Friday, January 9, 2009

CES 2009 - Rising up in 3D

Intro:
As many of you know most of my blog focuses on the area of security, but when I got the unique opportunity to go to CES 2009, I couldn't pass up the chance to do a little blogging about the show.

The show, which is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, reports 130,000 visitors to their 2700 exhibits and many sessions. I also have been enjoying the hospitality of vendors such as Imagination and ViewSonic who allowed me to be present at their after show receptions.

Body:

Last night I regret to have missed the first keynote address by Microsoft's new CEO Steve Ballmer. But this morning at 8:30AM I heard CEA CEO Gary Shapiro talk about the current state of Consumer Electronics. His predictions for 2009, estimate that it will be a "flat year" compared to the increase of about 6% in 2008. He was not shy in expressing how he feels that the Obama Administration will make great strides as America's first "Digital President." He also stated that CEA will be lobbying for the greater good of Consumer electronics by seeing if new laws pass the following test:

  1. Does it create jobs?
  2. Does it spur new tech?
  3. Does it encourage the best and brightest to come to the US?
  4. Does it reward risk taking?
  5. Does it promote exports?
  6. Will it help deploy broadband?

I felt a lot of his speech focused on the fact of how government and Consumer Electronics need to help each other. However he stated that the members of the industry need to step up and be leaders in order to propel this economy forward.

The next speaker in the Jan 9th Keynote address was Sony CEO and chairman, Sir Howard Stringer. Many of my previous hesitations about Sony were downgraded, by the many products they released. Such as some the new Sony HD Bravo TVs which allow direct uploads from Sony's new wireless enabled Sony CyberShot.

Another interesting feature of the Sony Keynote presentation was announcements from Disney's Pixer who will be producing new 3D movies using Sony's Blue Ray technology and DreamWorks who announced all productions from this point will host 3D animation compatibility.

I decided that it would be better for this first post to upload a slide show of the newest products that were at the show. One of the big things that seemed to come up more than once is the transition of TV to 3D. In his address during the keynote, chief creative officer John Lasster compared 3d coming to movies to the introduction of sound and color to tvs.

Take a look at the following slideshow for what I captured on Jan 9 at CES.

Edit: Fixed Slideshow.