If you’ve never been to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it’s an unimaginable extravaganza teeming with hordes of people streaming through the venues attempting to absorb all the latest technology on display. The super stars in the consumer electronics industry such as Microsoft, Samsung. Toshiba, Panasonic, Casio, HP, and more are all computing for your attention with blaring music, flashing lights, uniformed employees, dancing girls, live stage performances, robots, game booths, scads of HD and 3D TVs, and other gimmicks. It’s a total assault on the senses. Perhaps the most soothing was Microsoft whose entire exhibit area was bathed in blue light for a much appreciated nerve-calming effect. Purportedly there were over 130,000 attendees this year, which is a lot of humanity in any one place. That’s ten times more people than live in my entire town.
Big at this years’ show were 3D TVs, Smart TVs, Android Tablets, automated remote control home systems, new 4G phones, eBook readers, wireless chargers, digital automobile accessories, and iPad accessories.
There were so many 3D displays that I pilfered a pair of 3D glasses from LG and wore them on top of my head so that I could pop them on whenever needed, which was a good deal of the time. 3D technology is certainly here and ready for the market. I wonder who is going to pay for it though and how. The entertainment industry got stuck with the bill for switching over to HD with little improved revenue. Only the TV manufacturers came out ahead there. Most likely it will be the consumer who will foot the bill for 3D TV this time around. While 3D is nice, I certainly would not appreciate having to pay for all content. Maybe a movie here and there would be OK from time to time. It may be a while before 3D is in every home. Many folks just got a new HDTV and may not be willing to fork out a small fortune for a 3DTV so soon.
Not all 3D TV displays are created equal. Some are clearly better than others. Some have 3D depth within the screen, but few actually extend out beyond the screen.
Camera manufacturers such as Sony, Canon, and Olympus are beginning to offer 3D cameras, which I imagine will soon become a standard feature in all cameras. Panasonic has a 3D lens to accessorize some of its models. Be on the lookout for Casio’s sexy new Tryx camera with its unique pivoting features.
Another TV feature widely touted was Smart TV. This means that a TV set is connected to the Internet and can stream content from such providers as Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, interact with social networking sies, view pictures/videos, and surf the Net. You can already do this with third party devices such as Roku, but that can add another hundred bucks to the cost of your TV. I wonder what smart TV is going to do to Roku, Wii, Xbox, BoxyBox, and WiFi enabled Bluray players.
All the new TVs have a narrow bezel so that there is more screen viewing area. This is a trend I appreciate for I don’t like wide, ugly borders. I just bought a new HDTV that I wanted to fit in an antique armoire and had to settle for a much smaller screen size than I would have liked. Now it will be possible to fit a larger screen into the same space.
Portable storage cards continues to expand and become less expensive. Both Lexar and SanDisk now offer 128 GB storage cards to accommodate videos and photographs.
I lost count of how many new Android tablets were exhibited, many by unknown Asian electronics firms hoping to find sponsors no doubt. Suffice it to say that the Android tablet market is alive and well and poised to give the overpriced iPad a run for its money. Some of the new tabs are available for less than $100, but they will all be less expensive that an iPad.
I saw an abundance of new phones that will soon be available, most of them Android flavored. There are many new units ready for the 4G wave that Verizon and other carriers will be releasing soon too. I even saw some 3D phones. LG has one that doesn’t require glasses, and it looks pretty sharp.
I had a chance to play with several models of the new Windows 7 phone, and I must say that the interface is pretty slick. However, I will not take it seriously until it can copy and paste. You would think Microsoft would learn from Apple’s mistakes and not go through the same evolution. I would have expected the 7 phone to do everything the Windows Mobile could do and much more. I’m disappointed.
With respect to eBooks, my mantra is “eBooks rule; treebooks drool.” While I am happy to see the popularity of eBook readers, I will never understand the naïve acceptance of such a primitive device as the Kindle. I honestly think that people just don’t know any better or they would never give the Kindle a second glance. It deserves to be relegated to the trash heap of discarded memorabilia. Oddly, there are many Kindle wannabes out there that do not offer any of the great features that are possible to make ebook reading a rewarding experience. With these featureless ebook readers, you might just as well have a clunky treebook in black and white and turn the pages by hand.
Few of the new readers I saw even have color. Happily, the Nook reader is a welcome exception, and I applaud the improvements over the lowly Kindle. A decent eBook reader should have multi-language dictionaries, the ability to change fonts, sizes, and colors, background color, underline in a variety of colors, color highlights, copy/paste, annotation, instant lookups, indexed notes, multiple, indexed bookmarks, and drawing. Of course a good eBook reader would be able to surf the Web and download books over the air. As long as there is Internet connectivity, it may as well do email and texting. If it can do that, why not word processing, videos, photos, spreadsheets, and presentations. Whoops, I guess we would be talking about a tablet here.
The point is, why would anyone want to pay several hundred dollars for a unifunctional device that only does one thing, and it doesn’t even do it very well? Instead, why not get a device for the same price such as an Android Tablet that can do everything—a machine that is a real computer? Makes lots of sense to me.
I saw booth after booth dedicated to devices and components that allow you to control the various systems in your home remotely. A partial list of systems would include sprinklers, pool, hot tub, appliances, TV, windows, garage door, burglar and fire alarms, door locks, curtains and awnings. It’s certainly the wave of the future and I expect will be in most new homes. Homeowners can select the components they wish to automate and install them a la carte. Of course, all this can be controlled by a handheld device such as a phone from anywhere. I like it.
I also like the concept of wireless chargers for such devices as phones, cameras, and MP3 players. But I didn’t see any that did not require affixing some kind of tab to back of a device, which I don’t like and would not purchase any of these chargers for that reason. There is room for improvement in this area. Maybe next year there will be wireless chargers that are also devoid of ugly and cumbersome add-on parts.
Ford Motor Company had the most conspicuous presence at the show and its president was a keynote speaker. Ford has made a significant investment in making digital technology available with its onboard Sync system, which I welcome for it will reduce the need for makeshift peripherals and extraneous wires running everywhere.
Of course there were other car companies exhibiting innovations as well such as Toyota, Honda, Audi and BMW. More hybrids are making an appearance, and it seems that it won’t be long before affordable electric cars are available for mass consumption.
OnStar has long been an attractive feature for General Motors cars that helps you out of pickles when you get lost, stranded, or have an accident. Now, an aftermarket version of OnStar will be available for almost any vehicle. It’s all in a rearview mirror that costs about $300 and another $100 to install plus an $18 monthly subscription fee. This seems pricey, but if it could save your life, I suppose it’s a small price to pay.
Of course there were exhibits of ridiculous speaker systems and amplifiers that take up most of the car. I swear you could open the trunk lid and the sound would blow you down the street. There should be a law against these noise polluters. Come to think of it, there is a law against them where I live.
While CES is decidedly not Apple oriented, I couldn’t help notice that more of the members of the press were using Apple products. There were scores of booths dedicated to iPod, iPhone, and iPad accessories such as cases, covers, holders, mounting devices, keyboards, speakers, and more.
I was disappointed not to see much in the way of accessories for Android devices, but that’s the rub. There is just one iPhone, iPod, and iPad for accessory makers to worry about, and there is a myriad of Android products all requiring separate adaptations.
While I understand that sales of gaming consoles such as Wii and Xbox are disappointing, there were plenty of booths promoting game products and accessories. Microsoft had several see-through booths large enough to contain several people/players. But I tend to avoid gaming for fear of becoming addicted and didn’t spend much time on this aspect of the show.
Going green was a definite theme espoused by companies large and small. This is a healthy trend I have not noticed at CES before, and it seems to be catching on across the globe. How wonderful that companies are beginning to take responsibility for the eco-stewardship of our planet instead of the old exploitation model of times past. We are beginning to realize that entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be destructive to the environment.
The pursuit of social networking alliances was more than ever evident with everyone wanting you to follow them on Twitter, like them in Facebook, join social circles. There were social networking workshops, and a CES Tweetup with over 300 attendees. On the first two days, there were over 20,000 Tweets tagged #CES. The CES Facebook group has over 12,000 fans.
One of the most gratifying trends I noticed was a new spirit of cooperation that I have not noticed before. It seems that the giant electronic companies are beginning to realize that they need to cooperate to create a better world instead of competing. You could see it everywhere with such examples as Skype and Toshiba, Verizon and Motorola, TV manufacturers and content providers, automakers and technology companies.
The spirit of cooperation has created a definite trend toward integration as well. Digital phones now do just about everything imaginable from photos to movies to TV to presentations, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, eBook reading, barcode scanning, online shopping, email, SMS, MMS, social networking, gaming, and a plethora of other functions as evidenced in the app providers. Smartphones in fact have become handheld computers that incidentally make phone calls.
Our automobiles, homes, and entertainment centers are becoming interactive and integrated as well as we evolve into the information cloud that is beginning to encompass us in an ever smaller world. Connectivity is almost taken for granted now with WiFi hotspots everywhere with faster connections that are able to stream more data. But, this should come as no surprise when we consider the difference between biological and cultural evolution. Biological evolution is divergent. More species are created through time. Cultural evolution is convergent though time as cultures become more integrated and start sharing more and more traits and features.
On a worldwide basis, what were once disparate cultural systems are becoming more uniform and integrated as they share more traits thanks to connectivity and electronics. Accordingly, if there were a theme for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, it was clearly one of convergence.
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