CES 2006 - The Summary
I would characterize those areas of technology presented at CES with the largest presence as display, personal media (a lot of iPod accessories), navigation, and gaming.
Display
If you walked the convention center you can attest to the immense number of displays (LCDs, plasmas, projections, etc.) at virtually every corner. People interact more with displays as microchips continue to pervade the workspace, home, and business and displays as we know them are the transducer of choice; this comes as no surprise though it does indicate that people are concerned and willing to invest in quality reproduction of their information.
Personal Media
Personal Satellite radio players, streaming video, iPod and other personal audio/video devices, cell phones (including those with memory and play mp3s), personal media connections or “docks” for in-car and home listening, and more. My assessment of this is that the cost of hardware has enabled manufacturers to appeal to people’s desire to have access to their media in every environment. The challenge is of course providing interface to one’s media eloquently and deliver it in a way that is ideal to each environment. Manufacturers are doing things in this space though they aren’t showing any sign of high-level thinking on the concepts rather they seem to build tiny pieces that hint at a grander idea.
One example I would like to point out as one of the best examples of thinking on the dimension of personal media was a company (whose name evades me right now) that created an automotive entertainment systems whereby the conventional “head unit” (aka tuner, amp, media input, etc.) is replaced with simple a bluetooth receiver that is wired to a microphone, an amplifier, and speakers. Their concept is that media (such as CDs) is dying (or dead) and as the current iPod trend shows, people will carry their content with them from environment to environment even more. Therefore, do away with an additional interface and worries of synchronization of media from, say, home to car and simply provide a bluetooth adapter to the personal mp3 player and software, speakers, and a microphone to operate a bluetooth-enabled cell phone. I found their concept (though maybe a bit pre-mature as I cannot imagine people are ready to do away with their head units) to be quite novel and one of the few products exhibiting signs of real thinking.
Navigation
Right out of the airplane I encountered huge banners advertising Garmin’s new device the Navi (which is a small, simple navigation device that is portable). At the convention center I saw a big “It Knows” presence from Pioneer both in and outside the convention center as well as numerous other in-car and portable navigation devices. As far as in-car navigation I did not see anything particularly innovative. The trend seems to be the digitization of maps with the addition of a few things like some points of interest, traffic info, maybe some voice commands/text to speech commands like “turn left”.
Such a large presence and the popularity of such applications as mapquest, Google maps etc. tells me that people are growing more comfortable with the notion that computers offer convenience and are depending more on services and information afforded by the personal computer daily.
Gaming
The gaming market continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Energy surrounding the xBox 360 and PlayStation 3 was immense as were the products and accessories associated with them. The gaming presence in the personal computing industry was huge. It seems gaming continues to drive innovation in processing and display power. All of the computer video and audio hardware manufacturers featured sophisticated gaming in their booths as evidence of their powerful products. There were also gaming sound systems for the home, numerous gaming furniture concepts, and much more in the way of accessories.
At the end of the day, though the experience of Las Vegas, the scale and energy of the CES show were amazing, real innovation was lacking. All of the products were interesting and their presentation was certainly inspiring at times though there were very few times at which I was really amazed and impressed by a product concept. I suppose I had invisioned the show being like the World’s Fair of yesterday where one entered a world filled with new things and cutting edge ideas and technology. One thing is for sure, when the opportunity arises I will most certainly like to attend again and feel confident that, should I be working on a client’s presentation or product, we can make a splash with a truly innovative concept as there is plenty of opportunity to do so.