I’m not sure how often I’m going to be able to provide updates for this week’s CES, the internet connection in my hotel room has been pretty much non-existent and I’m paying $12 a day for this “privilege.” I’ll upload a ton of galleries and images when I get back home. I signed up with this service called Boingo a few weeks ago, but alas, it didn’t work. One of these days I’ll invest in a mobile broadband card. But let’s get going with this report. The biggest trend that I see happening this year is once again “convergence” technologies. Every press conference yesterday featured at least one item that brings Internet connectivity to your television. Here are some highlights from the press conferences:
NETGEAR
Netgear announced their new Internet TV Player which let’s you watch video streams on your television. This new box is half the size of the Apple TV, easy to set up, automatically scales video to fit your television. The menu navigation is beautiful, right out of the box it’s set up for YouTube, Hulu, and a bunch of studio websites. We’re getting closer and closer to the day you can kick the cable company to the curb.
3G Mobile Broadband Wireless Router
A new cool trend is the advent of personal Wi-Fi hotspots. At CES unveiled there was a company displaying this amazing little device that is the size of a business card. It will take any Cell-phone signal and convert it to a portable Hot Spot and connect up to 5 devices to it. Netgear is launching a similar product, the difference is, and it’s available now and will work with your existing broadband cards. You basically plug your card into this box and you’ll instantly be able to connect all of your broadband devices to it. So if you are traveling with a group of people this could be a great thing because you wouldn’t need to provide every member of your group with their own broadband cards. The only thing I don’t like is the device is big (standard router size) and you would still need to connect your broadband card to it. Verses this other device that I saw at Unveiled, Tuesday.
Digital Entertainment Center Elite
This is a home networked, entertainment center to store and manage all of your digital entertainment. Very cool box, but do I really want yet one more set top box the size of a VCR in my house? No. The box Plays video, MP3s and digital photos from your PC, Mac or network attached storage device (NAS) to your HDTV, Streams media directly from the Internet such as YouTube™, Internet radio, Flickr™ photos, RSS, and podcasts, Automatically finds all digital media files on your home network and organizes them into an easily accessible library, Includes HDMI port, HD upconversion up to 1080p, Wireless-N, two USB ports for iPod® and USB drives, Includes a 500 GB hard drive for extra storage of movies, photos, and music.
LG PRESS CONFERENCE
CES officially kicked off this morning with LG Electronics traditional 8 AM press conference headlined by President of Worldwide Sales for LG Electronics; who wasn’t the most dynamic speaker in the world. We got a short power point presentation with sales figures.
Next up Dr. Woo Paig, Chief Technical Officer for LG Electronics, known as the father of HD announced what LG is doing with it’s television products. I knew I should have waited to get my new television. This year we’ll finally see wireless televisions as a standard feature. LG is leading the charge by signing up partnerships with You-Tube, Netflix, Cinama Now and since it’s an open connection you can also do Hulu and anything else you can think of.
In 2009 LG is introducing several new features for their LCD and Plasma Televisions:
- All will be 1080p as standard
- Built-in Wireless
- Tru-Motion Technology which will feature 240Hz processing
- LED Backlighting
- They are launching a new 3D Television later this year that will have a built in 3D decoder.
- Environmental responsibility was a new buzz word for them and all of their new manufacturing processes for Televisions
- Cellphones and more will be more environmentally friendly and committed to C02 reduction.
It took 40 years to get here but it’s finally happened, the day of the Watch Phone is upon us. LG is launching a full featured phone later this year, now where’s that Giant Robot and Jet Pack? After seeing it in person, I’m not sure if I would want to talk on my watch for more than a few minutes at a time, but it’s still really cool.
They are launching TV’s with Built in Wireless Connectivity. 1080p, 60 Gig HZ, launching 3D Television, Tru Motion technology that will be 240Hz. ATSC Mobile DTV technology, new background noise filter for cell-phones. Setting a new Environmental Policy for their manufacturing process and committed to C02 reduction.
Cell Phones
Not much new in the Cell Phone market. It took 40 years to get here but it’s finally happened, the day of the Watch Phone is upon us. LG is launching a full featured phone later this year, now where’s that Giant Robot and Jet Pack? In retrospect, this may not be such a good idea. They also showcased their new LG Lotus Phone, which looks retarded and fugly.
CASIO
President and CEO Kazuo Kashio (K-Kash) was on hand to debut a new camera feature that they are calling Dynamic Photo. With this new tech you can now composite images and create Chromo-Key/Green screen style effects directly on your digital camera. The EX-S1 is small and pretty sleek looking. It’ll also feature Casio’s new high-speed technology. Which means no longer waiting between shots and the shaky, blurry affect that you get with most digital cameras. With this technology the need for folks to use pro level cameras could become reduced. K-Kash demoed the technology by having a model appear before a white screen, he then took the image and put different backgrounds on it. It’ll be interesting to use the camera in non-controlled environments.
That’s it for this report, I’ll give you more from Samsung, Sony and Panasonic later today.