If you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, then you know of the Consumer Electronics Show. Or as the rest of the lazy world likes to announce it: CES.
I believe that Paul Carr describes this phenomena the best, “four days wandering around an aircraft hanger filled with vastly oversized television sets, or sitting through endless product launches that are being simulcast online anyway.”
I personally took the last piece of advice and periodically tuned into some live webcasts of the show from the comfort of my own desk. And while I did long to “suffer” along with the rest of the geeks at CES (just because of the geek that I am) I found that I really wasn’t missing much.
Now if I were to predict this year in technology based solely on CES it would be pretty easy; we are all going to have an extreme headaches trying to read our e-books and tablets from watching 3-d TV all day.
In all seriousness though there were few things that really struck my eye and made me say, “I NEED that.” What stuck out at me more than anything were the trends, that are so completely obvious that I can pick them up.
First up is 3-d TV. Although we might all think that Avatar is stunning on the screen, there is no way anyone will want to have this in their house. The confusing and conflicting technologies are in now way ready to enter our living rooms. Not to mention the glasses are goofy. While I do not agree with the technology now, however, I do think that once they get rid of the glasses, and the option to watch in 3-d or “downscale” to regular HD.
On deck now is e-readers. If you didn’t notice, there were e-books all over the place. So many, in fact, that I’m unsure how any of them besides a select few will get any publisher support at all. One thing is for sure though, publishing companies better jump on the electronic bandwagon quickly, because soon e-books will become the norm instead of paper. We are already seeing this with the newspaper industry and its only a matter of time before books take a hit as well.
Lastly are the tablets. Half competing for your books and half for your internet viewing, just about every big manufacturer is making their own tablet. While I do think that Blio is a cool concept (one of the only things I bothered paying attention to from the Microsoft keynote), I don’t think that e-book readers need to be too afraid. The one thing that still boggles my mind is: Is there a market for these devices? I mean sure trends show that this will be a device worth noting this year, but will it be useful?
CES pretty much surrounded these subjects this year. And while I do have many little gadgets and gizmo that I will definitely want to check out, you know the big idea of what went down in Vegas.
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