I knew by the end of my 2nd daytime in Las Vegas for theInternational Consumer Electronics Showthat it was going to be a longsighted slip . Already half a 12 hoi polloi , upon get word my badge , had asked me if I was in the wrong place . As the loneMacworldcorrespondent walking the show floor of the largest technology conventionalism in North America , I could see what they ’re recollect .
But to return to the “ Are you in the wrong place ? ” question , the answer is yes and no . While it ’s true that most of the diehard Mac detail has fled north to San Francisco for Macworld Expo — running at the same time with CES this year — that does n’t mean there is n’t something to harvest from the eternal rest of the tech industry . Apple , of course , does n’t operate on in a vacuum cleaner — much as the company might like you to think so . Companies like Sony , Intel and , yes , even Microsoft , can shed light on what we might gestate or hope to see from Cupertino in the penny-pinching future .
The back of Netgear ’s Digital Entertainer HD — a potential Apple television receiver contender — boast standard video and sound recording connexion , including HDMI , constituent and composite audio .
Look Ma , no wires !
When we seem back on the year 2007 in meter to come , I believe it will be remembered as the beginning of the end for the wire . We ’ve been spoiled in recent twelvemonth by the popularization of wireless networking via Wi - Fi and Bluetooth , but it was only a matter of clip before we looked around to notice that while we were no longer truss by Ethernet cable , there were any number of other things that stay fresh us tethered to our desk .
This yr , radio receiver has irrupt into other consumer - friendly realms , such as audio and video recording . In one day alone , I saw wireless verbalizer offerings fromSoundcast , Mitek , Eos , andGriffin , all predicate on giving you the freedom to mind to your music without have to thread cable system .
In the TV segment , Apple ’s forthcoming Apple TV will hardly be alone . Netgearunveiled its Digital Entertainer HD streaming solution , Samsung discussed plans for rolling out a wireless HDTV , and a fellowship address Quartics is rolling out a pour gimmick called PC2TV that does on the nose what its name would imply .
100 - plus inch HD video display were in copiousness at this twelvemonth ’s CES .
radio is also arrive at reason in peripherals with a wireless version of USB that ’s slated to see wide vulnerability this yr and even more 21st hundred Arizona company WildCharge was designate offa organization for wirelessly charging your sound , portable gambling equipment , and even your iPod . The future tense has never looked quite so fancy gratuitous .
Definition , please
mellow definition has been the Next Big Thing for going on years now — remember The Year of High Definition Video , Mac fans — but with the analog shutoff day of the month of 2009 cursorily border on , consumer are starting to pay more attention . cathode-ray tube were moderately much nowhere to be found at CES : I did pick up one lonely seem transmission line of the old TVs , but having been mess up with the likes of categoric screens from Toshiba , Sharp , and Panasonic I could hardly remain firm to look at those old , flickery cathode thermionic vacuum tube . And while the Super Size option might be gone from McDonald ’s menus across the land , it ’s alive and well in the realm of HD displays : Panasonic , Sharp , and LG all showed off huge HD monitor that measured more than 100 inches .
This was the only Apple presence I saw this week at CES .
The other bragging tidings of the HD human race is the continuing war for the heir to the optical format throne . While videodisk still looks great on my 27 - column inch CRT , one only needs to watch it one of those 100 - inch silver screen to see the flaws . That ’s where HD DVD and Blu - Ray add up into their own and , hear in their full resplendence , they do see striking .
This year ’s CES finally gave hope that a via media might be reached for consumers , if not for the company behind the rival monetary standard . LGannounced a intercrossed player that would accept both HD DVDs and Blu - Ray discsfor less than the Leontyne Price of buying participant for both , while Time Warner announced a applied science that would countenance both formats to co - exist peacefully on one disc .
Either way , that ’s not going to stop HD DVD and Blu - Ray from going at it full throttle : propaganda from their respective parent company of Toshiba and Sony was everywhere , from huge banners to hack cab marquees .
Connect the dot
It ’s not quite like a Steve Jobs keynote , but Bill Gates ’ CES kickoff always draws a gang .
Bill Gates may not be Steve Jobs , but it ’s hard to argue his impact on the engineering industry . When he talks , people hear . As with the past several years , Gatesgave the keynote speechbefore the prescribed opening of CES . Microsoft ’s chairman tattle about the idea of connection — while we may have all these majuscule technologies like wireless and eminent definition , we have n’t yet begin to exploit the connections between them .
intersection has long been a popular buzzword in tech , but the period that the demos made for me , if subtly , was that our time to come contains not one machine doing a multitude of things , from answering our headphone to wash out our dog , but a multitude of machine , each doing their own thing in harmony with all of the others . This was perhaps well demonstrate to set up in Microsoft ’s partnership with Ford to supply a newfangled system of rules for carry on with your gimmick , from cellular phone phone to iPod , your auto . It might , as popular idiom break down , be evolutionary rather than radical , but it ’s a footfall whose day is here now .
[ Dan Moren blogs about the Mac atMacUserand about new gizmos atMacworld ’s Gadgetbox . ]