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2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) by Terry Kibiloski
The 2009 International CES covered 1.7 million net square feet of exhibit space, which housed more than 2,700 global companies, including 300 new exhibitors and roughly 20,000 new technology products. The attendance was down slightly to a best guess of around 90,000 people. This year, you could get a hotel room at the last minute, find a cab, not be cramped on the tram, and get show tickets and dinner reservations quite easily, which made CES more enjoyable than in past years. Some of the hottest products I saw at the show floor included the HAVA Titanium HD WiFi, Palm Pre, the Sony OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) television- as thin as a credit card, Sony’s flexible OLED TV, Panasonic’s super thin plasma TV, Panasonic’s 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System, NVIDIA® GeForce® 3D Vision which can make all of your old games, movies, and photos show up in 3-D, Yahoo!’s TV Widgets, and the LG Watch Phone. Photos and details on these and other products are shown below. Toward the end of this article, you will find the products that are either just plain fun, or totally absurd.
While many users will use the HAVA Titanium HD WiFi to watch television on computer screens throughout their home, or while on the road, this product also provides wireless projection of anything captured on a video source (TV or camera), to a screen in a classroom or boardroom, to student/professional wireless laptops, or to distance students/professionals. Viewing this product from a university perspective, the students would have the same capabilities as a digital video recorder on their laptops with the ability to record, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and so on, even during the live presentation. Students who cannot make it to the classroom could connect from anywhere they have Internet access.
HAVA Titanium HD WiFi could give organizations incredible capabilities for auditorium learning, online teaching, corporate training, video conferencing, campus TV/programming, messaging, event activities, and many other functions. With this product you can, simultaneously, view live presentations locally & remotely, wirelessly stream video to an unlimited number of local users, enable multiple remote viewers, and retain all content with personal video recorder (PVR) capabilities for every local and remote viewer. This product is available today and we are currently reviewing it for an Editors’ Choice award at Computer Times.
The Palm Pre along with the new Palm Web OS, has a Deck of Cards feature that makes multitasking on this smartphone easy and the Synergy functionality pulls in all your personal management information (e-mail, contacts, and calendar) from various sources into one place. While other devices have made similar attempts, the Palm Pre is the first smartphone to truly deliver on this in a seamless way. The Palm Pre’s multitouch screen rivals the iPhone and is better than Apple's smartphone since it has a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. Other features include a full HTML Web browser, a full range of wireless options, and multimedia capabilities. Since Palm Pre‘s Palm Web OS was built with developers in mind, there should be many new applications coming in the near future for this great little device.
The biggest Sony news, in products available today, was its OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) television, featuring a 3mm thin panel and breathtaking image contrast, brightness and color. It’s an industry first and 3mm is about the thickness of a credit card. Possessing the ability to completely turn off an organic pixel, the OLED TV breaks new ground with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio that produces deep blacks in astounding dark scene detail. In fact, it is the first TV to have true black due to the fact that the organic material used in these new screens is totally black in its natural state.
Even bigger news for the future was the flexible version of the OLED television. Sony representatives told Computer Times editors that we can expect this to be out of the prototype phase and into production with 2 years. Imagine your television screen coming down from your ceiling at a push of a button, and then rolling back up when you are done watching TV. The technology is here, we are just waiting for efficient production of the units to catch up.
Not to be outdone by Sony, Panasonic announced the world's thinnest plasma TV. The newly developed NeoPDP technology has been incorporated into two types of PDPs. The first is a super high-efficiency 42-inch PDP that achieves triple luminance efficiency, while reducing the power consumption to 1/3 of the 2007 models, yet achieving the same brightness. The second is an ultra-thin 50-inch PDP just 8.8 mm (approximately 1/3 inch) in profile at its thinnest point. This ultra-thin panel delivers the world's highest moving picture resolution*3 of 1080 lines. The super-thin panel allows users more setup flexibility including wall mounting and suspension from the ceiling. It has WirelessHD-based transmission system, wide viewing angle, high contrast ratios, and newly achieved moving resolution of 1080 lines.
Panasonic introduced its 3D Full HD Plasma Home Theater System, which is said to be the first-of-its-kind setup that depicts what the company says is true-to-life 3-D imagery. The system involves a 103-inch plasma HDTV from Panasonic and a Panasonic BluRay player that, together, deliver full HD images. The 3D images are created when the active shutter lenses allow the 3D FHD system to send different images to each of the viewer’s glasses lens. When the images are synchronized in sequence, a 3D effect is created for the viewer.
While Panasonic requires high end equipment for newly developed 3-D BluRay images, NVIDIA let you upgrade your PC to a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience with NVIDIA® GeForce® 3D Vision™, a combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software. GeForce 3D Vision automatically transforms hundreds of your old PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. Just slip on the stylish glasses and pair them with an NVIDIA® GeForce® GPU and a "GeForce 3D Vision-Ready" display to experience characters and environments that come to life on the screen. In addition, you can watch 3D movies and 3D digital photographs in eye popping, crystal-clear quality. All that is required is a 120Mhz display (which is the standard for most new displays) and all of your old games, movies, and photos will come to life in 3-D.
Yahoo!’s TV Widgets are compact Internet applications that deliver the best of the Web to your TV. You can use your remote to bring up the TV Widget Dock, select all your favorite TV Widgets, and connect to popular Internet services and online media, while you watch your favorite show. You can view movies, video clips, news updates, weather, photos, messages, and more with these new TV Widgets.
The LG Watch Phone begins with a tempered glass on the surface and works as a capacitive touch screen, making it as easy to use as the one on the iPhone. You can easily dial numbers on the tiny dial pad, even though the screen only measures 1.43 inches diagonally. Texting will be done in a similar manner with a virtual T9 keypad. Its music player is easy to use and the sound coming from the speakers on the watch is surprisingly loud, plus it supports stereo Bluetooth headsets. Storage in the phone is somewhere around 70 MB, and that is sure to increase. The charging pins are on the underside of the watch, which can then be connected to a charging connector. On the right side of the watch are three buttons: the Talk, Clear, and End buttons, respectively. If that isn’t cool enough, it even has a camera that can be used for video conferencing.
There was every conceivable device imaginable for the iPhone 3G and the iPod, like this 4CD/MP3 Hi-Fi Audio System with Subwoofer that includes 2.1 channel speakers, plays MP3, WMA files on SD/MMC cards and USB flash memory stick (4GB max), or lets you listen to slotMusic through SD card slot or USB port. Its Time Sync function automatically updates the clock to your iPhone or iPod, and includes sleep function, mute, timer function (auto on/off) with snooze capability, and a universal dock for iPod and compatibles Of course, CES would not be complete without the cool gadgets, the fun and the absurd.
A 3-D Web cam to let people see you in ALL your glory.
A charger pad that can charge all of your units as long as they are equipped with a wireless charger receiver.
Seems like everyone had netbooks available that were not much bigger than the size of your two hands, assuming you have large hands. These are miniaturized, scaled-down notebook computers designed to simply browse the Web and check your e-mail.
The coolest telescope ever that will find whatever star you choose, audibly tell you about the star, and take a digital photo of your star. Way cool!
Finally, Shure has entered the PC market with USB converters for your older high quality microphones and newly-designed PC microphones.
Digital frames have gone far beyond just displaying photos and may become platforms unto themselves with wireless Internet capabilities and high definition TV.
Devices to provide networks through your wall outlets.
USB Photo scanner not much bigger than your pocket photos.
Miniature projectors to use in the restaurant or on the plane.
Totally automated sewing machines.
Seats with motion and vibration that make games more realistic.
Complete racing environments.
Interactive gaming vests so you can feel yourself get shot.
Futuristic worker modules that cost far more than the computer.
Massage chairs that cost more than a Kia.
Lamborghini as a booth attention getter.
Talking robot as a booth attention getter.
Free beer as a booth attention getter.
Casio girls as a booth attention getter.
Booth space so big your get lost in it and cannot find your way out. This year's version of CES also featured a distinctly green hue, with exhibit space for the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone ballooning from 520 square feet last year to 3,000 square feet in 2009. Even though this year's show has just wrapped up, CEA is already gearing up for the 2010 International CES, which will be held Jan. 7 to 10, 2010 in Las Vegas. Find the best deals on home theater systems and other home entertainment showcases.
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