Best of the Best from CES 2010

Microsoft has put a lot of eggs into its remarkable Project Natal. For the uninitiated, project natal is the cover name for a clutch of integrated hardware and software designed to be able to sense motion in multiple dimensions simultaneously, velocity, color, angle and deflection. Some of you are thinking, "Hey, didn't Nintendo do all that with the Wii?" You'd be right — to a point. The enormous difference is that with Natal-enabled devices, you don't have to hold a controller. Kicking a virtual soccer ball, swinging a golf club, pointing and gesturing don't require anything except a nearby natal-enabled device and you. As has happened with Microsoft's wonderful Surface operating system (those exotic table computers seen regularly on CNN - think John King's political reviews on that huge touch screen monitor - and in the movie Quantum of Solace), really creative and broadly useful ideas rapidly morph into technology that is itself as useful as it is fascinating. Microsoft is also putting its Windows 7 operating system into a variety of Slate computers (what every other manufacturer calls a tablet PC). No doubt Apple is gearing up to compete in the tablet arena within the next three months.

Yet more technology to separate you from the best part of $5000 will show up this Spring in the form of 3D televisions. Whether they'll niche out or gradually become the de facto standard to follow HD remains to be seen obviously, but don't hold your breath for bags and bags of content. Frankly, all of the current 3D implementations (spiral polarizing, single side-by-side anamorphic stereo, single strip over-and-under stereo, stereoscopic digital 3D) require glasses to present the image stream to the eyes, and they all give me a faint headache. Lots of other people feel the same way, so the 3D TV makers have a got a lot of work to do before they start selling migraine boxes into the mass market. A two hour 3D movie is one thing, but daily 3D couch-potato sessions lasting four or five hours each will melt your brain.

The Panasonic VT25 Plasma 3D HDTV will be available this Spring. Look for many others to follow. By the way, 3D HD content is slated to be delivered to consumers on 3D Blu-Ray disc.

Forget about traditional backlit LCD TV and computer monitors. The market in 2010 will be inundated with vastly superior LED backlit screens as well as native OLED screens. What you're going to see (and crave) amounts to a significant step up in color depth, color saturation, realistic color, great dynamic range, deep blacks and razor sharp pictures. Finally, I think, I'm going to take a 46" LED or OLED plunge.

Intel introduced its Wireless Display (WiDi) adapter. It's basically a receiver box/device with a short cable that you plug into your HD TV. Thereafter, any WiDi-enabled laptop or PC can wirelessly display on that TV. Very handy, and it beats having to install a dedicated media PC in your living room. Look for WiDi boxes and Widi-enabled laptops and PCs this Spring. Think presentations, media streaming and gaming.

Eye-Fi got a lot of attention with its new Pro X2 802.11n, 8GB SDHC card. Well deserved attention of course, and more digital SLR owners should consider these Class 6 SD cards. Now if only Eye-Fi would come out with one of these things in CF format, I'd buy one, like, in a second.

Plastic Logic Que ebook reader is, as mentioned in a previous post, big and good looking and very, very thin. The form factor is too large to stuff into a camera bag or purse, but it will fit easily into an attache case, briefcase or messenger bag. eReaders are all over the place now, so don't be surprised to find yourself looking at a Kindle, Cybook, Sony eReader or Que online sometime soon. I love my Sony PRS-600 eReader and it goes everywhere with me (and it fits into a front pocket of my Domke camera bag). The Alex Reader from Spring Design is Google Android-based and it seems to work extremely well. The only problem is, no e-ink. It's an LCD screen-based ereader/tablet. Surprisingly readable though.The iRiver Story is a bit better yet. eReaders and more eReaders.

I hate Windows Mobile, but T-Mobile in North American is about to start flogging the HTC HD2 in its stores (U.S. first). It's been a European model for the past few months and it's about time it crossed the Atlantic. All anybody says about this ultrathin, 4.3" touchscreen smartphone is, "Nice, really, really nice."

It was apparent at CES 2010 that small laptops and netbooks are sort of meeting in the middle. I (still) like my year old Acer Aspire One, so I'm going to hang onto it for another year of walkabouts, travel and so on. But Lenovo (IdeaPad), HP and Dell (Mini) are all coming out with much more powerful new models. Intel will no doubt be shipping lots of dual core Atom processors, and you're going to have a choice between Windows 7, Linux and Google Android operating systems. Some of these new netbooks fold into touchscreen tablets (the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-t) and may finally convince me that tablets have some use. So if somebody blends an ebook reader with a netbook tablet under 2 pounds (less than half a kilo), I'll line up to get one.

CES 2010 — Real New Products You'll Be After This Year (most likely)

First up? We told you that Microsoft would come up with some sort of tablet thingy and they did. Now however (Bill Gates being mostly gone), Microsoft President Steve Ballmer is calling them "Slate" computers. Whatever. He showed off three units, one from HP (Kindle-size at approximately 9" x 6" x 0.3"), one from Archos (which looks like an oversize iPod Touch), and one huge thing from Pegatron (we couldn't find out the exact size but it looks about 8.5" x 11"), all powered by Microsoft.

Google's Android operating system is attracting some serious attention. All those touch screens on iPhone and Android smartphones enable a lot of effectively useful convergence. For example, the most obvious thing in the world is to combine a GPS with a touch screen smartphone. Navigon has done it for Windows Mobile and Android, and will release its MobileNavigator for both platforms in February and April respectively. Navigon's software already works extremely well and should be another boost for Android in its battle for market supremacy with the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Sony is showing off its 24.5" OLED 3D TV. That's right - another prediction come true. This is the biggest commercial OLED panel yet, and with the integration of 3D compliance (for at-home screening 3D blu-ray discs such as Avatar - you know they're coming), and the amazingly immersive and extremely detailed image, you know you'll be seeing even bigger panels like this when they hit stores next Fall. It's only money, man - only money. By all accounts, the Sony OLED screens are beyond stunning.

Samsung is showing off its NX10 Digital Hybrid SLR camera. It's got HD video, a really beautiful 3" AMOLED rear screen (better, significantly better, than even the very best 920K LCD found on the best pro digital SLR bodies right now), hi-speed video viewfinder (so there's no mirror hump), all wrapped around an APS-C sensor (that's bigger than four-thirds but smaller than full frame), all of which speaks to superior image quality with a long and distinguished line of lenses. We're rapidly reaching the point at which preferences for Nikon, Canon or whatever other traditionally top-of-the-line brand happens to dominate become irrelevant. Image quality (in the hands of a capable photographer of course) from all of the new crop of digital SLR cameras is so good, there's little to distinguish between them except feature and function sets.

Eye-Fi 802.11n Pro X2 SD memory cards contain geotagging capability, WiFi connectivity which helps you transfer files, and this version is class 6 which means it's had a speed improvement. It's still not as fast as the pro cards - nowhere near it actually - but Eye-Fi products have proven to be reliable performers. This one also contains something called Endless Memory which can be set to automatically delete images on the card after they've been uploaded to your laptop, PC or storage device.

Boxee is releasing its shiny new Boxee Box (by D-Link). It's the latest version of its streaming media box for the living room. We like it because the supplied remote and the user interface is so well done. Look for streaming media boxes like this to start showing up (and getting more popular as a result) quite early this year. Better than a Tivo, way better than some lame PVR from your cable provider, and way, way better than messing around with a PC in your living room running Windows Media Center. The software portion of the Box is in beta right now, so look for the new Box be early Spring.

New router (like we don't have about a zillion too many on the market already)! D-Link has released the D-Link Touch DIR-865. The Touch works at either 2.4GHz or 5GHz concurrently. It almost maintains multiple data streams which together allow a total throughput of up to 450Mbps as long as its communicating with 802.11N-enabled device. It will be really, really zippy and stable, but unfortunately carry a bit of a high price.

The Smartfish ErgoMotion Keyboard is one of the prettiest looking things at CES 2010. It's a motion-adaptable ergonomic keyboard which adjusts over time to your most comfortably ergonomic typing position. Is this (finally) a consumer-priced keyboard which will successfully displace expensive (albeit really good) ergo keyboards from Kinesis? The keyboard is sleek, looks gorgeous on a desk or keyboard tray, and most important offers excellent typing action and durability.

More to come . . .

Pre-CES Announcements . . . wherein all of the 'playahs jump the gun

UPDATED 18:25 EST, JANUARY 5, 2010
UPDATED 13:30 EST, JANUARY 5, 2010
UPDATED 13:10 EST, JANUARY 5, 2010
UPDATED 10:10 EST, JANUARY 5, 2010

Digital Imaging

• Canon has a new version of its already excellent 70-200mm f/2.8 pro zoom lens - updated optics with significantly reduced chromatic aberration, the latest image stabilization, and possibly slightly faster autofocus (we'll see about that).
  
• Sony, never one to leave a good thing alone, has released its umpteenth version of its Alpha digital SLR, this one the A450 - another sub-$1000 digital SLR offering little besides feature creep, an tiny bit less power consumption, and the same 14 megapixel sensor found in several other Alphas.
  
• Lexar is showing off a new Professional 32GB 300X CF cards - isn't that great? 32GB - really - fill it up (fast at 300x) and then sit for days in front of your computer sorting through thousands of images.
  

Computers

• Lenovo has got new ThinkPad laptops coming out its ears - of the new T-series models we really like the 15.6" W510 that can be loaded with a Core 2 Extreme i7-920XM CPU (yummy), up to 16GB of RAM (yummier), and an nVidia Quadro FX-880M graphics card (yummiest). The new entry-level ultraportable X100e is the first one of its kind for Lenovo and is designed to go head-to-head with netbooks, while offering optional bluetooth and 3G, plus much more serious processing power from the Athlon Neo.
  
• We're going to keep our eye out for a retail/buyable copy of Samsung's new netbooks - the new N-series looks terrific and the N220 is especially interesting with the ultra low power new Intel Atom "Pinetrail" CPU at 1.6GHz, lovely anti-glare 10" LED backlit screen, up to 12 hours(!?) of battery life, instant-on (via the integrated Phoenix HyperSpace tool), and enough storage space and usability to satisfy a lot of business users and a lot of traveling digital imageers. I want one.
  
• 3M will be showing off its Display M2256PW, 22-inch high-definition, multi-touch LCD display - its capable of responding to 10 different simultaneous inputs (10-finger touch sensitive in other words), and its native resolution is an impressive 1680 x 1050. This will be a really interesting product for designers and other pros in a variety of disciplines who need to physically interact more fully with their work.
  
• USB 3.0 is here now, so get used to it. Western Digital is first out of the gate with its SuperSpeed USB 3.0 My Book® external hard drive, among the first devices certified. Throughput is almost 10 times faster than USB 2.0 hi-speed, and it's all allegedly backward compatible with USB 2.0 (ahem). The drive is supplied with a USB 3.0 card so you'll actually be able to use it with your now-obsolete USB 2.0-equipped computer. Lots more USB 3.0 products coming, so stay tuned.
  
• In Store Solutions launched the Freetalk TALK-7181 HD PRO PLUS webcam for Skype HD - as long as you've got a minimum 800Kbps (up & down) web connection, you can use this thing to chat via high definition video. It uses embedded H.264 encoding to compress the video stream, and at 5 megapixels and an allegedly decent lens, might put competing products to shame. Let's just see how well it works and how often prevailing ISP throttling policies ruin the use of this product.
  

eReaders

• Interead Cool-er - it's an ereader that's almost all screen (6"), making it the smallest form factor on the market (and the e-ink screen is very good too), with 2GB of internal storage, expandability via SD card slot, and a 3G version coming mid-year. This one may make grab my attention away from my excellent Sony PRS-300 and PRS-600.
  
• The Skiff Reader seems to (finally) be a reality - it's a big momma with an 11.5" screen at 1200 x 1600 pixels and 174ppi, but the screen is a metal foil design that is really remarkable by all accounts and combined with the magnesium housing amounts to barely a pound in total weight. The specs boast an active week of battery life, but we'll believe it when we see it. For large form factor magazine and newpaper reading, the Skiff looks like a serious contender.
  

Home Entertainment

• Polk Audio will be showing its single footprint surround-sound wireless speaker system - I know, I know, how can you generate surround sound from only one front-n-center positioned speaker enclosure? It's a conundrum, but several other speaker makers have already released (dreadful) similar products. Polk Audio (back in the early '90s) had a wonderful reputation for producing competitively priced, audiophile quality speakers. Then Polk seemed to have slipped overall for a time. Too many products perhaps? In recent years, Polk has been regaining its quality edge, so let's give this one a chance shall we? The system uses a method of controlled sound dispersion via individual speaker drivers in the enclosure.
  

Wireless

• Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has told everybody that v1.3.5 of the webOS mobile will be officially launched at CES 2010 - download and store more applications, enhanced program and WiFi performance, improved battery life, and increased device speed and responsiveness are supposed to come together to make great products such as the Palm Pre work even better. Okey-dokey - we'll see - but Palm is a funny place, so many times a world-beater, but lagging far behind the market leaders for quite a few years.
  
• The Google Android pre-CES press conference was a big deal actually. In addition to its existing T-Mobile relationship, Google announced new carrier deals with Verizon in the U.S. and Vodafone in Europe. Nice. Android phones are accelerating quickly in both quality and quantity, the operating system itself is terrific, and Google will outreach Apple very shortly because Google seems to be reeling in new carriers quite quickly.
  
• (added @ 18:15 EST, Jan 5) Google again. This time the search supergiant has unveiled its Nexus One smartphone (or as ZDNet has dubbed it, the Superphone). According to ZDNet the Nexus One is 11.5mm thick (a BlackBerry Curve is 15mm thick), 130 grams in weight (an iPhone 3G weighs 135 grams), every text field is voice accessible (speak to compose an email?), it's fully multimedia enabled and also contains a 3D subsystem for Google Earth. Don't forget the gorgeous, gesture-enabled touch screen. If it actually makes phone calls too, it might actually be a real superphone.
  

Automotive

• (added @ 15:08 EST, Jan 5) Kia Motors has announced its Uvo (powered by Microsoft) in-vehicle infotainment system (really - the pre-CES press release said "infotainment") - it's a voice activated system for controlling and configuring mobile communications and the vehicle's entertainment system (radio, CD, DVD) and turn-by-turn GPS. We promised there'd be plenty of this stuff in the wake of Ford's success with Sync, so here we go.
  

Nothing from Nikon, Panasonic or Sony. Apple will not be at CES, preferring - as usual in recent years - to do its own thing when its new product announcements won't be lost in the massive noise of CES. Apple's successful corporate individualism won't flag as long as Jobs helms the company. Google will not be at CES either, but has lots of products of its own in the pipeline and will be running (Google search, Google Chrome browser, Android) on almost every laptop (and many smartphones) at CES, (added 13:15 EST, Jan 5) and has a major press conference scheduled at its Mountain View, CA headquarters. We think Google probably has the right idea - just like Microsoft all those years ago: be needed and be everywhere.

Nothing pre-CES from an awful lot of companies, but it's a reflection of the times. Retail is off all over the place and manufacturers just aren't rushing new products to market right now. Makes sense. So will CES 2010 be a yawn? We'll see about that too.

More to come . . .

Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2010

It's b-a-a-ck! CES is here again. All the products any slave to media, entertainment, computing, gaming, communications and even small business technology could possibly want. Las Vegas, Nevada — January 7, 2010.

Here's what we'll be tracking this year, and why we think you and your small business enterprise will be interested in this particular CES:

• (Added/updated January 5) Look for a boatload of USB 3.0 products. That's right - just when you finally got all your USB 2.0 hi-speed peripherals playing nicely together, along comes a newer, faster standard. Why? Tell me why? Please.
  
• Netbooks and laptops. We'll be looking for new models of our favorite netbooks to show up with some really powerful processors and higher capacity hard drives. Now that I've learned to type on a smaller keyboard, and now that I've really gotten used to the smaller screens, I want some serious horsepower. I also want it at a low voltage that allows me to run the thing six hours straight. At the same time, expect to see the smaller notebooks and laptops (12.5"-15"), lighter in weight and with longer battery life, with even more power and more storage capacity.
  
• Auto tech is all the rage. If Ford's SYNC technology (in partnership with Microsoft) that's been showing up in all sorts of for cars and trucks is anything to go by, all the automakers are going to be shortly doing the same thing. Sync/play/update your iPod and library, voice activated turn-by-turn GPS with maps updating over-the-air, integrated WiFi hotspot module for all your connected devices in the vehicle, and lots more. It's about time. Look for even more robust, integrated offerings from Audi, GM, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen. How many miles to the gallon please, and does it come with 3G?
  
• eReaders and more eReaders. Sony eReader, Amazon Kindle DX, Plastic Logic QUE, iRiver Story, Bookeen Cybook Opus, Interead Cooler, iRex iLiad (what's with all the "i" names?), Barnes & Noble Nook, and the Hearst/Sprint Skiff which is a large format ereader scheduled to debut at CES. All-new models are coming on which you'll be able to read your daily newspaper, review business documents, read books, make notes, and so on, all on those highly readable e-ink touch screens.
  
• TV, TV, TV, TV, and more TV. Big TV. OLED screens (still too achingly expensive), lots more LED-backlit LCD models (bye-bye plasma I guess), and maybe even the first 3D integrated product lines (3D data player + 3D TV + optical quality 3D glasses even better than the ones at Avatar + 3D A/V decoder in new A/V receivers), along with a Logitech Harmony remote to control it all. Great. Where do I sign up?
  
• New mobile and desktop operating systems. We said it here a couple of years ago. Google is aiming to put an operating system into the mainstream. Well it's happening now. The Google Chrome OS is heading for a desktop near you and we're predicting that lots of hardware vendors will be showing it off at CES. At the same time, Google's successful release of its Android mobile operating system is spreading rapidly. The main reason is that it's a terrific alternative to the major players, it's extremely well-supported now, and beyond anything else it works really well. Ask any HTC user — they're raving about Android.
  
• Apple's rumored Tablet. We're not totally sure that CES is the best venue for Apple to release a major new product. On the other hand, people have gone broke predicting what Apple won't do. An Apple Tablet computer of some sort (combination ereader and netbook perhaps?) is surely in the offing, and we're guessing CES is a dandy spot to preview the thing. We'll see.
  
• Gaming platforms - console vs. PC. As far as we can tell, it's status quo for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. No new gaming consoles this year. That's okay though, because we're just starting to see how good the existing hardware is with some of the new titles hitting the shelves. But as console games get even better, PC releases such as the incredible new Call of Duty 4 are taking advantage of incredibly powerful CPUs, videocards that are more powerful than many CPUs, huge desktop monitors and thunderingly accurate sound systems, all pushing the state-of-the-art even farther out. More to come.
  

Stay with us throughout the coming week for all the interesting stuff coming out at CES 2010.