Along with the green products that have immediate appeal, CEATEC had its share of green products that had many scratching their heads. LED and OLED light bulbs save energy, and we’ll likely switch over to those technologies, once they become brighter and less expensive.

So I guess it was inevitable that someone would create an Organic EL chandelier. In theory, it seems like a good idea. Plus, there’s the benefit of it being the first of a kind. That said, this has to be one of the most unusual chandeliers ever produced. Utilitarian? Yes. Good for the planet? Two big thumbs up. A worthy design that will add a touch of elegance to any décor? That you’ll have to decide.

Yamaha introduced its Disklavier piano way back in 1986. The Disklavier is a Yamaha piano with a built-in playback and recording system. When playing back the recording, the keys are pressed down, much like a player piano, so you hear essentially the same performance that was recorded on the same or similar piano. Because the performance is stored as a MIDI file, you could play a tune on a Disklavier in one city and have it play back—live or delayed—on another Disclavier in another city.

Recently, Yamaha has touted the benefit of this system for parents, by referring to the recordings as a lifelog. You could capture every performance of your child from the very first piano lesson to however far your child might progress on the instrument. MIDI files are tiny, so you could easily store a lifetime of practice sessions, lessons learned, and accomplished performances onto a single disk drive.

At this year’s CEATEC tradeshow, Yamaha added yet another twist to the technology. The company showed a prototype HRP-4C humanoid robot that sings in sync with a Disklavier piano performance. It not only sings—it has realistic facial expressions that mimic quite persuasively the human face. I spoke with Masahiro Koyama, Ph. D., who works for the Center of Advanced Sound Technologies in Tokyo. He said the facial expressions are based on what a face and mouth would look like when those particular sounds are produced.

There are no immediate plans to commercialize the singing robot, which uses Yamaha’s proprietary Vocaloid vocal-processing technology to create the lifelike singing voice (here’s a YouTube link to the performance at the booth). Cover bands across the world can rest easy, at least for the time being.

It sounds incredible. You create a file on your computer, and then print that file as a metal object.

I visited the Shapeways booth earlier this month at the SIGGRAPH 2009 conference in New Orleans. Shapeways interfaces with 3D modeling programs to let you transform your 3D creations into plastic or stainless steel objects.

You can use the company’s website to upload your 3D design, as long as the design is in a standard 3D-modeling file format, such as STL, Collada, X3D, or VRML. You pay a fee based on the size of the resulting object, and Shapeways delivers the object globally within 22 business days for metal or 10 business days for plastic.

If you’re a product designer, you can participate in the Shapeways Shops program, which combines production, packaging, shipping, and customer care. That might be an expensive proposition for established mass-market designers who benefit from the lower costs associated with traditional manufacturing, but it could prove useful for less-commercial products or experimental designs.

Non-designers can also try out the technology. Using Shapeways Creator, you can design and purchase ringpoem napkin rings with a personal message, lightpoem lamps with a favorite quotation, or custom cufflinks with a particular style and initials.

This could be the start of a whole new cottage industry, where you would use specialized software to create and manufacture the physical products you want to decorate your home or office.

You don’t usually associate bicycles with consumer electronics, but it seemed appropriate for Schwinn to have a booth this year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). One of the CES themes was green technology, so Schwinn showed its latest eBike, the Tailwind.

It’s a pedal-assisted electric bike with a range of 25 to 30 miles on a battery charge. You can fully charge the bike in about 30 minutes using a standard power plug, or as little as 5 to 7 minutes using a 40 amp commercial charger.

You can charge the Tailwind’s Toshiba SCiB battery a minimum of 2,000 times, compared with previous electric bike batteries, which could be charged 600 to 1,000 times. I was told at the booth that Schwinn is testing a newer-generation Toshiba battery that will be officially rated for 4,000 charges, but is actually capable of providing around 6,000 charges.

The various components associated with adding electric power to the bike weigh approximately 12 pounds, so the bike itself isn’t prohibitively heavy when human powered.

Sales of electric bikes are just starting to catch on. According to the Electric Bikes Worldwide Report, 2008 Update, U.S. eBike sales will reach 222,000 units in 2009, an increase of 83 percent over 2007. European sales will hit 750,000 units, up a whopping 300 percent over 2007.

Look for the Tailwind to be available in independent bicycle shops throughout the U.S. and Canada later this month. It will have a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $3,199.

Have you heard? NASA is hiding the true colors of Mars from the public. It’s all over the Internet. Pass it on.

Search for the “color of Mars” on Google, and you’ll find a host of conspiracy theories about NASA covering up the true colors of the red planet.

Some suggest NASA is deliberately trying to make the planet seem less hospitable for human life. Others argue NASA is secretly removing any evidence of vegetation. They point to the wide differences in hues found in various images of Mars.

Here are links to two sites that raise this issue: www.libertythink.com/totalinformation/BlueMars.htm and www.enterprisemission.com/colors.htm.

Could NASA really be engaged in a massive cover up? Not likely. Then what’s going on? Why is there such a disparity in the Mars images?

The best explanation can be found here: www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/mars_colors.html. The photographic filters onboard the spacecraft weren’t designed to mimic the human eye. The filters were designed for scientific measurement. In addition, the color balance on Mars can shift for a variety of reasons, as it can here on Earth.

In short, there are technical explanations for the color differences that are far more believable than conspiracy theories where hundreds, if not thousands, of people are sworn to secrecy.

There were all kinds of electronic devices at this year’s CES, including devices you wouldn’t normally think of as being electronic.

At the Cherry Picks event on press day (Sunday), Gibson showed its Robot Guitar. The name is a bit misleading, as it conjures up images of a self-playing guitar. That isn’t the case. The Robot Guitar is a self-tuning guitar, which is still impressive. You strum the strings. It analyzes the degree to which each string is out of tune. And it mechanically adjusts the strings to the correct tuning.

Six factory presets are provided. You can also manually tune the guitar to any other tuning and save that tuning by overwriting one of the presets. The owner’s manual provides instructions for restoring the factory defaults in case you want to go back.

Color LEDs provide user feedback during tuning operations. A solid red indicates a string is not tuned. A flashing yellow indicates the Powerheads are tuning the strings. A solid green indicates an individual string is in tune. And all LEDS flashing blue three times indicates all the strings are in tune.

Based on the demo I saw at CES, the process appears to be easy, fast, and accurate. For guitar players who like to switch back and forth among various tunings, the Robot Guitar should prove especially valuable. The retail price is $2,499. Even with that high price, there’s a waiting list of eager buyers.

Currently, there’s only one body style, though we were told at Cherry Picks that — once they catch up with the orders — Gibson will introduce different designs with the same technology.