Well this has been the week of the big Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the glamorous city of Las Vegas.  It is a show, sad to say, I have never been to but would love to go someday.  Still with today’s interactive technologies it is pretty easy to follow from far away.  The great thing about CES is that it gives consumers a window n how they might spend their money in the upcoming year.  Or not.  Last year was a big year for 3-D TV’s, but I don’t think consumers were ready to give up their new LCD or Plasma screens just yet to experience 3-D at home.  This year promises a whole host of new gadgets and who knows what will be the biggest.  But it is always fun to hear what the big industry players are planning.  Even more exciting can be the young start-ups.

This year, as always, CES started with the keynote from Steve Ballmer, the loud and proud CEO of Microsoft.  Of course the big news had already broke, this would be Microsoft’s last CES.  This was the last chance to see Steve.  It was a draw and then Steve went on to present, uh, well, nothing really at all.  Most of which he talked about had already been announced in previous talks about Windows 8 and Windows Phone.  The biggest announcement was really that Nokia was coming back to America with the Lumia 900.  It is sad to see Microsoft leave the event.  I am not thrilled that they have chosen to do big releases via internal style events and over the web.  My preference is in person events but I may be a bit old school in that thinking.  The problem I have with over the web is it usually means at a desk at work where there are many distractions.  Such as Bob’s vacation or Steve i snot happy at work or..well you get the picture. You may see higher numbers but how many people are really engaged in what they are hearing and seeing?  In any case we bid Microsoft a fond farewell.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt participated in a “pseudo” panel.  Not sure what kind of panel this was intended to be as it sounded like a group of Google partners just nodding their heads to everything Eric said.  But there were some valid discussion points, mainly the idea of ubiquity between connected devices.  Just think of it this way..walk around your home and see how many devices, appliances etc have digital displays.  You would find dishwashers, washer and dryer, clocks, stereo’s, etc..They should all be talking to one another and to the cloud.  And according to Eric they should be built on a foundations of, drum roll please…Android.  To be clear this idea is nothing new.  Microsoft had this idea of Microsoft @Home over ten years ago.  Novell had its embedded systems technology(NEST).  But like so many things in technology it is not predicting the future, it is timing the future.  As Eric points out with mobility and wireless pretty much everywhere making this “connected” home is much closer to reality.  Google is taking the lead.  Lets see how soon others begin to follow.

The term Gorilla Glass was new to me but it made a splash as Sony showed a Viao made out of Gorilla Glass v2.  First question o I want a laptop made of glass?  It will be a little bit heavier, but the environmentalist in me asks the second question: Is it recyclable?  IN any case they did show hat this glass could withstand 120 pounds of pressure making it fairly durable.  Given how often I drop things this is a good thing.  From a pure aesthetics standpoint it would seem you would be able to do some pretty fancy stuff with color.  I think more than anything this highlights advances being made in the materials that make up our technology toys.  A good thing and though not “sexy” now it will be in the future.

When we look at the best in show winners there, as usual is some interesting stuff.  Kudos to Nokia for coming through with the best smartphone of the show the Nokia Lumia 900.  The Asus Memo 370T Tablet running Android and priced for $250.  It has 16bg storage, oh how far we have come.   The features are nice and with those low price points it makes total sense.  I found the best software app, Bluestack interesting.  It brings all 400,000 Android apps to Windows 8.  It used to be the other way around, with competing platforms looking to run Windows Apps.  Remember Apple had dual OS capabilities.  If you want to be a real old-timer who remembers IBM OS/2 v2.0 with the Windows Subsystem?  To be fair these type of subsystems traditionally ran slow and were painful.  I would hope that Bluestack brings something new to the table and is…fast.  Which it should be ok at since Android Apps for phones and Tablets are not like running Microsoft Office.  Size matters.  One thing to note Bluestack is not yet in beta.  Murmur.

My summary of what I have read and followed about CES is there was a lot of focus on Tablets.  A lot of new and upcoming releases tied to Windows 8 and Android.  The one thing I am interested to see when Windows 8 Tablets roll out is cost.  It seems like Apple has staked out the high ground and Android the low ground, and both have lots of applications.  Is the middle ground a viable place to be? On the TV front I think we are waiting for the next big revolution.  Google did some talk about interactive television, however we are not there yet.  Apple has been strangely silent of lat  in this topic.   But I expect them to bet big on Television.  I do expect in the next 2-3 years for this to be a huge focus of CES.  The interesting question and one of great anticipation is who will lead.  Overall though this was not a great year at CES as there was no break through announcements.  No technology that came out and said this is what will be big in 2012, right or wrong (think 3-D TV).  Looking at the products it was more claims of, “This will be a big improvement on what currently exists”.  Take your pick, Tablets, Smartphones, mobile gaming etc…Next year will be bigger with Windows 8, though I don’t hear of anything ground breaking coming from Redmond…yet.  But what we want from CES is not an upgrade but something that changes how we experience life.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 13, 2012