I’ve always enjoyed receiving gadgets over diamonds, but now that concept is a bit more official. According to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Women in CE, electronics are the “desired purchase”.

In the study, eight in ten women wanted Consumer Electronics, an increase of 10% from the previous study. Women spend about $667 on CE products in the past 12 months. Which is slightly less than men who spend $728.

“This Valentine’s Day, the way to a women’s heart just might be through electronics,” said Jessica Boothe, manager of strategic research, CEA, who oversaw this study. “Women want technology more than ever and they view electronics as very personal devices that can be toted around and customized with private information.”

But men, be wary when shopping. Be excited that you should now buy the woman in your life an electronic, but you might want to make sure it’s not pink. Or at least know her well enough to know if she would like the gadget in pink or not.

“Forget pink. Women don’t want to be catered to with ultra-feminine looking products; they simply prefer lightweight devices that can fit smaller hands and smaller body frames,” said Boothe. “Women play many roles, like mother, spouse and career women, and CE products that can perform many functions are a necessity.”

Women want electronics that “simplify their life” (77%). So when shopping for this Valentine’s day, consider a gadget to make her heart soar.

Google recently released a statement that they will be using your surfing history to better tailor ads to you as a consumer. The interests are stored per browser which does mean you could get different ads based on which browser you use for certain things. For example, I check email in one browser all day while another opens my links from Twitter. Most of which are video game related.

Here’s a video explaining their ad system:

The only issue so far is that when you look to see what Google thinks your preferences are, they seem to be defaulting us women as men. So far out of my friends on Twitter, only one woman on one of her browsers is a female. The rest of us show as 25-34 year old male. I get that my interests might seem male (they list comics, video games and technology), but everyone seems to default to male? I also have shopping listed and I’m sure Hello Kitty will show up there soon. But what does it take to get listed as female? I mean over the past few months I’ve visited Pinterest, TechMoms’ sites, and sites about ovulation. Does it get any more female than that?

Check out your preferences? What does it have you listed as? I wonder why Google chose to list these as defaults at all. While I can correct the information, why should I?

The Consumer Electronics Show is winding down today but there are still interesting facts coming out of CES. Blog Her’s Eliza Camahort Page presented a study at CES as part of the MommyTech summit. The survey was conducted by Nielsen and was across a community of 37 million women.

Interestingly enough, the survey showed that when it comes to purchasing products, women look out the opinion of other women before purchasing. 84% of Blog Hers and 69% of typical Americans turn to blogs for references before they buy. 56% of BlogHer members turn to social networks for information.

In terms of marketing to women, the survey found that “women want to read online reviews by women”. As a group it seems more women are price-conscious over early adapters of technology. A device that women love is something that is all-in-one and combines communication and entertainment.

Below is a copy of the study which is incredibly useful in getting some information on how in general women determine their purchases. Of course, this isn’t true for all women, as many women do read male sources for information as well. Overall, it supports our mission at GamingAngels that we work to provide women with a source that they can trust for their gadgets, video games and book choices.

I thought I loved doing laundry. But now after the announcement that Samsung made at CES, doing laundry just isn’t going to be the same.

Since College I have been frantically looking for quarters in order to clean my clothes. I remember having to go to banks, grocery stores, even knocking on friends’ doors to get quarters. Then you had to compete to even find an open laundry space. Forget doing laundry on Sundays. In my apartment, things did not get better. I still needed quarters (but more now) and it was still a fight for resources. Each load had to be taken outside and down the stairs into the garage. Rain or shine, one load at a time because that’s all I could carry.

When we bought my house the first thing I went to check out was the laundry situation. I fell in love. The laundry has it’s own little room with drawers and there it was a full washer and dryer. No more waiting and no more quarters. I think the first few months I did laundry at crazy hours just cause I could. Or I let it…sit overnight. Why? Cause no one was going to take my stuff out of it.

Silly I know, but I was happy in my ignorance. But now Samsung goes and announces their brand new washer and dryer that is a tech geek’s dream. The WiFi-enabled WF457 washer’s Smart Control system allows you to really continue living your life while doing laundry. Using an app you can monitor the cycle, remaining time and finishing alerts, as well as remotely start or pause the washer from anywhere in the house. Um..yes please? If there are any issues the system will also send warnings to your connected devices so that you know exactly what the issue is.

The washer and dryer are huge and offer seven different settings to help fine tone how you wash your clothing. There is a monitor/touchscreen for the settings as well. In talking to my mom about this she stated that she would love the idea of being able to remotely monitor the laundry. Right now she has to go out into the cold, garage and check on how the loads are doing.

The WF457 Washer and dryer will be available in Charcoal and white in Spring 2012. I think the only thing missing is the robot arm to take things out of the washer and place it into the dryer.

Mimoco is the company behind those adorable and stylish USB storage devices. At CES today, Mimoco announced their latest line of USB Flash Drives, Mimomicro. The Mimomicro is a smaller line but also has increased functionality. The USB flash drive has interchangeable microSD memory cards but can also be a reader to transport data between digital devices.

The Mimomicro has a flip-out USB plug and a built in keychain with a LED indicator light. It’s only 1.6″H and 1.0″ W which is super tiny. In March, the first two collections will launch featuring designs from Star Wars and DC characters.

“As the pioneers in the licensed flash drive marketplace, Mimoco is excited to unveil our first new product line to build upon the success of our popular MIMOBOT platform. MIMOMICRO leverages compatibility with both USB and microSD enabled memory devices and taps into the growing usage of mobile memory solutions,” said Evan Blaustein, CEO of Mimoco.

The devices are so cute (I want Wonder Woman!) but no mention of price. We’ll update you in March with that info!

Mimoco introduces MimoMicro! from MIMOBOT & mimoZine on Vimeo.

Tuesday CES 2012 kicks off. I used to cover the event for GamingAngels every year, but this year I can’t go. We will have coverage from other editors and we’ll be trying to keep up with the flood of information coming in. We can then ooh and ahh at all the gadget pretties we want.

The video below is my predictions for what we’ll see at CES 2012. Let us know what you are interested in hearing about.

Barnes and Noble reported a record holiday season for sales of their Nook products. NOOK sales, including NOOK Simple Touch™, NOOK Color™ and the new NOOK Tablet™, increased 70% over the last year during the holiday. The NOOK tablet fared well in the tablet war.

“We see substantial value in what we’ve built with our NOOK business in only two years, and we believe it’s the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value,” said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “In NOOK, we’ve established one of the world’s best retail platforms for the sale of digital copyright content. We have a large and growing installed base of millions of satisfied customers buying digital content from us, and we have a NOOK business that’s growing rapidly year-over-year and should be approximately $1.5 billion in comparable sales this fiscal year. Between continued projected growth in the U.S., and the opportunity for NOOK internationally in the next 12 months, we expect the business to continue to scale rapidly for the foreseeable future.”

iPad users have downloaded about three billion apps since the iPad launched according to a study by ABI Research. In Mobile Applications Market Data , the study shows that the competition, Android, is only up to 440 million downloads so far.

“Discounting all those apps that were originally developed for Android smartphones, Android still trails greatly behind the iPad in terms of its tablet app offerings,” says research associate Lim Shiyang. “Many Android tablets in the market are still using older versions of Android, which disadvantages users from enjoying the better effects of apps produced from more advanced software development kits.”

There is a greater quantity of apps available for the iPad. In Q3 2011 alone 120,000 apps were made for the iPad specifically. At CES 2012, I’m sure we’ll hear about many new tablets running Android, but as noted below, the quality just doesn’t compete with the iPad yet.

“In terms of hardware, the iPad device still offers much more compared to the current crop of tablets in the market,” comments Dan Shey, practice director, mobile services. “Android is currently being used on many low end tablets that do not offer experiences anywhere near the iPad and this dampens the download momentum for users.”

Yesterday we wrote about the Milgrow tablet that is being made specifically with the professional woman in mind. Nevermind the color choices (because hey women like pink), the interesting item was a mention of the “Special Women Security” item that the tablet came with. We were confused and I had to write them to get a better idea of what that security could mean.

Company representative Rajeev sent us the following explanation:

Indian cities are not as safe for women as they are in the west. As more Indian women join the work force they crime rate being reported has also risen.

The TabTops come pre-loaded with an app designed with women’s security in mind. The app can send instant alerts in case of any problems. A forced power-off of the phone or an improper exit of the application will trigger an alert to be sent. Prolonged signal loss will also cause a ‘fail safe’ alertSMS and email .

The application can send multiple SMS and e-mail alerts to preconfigured numbers and e-mail ids. The alerts would include last known location, direction of travel, mode of transportation and vehicle number (which the user can enter).

The Milagrow Women TabTop was designed with the urban woman in mind.

It appears that the original press release may have been a victim of language barriers. The Special Women Security was added to help keep women safe within the city. The alerts containing location, etc is actually pretty interesting. Some of these security measures make sense for kids. Would you want your gadgets to send off notifications to designated people if the device thinks you are in trouble?

CES 2012 is approaching and it’s a safe bet that we will see plenty of news about tablets that will be coming out over the next year. Only I think Gurgaon-based Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions has a bit more work to do with their new tablet announcement.

Turns out that Milagrow is launching a tablet that is for women professionals. Great. So what does that mean? What are the specs like? Well it comes in “four feminine colours- powder pink, sky blue, grey and black and comes with Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) certification.” Because we care more about the environment and bad chemicals than men.

The best part is their quote about the tablet:
“The Woman’s TabTop is created for women professionals and comes preloaded with special women security and anti theft applications,” said Rajeev Karwal, founder of Milagrow TabTops.

Oh? “Special women Security?” What does that mean? My mind is blown with the potential there. Unfortunately no explanation of what that means. Also no talk of price. I beg someone at CES if they run into them to please ask the question. Inquiring minds need to know!