The Ferris Bueller reenactment by Matthew Broderick for the new Honda CRV generated a lot of buzz leading up to the Super Bowl. Here's a side by side, scene by scene comparison...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

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Parrot is bringing out a new AR.Drone at this year's CES. For those of you unfamiliar with the original, it is a remote controlled helicopter that leverages your iPad, iPhone or Android smart-device to steer. The AR.Drone has a camera and streams the footage to your device to get you a real birds-eye view of the no so mini-copters flight. The unmanned little aerial vehicle also features a series of augmented reality games where simulated graphics interact with the real-world settings to really spice up your flying adventure. And if you bring a friend along, there are games that actually allow for dog-fights between the two drones.


The 2.0 version ups the experience with an all-new 720p video camera which allows you to record the action in high-definition. A new 3D Magnetometer helps makes the Drone self-orient and an overall easier flying experience. Priced at $299 and available in the second quarter.

Vizio who is well known for creating competitively priced, full-featured televisions is now targeting the PC market. This is a very interesting move considerings that many manufacturers have been phasing out. And consistent with their normal business practices, the focus will be on pricing and solid feature sets.

Expect to see at next week's CES the introduction of 24 and 27 inch all-in-one desktop computers, a standard 15.6 inch notebook and two ultralight models (14 and 15 inch). Ultralight laptops and all-in-one PCs are proving to be hot categories at this year's show. These computers are designed to feed audio and video to their Vizio television counterparts and will feature a Windows-based operating system.

This entry into the PC market-space will put a great deal of pressure on Hewlett-Packard who has clearly been one of the stronger "value price" manufacturers in the PC space. Vizio is very comfortable operating in these hot "head-to-head" competitive marketplaces. Their battles with Samsung for market leader in the TV space is well documented.

We'll be sure to get more details next week from Vizio and how their products will differ from competitive offerings.

LG is the latest to join the GoogleTV camp and has released some images of their new televisions that feature a slightly tweaked user interface. The LG televisions according the their release will include the Cinema 3D FPR technology (3D glasses similar to those you experience at the movie theater) and a "Magic Remote QWERTY" which uses voice and a Nintendo Wii-like wand to control the system. And the reference of QWERTY means the remote will also feature a keyboard that is so critical for controlling the GoogleTV interface.


Sony and Vizio have also confirmed they will be demonstrating new offerings that support the Google teams latest efforts.

Below is Google's CES 2012 demo video...

Pre-CES news leak on the new Nikon D4 professional digital SLR camera. The release is dated January 10, 2012 and we are scheduled for a press event is January 6th. With an shipping date of February 2012, it will be coming out a month before the new Canon EOS-1DX.

• Substantially lighter body
• Available by February 2012
• Suggested retail price: $6,000
• The ISO range is listed again as 100 to 102,400, expandable to 50 to 204,800
• 91,000-pixel RGB metering sensor
• Face detection/recognition
• 100% viewfinder coverage (obviously)
• Illuminated function buttons
• Dedicated video button
• Includes H.264 B frame compression
• Contrast detect AF in movie recording
• Low-pass filter for video recording
• Smooth aperture feature for video recording

• Full-frame 18.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor 
• All-new Dual DIGIC 5+ Image Processors deliver high quality image capture at up to 12 fps (14 fps in Super High Speed Mode) 
• Powerful ISO range of 100 - 51200 (up to 204800 in H2 mode) 
• All-new, 61-Point High-Density Reticular AF and 100,000-pixel RGB Metering Sensor that uses a dedicated DIGIC 4 Image Processor
• March 2012 availability
• Suggested retail price: $6,800