolerable and productive for many business travelers. Even though cell-phone use is still not allowed passengers could possibly make VoIP calls through services like Skype.

Since JetBlue made their announcement other airlines have also now announced plans to offer Wi-Fi internet access to passengers during flights. American Airlines (AA) has released information of their intent to partner with AirCell to provide broadband speed internet through Wi-Fi connections to its passengers. Testing has already began and the service would start on some transcontinental flights and eventually spread to all AA flights if the trials work out. AA says they will offer the Wi-Fi service for $10 fee as apposed to a free service as JetBlue is planning, but for many business travelers the amount of work that could be accomplished on long flights would far outweigh the small fee. They hope to have access available to all passengers as soon as 2008.

If, for some reason, your laptop doesn’t have an 802.11 wireless card installed or you find yourself still banging around with 802.11b, you might want to consider this gadget from Asus. This computer gear manufacturer is has announced the Asus WL-160N, a wireless USB-based solution with 802.11n functionality.

The Asus WL-160N connects to a PC through a USB 2.0 connection to offer its host the latest 802.11n draft 2.0 specifications as well as being backwards compatible with 802.11b/g speeds. It’s described as the world’s smallest 802.11n USB 2.0 card, making it fairly portable inside a laptop bag. It uses MIMO technology to get a throughput of over 100Mbps.

Today hField technologies announced the release of a new version of their Wi-Fire long range USB Wi-Fi adapter that is now compatible with Windows Vista. The Wi-Fire adapter works with any 802.11 b/g and provides a high gain directional antenna so you can pick up Wi-Fi signals from a lot further away than most adapters and often get faster transfer speeds.

According to hField, the adapter can pick up Wi-Fi signals from as far as 1,000 feet away, which is about 3 times the distance most other standard adapters. The device is fairly small measuring only 3×4 inches and can stand alone or be mounted on the top of your notebook. It can also be folded up to store easily in your notebook case.

You’ve got a digital camera loaded with photos to share. You have a favorite photo sharing Web site. How can you transfer between the two? One new way looks to be the freshly announced Eye-Fi Card, a wireless SD memory card for digital cameras priced at around $100.

The Eye-Fi Card is available in a 2GB capacity, allowing it to hold around 1,000 images. The card allows one to connect through a wireless network to a PC or Mac to transfer photos over to. The interesting part is that you can also reportedly use this card to easily send images to a variety of online photo and social networking Web sites. You can set where to send your photos during a set-up process.

Kyocrea Wireless recently unveiled a new portable router which supports 802.11n (Draft 2.0) for faster wireless connections. The Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router will be available sometime in early 2008.

The Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router follows on the heels of the award-winning KR1. The KR2, besides supporting 802.11n, is designed to work with PCMCIA, ExpressCard and USB devices for wireless connectivity. It can also also act as a regular router via wired connections. A dedicated button helps setup and bolster wireless security, with the router featuring VPN-L2TP and enhanced encryption for network security.

If you like being the center of attention, and absolutely need to know when you are in a hot spot, then the Wi-Fi detector shirt is for you. It displays the current wi-fi signal strength on your chest, thanks to a battery pack hidden in a small pocket within the Shirt.
The glowing bars on the front change as the wi-fi signal strength fluctuates. Sure, it won’t win you any friends, but you will be part of a growing network of shirt wearers that provide a valuable public service to the rest of us as we pass you by, with our devices.

The animated decal is removable so you can wash the shirt easily and not create your own B.O. signal strength. It will display signal strength for 802.11b or 802.11g and they say that it will run for several hours using 3 AAA batteries. It will cost you $29.99.

Zipit Wireless, a developer of wireless consumer electronics, unveiled today a new Wi-Fi instant messaging device targeted at teens. The Zipit Wireless Messenger 2 is priced at around $150 and should be available in October.

The Zipit Wireless Messenger 2 is a portable handheld device which offers wireless IM connectivity with no monthly or per message fees and supports all the major IM platforms — AOL, Yahoo and MSN. It works with any open wireless hotspot and allows one to have multiple, concurrent conversations. It also lets one listen to music, view photos, play games and customize it with backgrounds, themes and other content.

T-Mobile along with RIM launched a new, upgraded BlackBerry Curve today that not only features Wi-Fi for data but can also connect voice through the Wi-Fi connection via Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) and the HotSpot@Home service. The BlackBerry 8320 can take advantage of both the current EDGE network or a Wi-Fi connection when available, seamlessly switching between the two during a call.

When using UMA, users of the 8320 can talk through a 802.11g wireless home network or public Wi-Fi hotspot without racking up any talk-time minutes as they would through the standard cellular EDGE voice connection. The new Curves from T-Mobile will come in new colors of titanium silver (shown here) or a pale gold (exclusively through T-Mobile) but other than that are pretty much the same as the original BlackBerry Curve. The BlackBerry 8320 has a 2 megapixel camera, media player, microSD expansion slot, full QWERTY keyboard and takes advantage of T-Mobiles myFaves for 5 friends from any carrier.