With celebrities such as Yoko Ono, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, Mary J. Blige, Danica Patrick and baseball slugger David Ortiz peddling products at the International CES event in Las Vegas, the IT industry should have enough star power for their announcements.This year more than 27,000 international attendees covered a record 1.8 million net square feet of exhibit space, making it the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow and North America’s largest annual tradeshow. Overall attendance totalled 143,695 for the four-day event.
But this year’s show for the first time had a focus on international free trade. Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), said it has been an overlooked issue in the CE/IT industry. This year’s CES had a trade-related panel discussion headlined by Ambassador Susan Schwab, a U.S. trade representative. Shapiro said that now more than ever free and open trade will be a key success factor to innovation and world economic progress rather than self-defeating protectionism.
Gates’ last keynote
There was also a special two-day program to help CE/IT retailers and home integrators build a successful business. More than 14,000 channel players attended CES this year and in this program they were informed about the latest products and trends changing the shape of the retail, installation and integration market, said Karen Chupka, senior vice-president, events and conferences, CEA.
Headlining the event was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Gates made his last CES keynote as he is retiring.
Gates once again outlined his vision for a world of service-connected devices that allow for human interactions through speech and touch.
“Getting the latest software, getting your data – you’ll just take that for granted,” Gates said. “When you take a photo it will show up in a place you like it to show up. That will be very simple.”
He added that eventually, devices will also know the context and location of the people using them, so location-based information from a device will be automatic. Gates’ vision for a connected world of devices and services has always been impressive. But as he makes his full-time exit from Microsoft, the company has yet to bring it to the mainstream user.
Although some of the news in Gates’ keynote seems to suggest Microsoft is poised to change that, the company’s strategy remains rooted in disparate product lines that haven’t quite come together. And the company is facing increased pressure from competitors such as Apple and Google, which have turned ideas Microsoft has bandied about for years – such as touch-screen technology and Web-based services – into profits the software giant has not yet come close to achieving with its own efforts.
Personal Internet
While Gates was touting connectivity, Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini’s message was quite personal.
The Personal Internet, as he called it, isn’t about being able to seek out information when you need it. According to Otellini, it will be about the information coming to you, when and where you need it.
“We’re now in the midst of the largest opportunity to redefine consumer electronics and entertainment since the introduction of the television,” Otellini said. “Increasingly, computing and communications are coming together, bringing a new level of capability and intelligence to the Internet experience. The personal Internet of tomorrow will serve you, delivering the information you want, when you want it, how you want, wherever you are.”
To help make his point, Otellini showed off a handheld device that was part speech recognition, part language translator, part camera, part wireless Internet access and a good part travel guide. The device, which isn’t currently available, could translate street signs and restaurant menus from Mandarin to English. It also could do a real-time translation between two people speaking to each other in different languages.
“What we just saw was an example of the Internet bringing us information when we need it,” Otellini said of the demo.
The head of Intel then pointed out that doing real-time translations and accessing such huge databases will require significant processing power. And that, he added, is where Intel comes into play in this futuristic scenario. “That’s exactly what I will deliver in the next three to five years,” he said. “This demo will be possible in the not-so-distant future.”
Showing off one of the technologies Intel has been working on, Otellini gave what he called the first demonstration of the first system-on-a-chip (SOC) based on Intel architecture. He said the SOC, codenamed Canmore, is optimized for a new generation of media players and TVs. For instance, it’s designed to give users an Internet experience over their TVs.
Otellini said Canmore is expected to ship in the second half of 2008.
The green IT wave also hit the show floor at CES. Carlos Montolvo, vice-president of product management at HP, said green CE will be a big initiative at CES.
All notebooks will be energy star along with monitors. HP has already recycled more than one billion tonnes of PCs since HP began its recycling program, Montolvo said.
But HP is taking it a step further by looking at the materials used to produce and package PCs. “Things such as reducing the number of screws, glues and sheet metal will bring along significant savings,” he said.
One of the main design changes from HP showcased at CES was the switch from silver cases to piano black. Montolvo said this had more to do with being green than the overall look.
Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic AVC Networks Co., which may have made the biggest splash at CES by showcasing a prototype 150-inch plasma display that the company says is the largest flat-panel display in the world, said his company will also make an effort to reduce the power consumption of plasma displays.
Sakamoto added that the new designs include circuitry that cuts energy consumption by as much as half.
The 150-inch flat panel monitor is designed for digital cinema and promotional installations. Sakamoto did not say when the screen will be delivered. In developing the product, Panasonic was encouraged by the sales of 3,000 units of 103-inch plasma screens late last year, more than the company expected, Sakamoto said.
Meanwhile HP wants to build and deliver an ecosystem of connected entertainment systems.
Under the managed home category, a newly created product line for the computing giant, HP released a TV receiver, LCD HDTVs, three Media Vault storage subsystems, a home server and an upline storage service that will be all branded Media Smart.
At the heart of this offering is the connected TV which will use Media Smart technology to aggregate digital content from multiple PCs and home servers. Through an extender device running either Vista or XP, users can receive on-demand movies through an 802.11 a, b, g and draft N wireless connection. Photos will also be a part of the mix, said Montolvo.
Photos and music with services such as Snapfish and Live365 radio is an important part of what HP wants to offer the consumer.
“A TV that helps you rediscover your family is what we aim to do. Most families enjoy viewing a photo slide show with music,” he said.
The Media Smart receiver and will sport a piano black, high gloss finish with HP’s exclusive Zen imprint pattern, while the LCD HDTVs will have a backlit universal remote control, redesigned speakers, panels and 2000:1 contrast ratio.
Both products are expected sometime this spring.
“We believe these are new consumer experiences especially when you take a beautiful display and put it in your home and have it connect to other devices and the Internet,” he said.
Challenging HP will be Apple and its Apple TV product. However, Montolvo said the main difference is that Apple TV pushes content to the TV through iTunes, while HP’s products pull from every PC in the household through multiple devices.
The key to HP’s offering is that users will not need Media Center OS as it runs on XP or Vista. “Most households are multiple environments and need to support mixed media for a 10-foot experience,” he said.
The Media Smart screens have been refreshed, Montolvo said. The Spring launch will see 42 to 47-inch screens with a 6MS response time. The units will also feature illuminated speaker grills.
Other services HP is waiting for are from Google. Montolvo believes Google is improving YouTube for the 10-foot experience and other online services such as Google Earth.
HP also released a series of desktops and monitors that have a new look and a new place.
Under the Pavillion brand, HP has produced three slimline PCs and two monitors that is one-third the size of a conventional tower PC. These machines with a starting price point of $999 is between $400 to $500 more expensive than previous PCs. The company is positioning these slimline PCs and monitors as consumer electronics products with a comparable price to TVs in the market, according to Sean Patterson, senior product marketing manager for HP.
Besides slimming down the PCs, HP has also changed up the way the machines look by dropping the silver finish for piano black. Patterson said that consumers believe the piano black finish is of high quality.
“The dream of the connected home is the two-foot experience with media on a server to the 10-foot experience on a TV to look at shows and your photos,” Patterson said.
Another factor is in the onset of Internet TV. Patterson said that it’s still in the early adopter phase. “The thing is that content is not as great as your regular TV and it is not going to overtake satellite or cable TV today,” he said.
However, with the Pavilion series of slimline PCs and monitors you can watch Internet TV, he added.
“This just gives you an option in your digital lifestyle. You create the content, download the music and watch your photos.”
Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo is gearing up for the Canadian launch of its IdeaPad brand of notebooks, which are set for release this spring to further fuel Lenovo’s expansion into the global PC market space.
Lenovo will be releasing three notebook models in Canada under the IdeaPad brand name. Jay McBain, business unit executive for small businesses at Lenovo Canada, says the new notebooks are part of Lenovo’s efforts to expand its reach outside of China to reach a more global scale.
Although details are still being finalized for the planned spring launch, McBain did say the retail channel will be part of Lenovo’s go-to-market strategy.
“This will be a worldwide consumer launch for Lenovo in the PC market with an advertising campaign wrapped around it,” McBain said. “In Canada, we’ll bring IdeaPad notebook models to the consumer and retail markets.”
The IdeaPadU110 is an 11-inch widescreen notebook weighing 2.3 pounds designed for travelers, students, and others needing a small form factor. In contrast, McBain says the IdeaPadY710 is a 17-inch widescreen notebook which is ideal for multi-media, gaming and entertainment users. Lastly, the IdeaPadY510 is a 15-inch widescreen notebook designed for the general consumer user. All notebooks also include facial recognition features, multi-media control centre functions and design aspects including textured covers and frameless screens.
“Growth in the consumer market is growing faster and faster around the world,” McBain said.
“We see lots of opportunities from a global scale and we’re using this global launch to extend our expertise into the consumer space.”
With files from Maxine Cheung, Elizabeth Montalbano, Sharon Gaudin and Agam Shah.
