Top Takeaway Trends from CES (with bonus cool-technology takeaway)
Posted Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:05:00 EST by Michael Wolf
Now that I've settled in to the office after a long trip to Vegas, I thought I'd post a few quick couple thoughts on what I saw at CES. We will have more in-depth implication level analysis for clients coming soon, but just wanted to touch on some trends coming out of the show.
1. Web on TV. While we started following this trend pretty extensively in 2008, the first major announcement in this regard actually came in August with the Yahoo Widget Channel. Interest in this seems to only be gathering more momentum with deals for Netflix and other types of applications being ported either onto a box or directly onto a TV.
2. Netbooks, netbooks everywhere. It seemed you couldn't turn around at CES without either bumping into someone tapping away on a netbook or at least talking about getting one. Sure CES attendees are early adopters and tend to move ahead of the broader consumer market, but it seems these low-cost, low-powered mobile optimized devices are part of the 2009 technology Zeitgeist.
3. Related to number one, networking connectivity integrated into HDTVs is almost a requirement now. Sony has taken its Internet module for Bravia and moved it on board the TV, and even Vizio has gotten into the game. Now we need to turn our attention onto how to get consumers to connect these ports easily and without having to troubleshoot them
4. The shootout for high-speed wireless video connectivity continues unabated. The Wireless HD folks had alot of interest at their demo, with LG showing integrated WiHD and others showing a variety of adapter modules. At the Amimon booth, the WHDI folks showed working demos in their suite and also announced that HDCP revision 2.0 will be the content protection technology for the high-speed wireless video standard. This is a big deal as its the same content protection that HDMI uses and most likely a pre-requirement for any real buy-in from utilizing wireless in-home video distribution from the content companies.
5. Bonus cool technology: Sixense's TrueMotion technology was on display at Analog Devices booth, a technology that made Nintendo's accelerometor based technology for the Wiimote look quaint. The technology uses a magnet field to have a true multi-dimensional field of motion path that allows for input into games that, according to Analog devices, "captures the controller's exact location and orientation". Mark my word, one of the big-three console vendors will license for their next-gen console controllers.