News & Analysis
What was hot, cold and in between at CES
Junko Yoshida , Rick Merritt
1/12/2010 10:24 AM EST
LAS VEGAS — The Consumer Electronics Show can be a great window on things to come.
CES played host to more than 2,500 exhibitors, 250 panels with 800 speakers and more private suites than you could shake a stick at. We didn't see it all, but we saw a lot.
Here's our take on what was hot and what was not. If you went to CES or have strong opinions based on what you have been reading, we invite you to chime in with your own picks and pans from the event.
USB 3.0 is hot, Wireless USB is not
Two notebook computers, two PC motherboards, four controller chips, at least one hard drive and a handful of miscellaneous products debuted at CES using USB 3.0. All told, 17 products have been certified for the interconnect that aims to carry data at maximum rates around 4 Gbits/sec.
The interface looks like it's well on its way to a successful transition from the 480 Mbit/sec version 2.0. That's not the case for the Wireless USB spec based on ultrawideband. USB Implementers Forum had nothing to say at CES, nor did Samsung, which championed it last year. We put Wireless USB squarely in the ice cold category.
Warming up: Secure online media stores
It's not hot yet, but it might be in time for CES 2011. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem consortium now has 48 members, including five studios. It aims to enable a world of secure online stores for movies and music beyond Apple's iTunes shop.
DECE announced at CES agreement on file formats that will be released by June, adoption of five existing digital rights management technologies and approval of an authentication service provider. That's a long way from a service, but people close to DECE say progress is good.
"It's a complex beast and there are a lot of people at the table, but there's a sense of urgency," said consultant Brad Hunt.
Meanwhile news reports emerged about Key Chest, a digital rights locker Disney has in the works, apparently as an alternative to DECE.
Lukewarm: HDTV as video phone
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Will that big LCD TV in the living room become a video phone where grandma and the kids can chat over a Skype video connection? That's what virtually every TV maker at CES was showing with their high-end models linked to the Internet via Wi-Fi/USB dongles.
Given the hype over videophones ever since their launch at the World's Fair in the 1960's, we'll take a wait-and-see on this one. An LG Electronics demo bombed, lacking a good broadband connection. Even Panasonic, which hosted the Skype CEO at its press conference, also showed a dedicated video conferencing box for TVs. Cisco will try out a similar system in field trials with France Telecom and Verizon this year.
Android: A little overheated
Many projects are adopting a free version of the Linux operating system that has the backing of software giant and media darling Google. We liked Broadcom CEO Scott McGregor's take on Android:
"It definitely has captured the imagination of a lot of people, but we are still in the first inning of the game for Android," McGregor said in an interview at Broadcom CES booth. "It could sweep the world or be a footnote--right now it has a lot of buzz."
Broadcom showed Android running on a GPS processor. Mips Technologies showed two prototype set-top boxes using Android running on its core, as well as some fancy user interface software for managing media running on top of Android. The Google Nexus One phone made an appearance at CES along with a number of other Android phones, picture frames, tablet PCs and other devices.
In the end, the smartphone market is being pulled in many directions.
3-D TV: Plenty overheated
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You couldn't get within 100 miles of Las Vegas without hearing about 3-D TV. First generation products will be challenged to live up to the hype, given the technical hurdles remaining and the June-or-earlier shipping targets. Many say the need for glasses will limit this from becoming a major new media—as some hope—across all TVs, cameras and camcorders.
Rarely has the consumer industry, including Hollywood studios, been so closely aligned on a technology, so there's a lot of money and focus here. And there's a real "wow!" factor for users when they don the glasses and see how good the displays look. Clearly 3-D is big, the question is how big.
Smartbooks: Warming in the oven
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For more than a year, six ARM-based processor vendors have been trying to jump-start a category of ultra-mobile devices with more battery life and Web-savvy than today's notebooks. At CES, Lenovo brought that vision to life with its Skylight notebook.
Skylight is noticeably thinner, lighter than a netbook, and is expected to have longer battery life—ten hours cranking on the Net. Sounds great, but Lenovo will have to deliver a robust, feature-rich device and educate end users not to expect all the trappings of a Windows netbook. And it can't establish a category all by itself, so other OEMs must jump in with similar products before this sector is firmly in the hot zone.
Comments
Rick Merritt
1/12/2010 8:28 PM EST
Did you see something hot or cold at CES we missed? Tell us about it here.
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tprice5
1/12/2010 9:15 PM EST
I agree that there is going to be a major shakeout in the e-reader industry. My neighbor has an IPhone and is perfectly happy downloading books and reading them on that device.
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Nirav Desai
1/13/2010 3:29 AM EST
Here's a link to an article which discusses the Philips WOWvx 3D TV Technology that doesn't need glasses.
http://business.theatlantic.com/2010/01/coming_soon_3-d_television_without_the_glasses.php
Also with the Nexus One packing as much power as netbooks, it would be nice to see standalone 10" displays in the market which can be mated to the phone when needed and eliminate the need for netbooks completely.
The 10" displays could be selfpowered to avoid draining the cell phone battery.
Also a nice thing to go along with it would be a MEMs accelerometer based stylus ( like the Nintendo Wii remote ) to use as a primary input device.
The stylus could have 2 modes: One the usual touchscreen mode and the other a MEMs based mode which can be used for gesture specific inputs as well as writing text using any kind of surface as a support.
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embeded
1/13/2010 4:49 AM EST
Another major trend continuing from past years is that consumers are taking over control of what and when they view content.
What makes this trend huge is not that it is happening (it has been for years), but that it is accelerating with no apparent response from the cable companies. With tru2way apparently not making much of a splash, cable companies are giving up control of how content is made available. They are destined to become merely dumb pipes for dissemination of content. The real action (and freedom) is between content sources and consumers via adhoc internet devices that cut the cable box out of the loop. With the middleman of the cable companies needing to take their cut gone, the availability and enjoyment of content for the average consumer has increased immensely. Over the past few years, I can't thing of any single new device that improved my quality of life as much as that.
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TRSHANER
1/13/2010 9:32 AM EST
Your opinion that E-Books are the "Edsel" of mobile computing completely ignores the fact that the Amazon Kindle E-Book is already very successful. Yes, there will be better E-Book readers. Will Apple's E-Book introduction sweep the market and kill-off all competing products....No way! I do agree with you that "Tablet PCs" will never take off, which just reinforces the need for devices like E-Book readers. Like most people employed in the technology industry, I access a HUGE amount of information on paper, the Web and other electronic media. My biggest problem is with PAPER.......it just keeps piling up: Magazines, Catalogs, and endless pages printed out and stapled together on PAPER!
Sure I have much of this "stuff" on my laptop, but somehow it never feels the same as reading it on PAPER! E-Book readers address this issue with their monochrome non-backlit displays, which is much easier on the eyes. Problem is that they currently lack the features required for easy reading of "technical documents." This includes a larger screen size with color capability, but please not that nasty backlit LCD on my laptop! There is also a need for better organizing, cataloging and storing documents both on and off the device, as well as search and lookup criteria for the information within those documents. Apple's introduction into the E-Book market may address all of these requirements, but the larger screen model required for easier reading of "technical" documents will be priced way too high for most people's budget. It's only a mater of time before someone comes out with the "Ultimate Geek E-Reader" at an affordable price!
My 2ยข worth!
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Nirav Desai
1/13/2010 12:46 PM EST
Hi TRSHANER. The technology that you need with a color capable screen without backlit LCD is here. The Qualcomm MEMs based Mirasol displays do just what you need. They are targeting these for the regular sized E-Book readers. Here's a link:
http://www.mirasoldisplays.com/index-mirasol-display-technology.php
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TRSHANER
1/13/2010 1:32 PM EST
Thanks Nirav! Now if Mirasol can get the price down for a 10" or larger display, then the "Ulimate Geek E-Reader" may almost be a reality. Gotta love electronics technology! I've been in it for over 40-years, from vacuum tubes to 32nM silicon...and not bored yet!
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Rick Merritt
1/13/2010 7:29 PM EST
Hey Nirav:
I love your idea for a MEMS stylus!
Jeff Hawkins tried and failed in a big way to do the smartphone companion product you mention. See http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=201804047
And we need to tell "The Atlantic" that Philips pulled its autostereoscopic tech from the market last year because it won't be ready for prime time until we get 4x higher res displays. See http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=216500606
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Nirav Desai
1/14/2010 3:46 AM EST
Hi Rick. The Foleo comes close to what I am suggesting. We could have a netbook sized self powered keyboard to go with the self powered display and it will make it all the more attractive. The MEMs stylus could be used with the smartphone alone or with the display as a better substitute for a mouse.
As your article points out, the critics didn't like the Foleo because it was large, underpowered and too expensive. None of these problems exist with the smartphones today.
If we look at the Nexus One, it has a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM and 4 Gb flash memory which costs $175 and sells for $217. An additional standalone 10" display should cost around $50 and coupled with a keyboard, could sell for around $100.
Now, netbooks costs typically $200-300 and if I already have a $200 smartphone which is as powerful as a netbook, I would rather spend $100 on an additional Foleo style display-keyboard combo than a $200 netbook.
So I think today there is a huge potential market for Foleo style display - keyboard combos to go with Nexus One Style Smart Phones.
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