The beginning of a new year signals the event most consumer electronics geeks have been waiting for: the Consumer Electronics Show. We’re planning on putting a lot of coverage on this exciting event, including the creation of a category from which you can get the latest news on product announcements. We kick off this category with pre-show announcements – the first of which is a new USB flash drive from SanDisk which will offer automatic online backup of its data.

The SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus, priced at around $60, will offer an online backup service compatible with Windows and free for six months before having you incur a $30 a year charge. The 4GB USB flash drive will, after having new files copied to it, automatically back them up to an online account created by the user. An Internet connection is required of course and if one is not available the drive will wait until it detects a live connection through its host computer before backing up new files.

This stunningly good looking watch from Seiko Japan uses a series of spinning aluminum discs to display the time. And unlike many of the newer watches coming out of Japan these days, this one makes it very easy to read the time. Three numbered discs continuously rotate to display hours, minutes and seconds.

The Discus is part of Seiko’s Moving Image series, a line of automatic timepieces with great contemporary style. This one is available in two versions: one with a stainless body and white face, and one with a black metal body and a smoked glass face. It’s amazing what they are doing with watches these days. Makes me wish I had 10 arms.

It’s not uncommon for a laptop user to tote along an extra battery or two for those long flights, especially with the possibility of in-flight internet access coming soon. Starting January 1, 2008 the U.S. Department of Transportation will start placing restrictions on the number and size of lithium batteries that can be brought along on a U.S. flight giving you one more thing to remember before boarding a plane.

Lithium batteries are a very common type of battery used in many kinds of portable electronic devices such as digital cameras, media players and notebook computers. The new restriction will not affect batteries that are installed in their intended electronic devices, but only spare batteries that are brought along. Loose, spare batteries will no longer be allowed to be placed in checked luggage, and any spare batteries that are carried on must be in the original packaging or placed in a plastic bag to prevent contacting metal parts and the possibility of a resulting fire.

The Wii shark gun may just be one accessory too many. Does it jump the shark? Probably. I think the packaging says it all, showing a tough U.S. soldier in uniform aiming this thing at the target. Then in the lower right we see the typical James Bond like silhouette. Apparently the world loves this gun. I especially like the “Playing easily. Playing happily.” slogan. They left out, “Looking like a tool”.

You stick your Wiimote on the top, then hook up your Nunchuck to the shark’s ass and then get ready for hours of fun. I guess if you were actually playing a game that involved sharks it might not be so bad. If you absolutely have to have every Wii accessory, $10 is a fair price to pay for aiming a shark at your TV.

If you’re looking for an extravagant after Christmas gift for yourself, you might want to look into Vivid Audio’s latest offering. The Giya G1 has an interesting eclectic, almost organic look that resembles some magical artifact. It comes in a variety of automotive paint finishes and is being tauted as a real treat to ears with better then average sound quality.

The included speakers are made using patented cabinet construction and bass loading. The smaller speakers use double drivers on the front and back of the speaker in a bipole radiating fashion and the dual 12″ are positioned on the sides. Are you ready for the price yet? Luckily, you are probably sitting down. These come with the hefty price tag of $54,000 and will be displayed at CES 2008. I’m pretty sure the Bionic Man’s ears aren’t worth that much.

We heard about USB planning to increase its speed by 10 fold back in September with USB 3.0 specs complete by mid-2008, but FireWire apparently had no intention of sitting back and being outdone. The 1394 Trade Association announced last week a new specification for FireWire that uses the same connections and cables but promises 4 times the speed of the current FireWire bringing potential speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps.

The new spec called S3200 will used 100% of its bit rate as payload and none as overhead bringing the payload speed up to 400 megabytes per second compared to 90 megabytes per second in the current FireWire 800. The new S3200 spec will also be backwards compatible with existing FireWire devices and will offer cable configurations to bring data and power over 300 feet. It also will maintain its peer-to-peer architecture to connect devices with or without a computer.

Maybe it isn’t a marketing scheme and Nintendo really is having trouble keeping up with production for the Nintendo Wii game console. Nintendo is offering hope for some of those still looking for Wii this holiday season, although opening a present with a piece of paper promising a Wii in a month just might not be the same as the real thing.

In a telephone press conference today Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said they the company is working with GameStop to give out “rain checks” to those looking for an Wii this year with a deliver time frame in January of next year.

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.

The once mighty pay phone is now going the way of the dodo as mobile phones are the way of today. AT&T sees the writing on the wall and is getting off the sinking ship, announcing today it plans to exit the pay phone business by the end of 2008.

AT&T said pay phones in the United States have declined over the last 10 years from around 2.6 million phones to a measly 1 million today. The company sees no reason to remain in this business any longer and “plans to phase out both public pay phones and phones provided under contracts at government correctional facilities through the end of next year.”

Mitron, a South Korean developer of Solid State Drive (SSD) products, announced today the introduction of a new SSD for the consumer market. It is called the Mtron SSD MOBI and it will price at around $650.

The Mtron SSD MOBI is geared towards the likes of high end gamers and video graphic artists. It delivers 32GB of storage, a maximum reading speed of 100 MB per second, maximum writing speed of 80 MB per second and random access time of 0.1 ms. The 2.5-inch body which hosts all of this is outfitted with a Serial ATA interface for replacing that hard drive in your laptop or desktop computer.

With only a handful of days left in the OLPC Give One, Get One laptop promotion, Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child, has decided to extend the offer through the end of December. The Give One Get One program was started on November 12 and was intended to run for a limited time of only 2 weeks but according to Negroponte there has been such an large interest in the program that the foundation is extended the offer period.

“In the past 10 days, we’ve experienced an outpouring of support from the public that is truly gratifying and encouraging,” said Negroponte. “Because so many people have asked for more time to participate either individually or in order to organize local and national groups to which they belong, we have decided to extend Give One Get One through the end of this year. During this extended period we will solicit input and transition to a program of giving only at the beginning of 2008. We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to act upon the giving spirit of the holiday season.”

Nokia revealed today some pricey new handsets focused towards style-conscious consumers. The Nokia 8800 Arte will start shipping in the fourth quarter of 2007 for 1000 EUR, while the Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte (pictured) will follow in the first quarter of 2008 and retail for 1150 EUR.

These two mobiles are described by Nokia as having a metal and glass composition and sporting a slide mechanism comprised of ball bearings. Unique features include tapping the steel surface below the two-inch OLED display to display an analog clock and turning over the phone to silence it from ringing.

Electronics retailer Sharper Image is a seller of many fine gadgets, including GPS units. It also does some of its own branded products in various categories and looks now to be getting into the GPS space.

Shaper Image said today it signed an agreement with Polaris Media Research/Moneual Lab to develop Sharper Image-branded GPS navigation devices over the next several years. These new products will be manufactured by Ubistar, a Korean manufacturer of GPS receivers. The upcoming items are described as featuring “a state-of-the-art, user friendly interface” as well as “multimedia functions such as MP3 playback, image viewing and games. The units will also be loaded with over 6 million points of interest.”

Looking for something to do in your geek afterlife? How about reliving Spocks death during your own, with this sweet coffin based on the Photon Torpedo from STII: The Wrath of Khan. Currently, the technology doesn’t exist to jettison you from the enterprise and onto the Genesis planet, so this is the next best thing.

It’s from Eternal Image, the makers of all kinds of afterlife geek accessories and it is their final design of the torpedo replica coffin. As you might expect, it comes with Federation insignia on the inside and convenient handles so your poll bearers can carry your dead weight. This morbid and FINAL collectible will be available in 2008. So try not to die before then.

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.