A CES Trend Bonanza

This last weekend Sitewire sent three representatives to check out the latest and greatest technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES.) Today they reported back their findings and I wanted to share them with all of you in one big ol’ post. So here are the top trends according to Sitewire:

Everything is Mobile (Sean Bartlett)

eReaders and 3D TV caused quite a stir at CES this year but the overwhelming theme of the show was mobile. Mobile in the car. Mobile at home. Mobile in your pocket. Mobile everything, everywhere.

Mobile is no longer confined to a specific device (aka cellphone), but is rather an ecosystem to access content, communicate with others, and conduct business regardless of physical location or access device. Microsoft and Ford were busy touting the virtues of the Sync system (with audible text messages), Sprint shed light on their 4G initiatives, and connected TVs were everywhere. Of course, this is all in addition to the current mobile devices that are more powerful than laptops of just a few years ago.

As clients lay out mobile strategies for the coming years, it will become increasingly important to realize the extent of the mobile ecosystem and not confine thinking to SMS, mobile sites, and apps that merely serve as static distribution vehicles. Location-based apps are experiencing exponential growth, augmented reality is starting to prove itself, and NFC (near field communication) is on the horizon.

The phone becomes the business tool hub (Andrew Bagley)

The things that get attention at CES are often either very big or very small, and this year it was the small stuff that caught my attention.

The phone has long since been a hub for verbal and text based communication, but with new micro technologies, the phone may also become the hub for audio and visual communications. Along the lines of everything becoming mobile, soon all you’ll need to do a sales presentation could easily fit in your front pocket.

Here are a few products shown at CES that will drive this transition:

• Blackberry is releasing a new micro device that hooks into a projector and allows you to wirelessly drive presentation directly from your phone.
• iPhone users can get an app that will sync their iPhone to a Keynote presentation allowing them to wireless use the iPhone as a remote that also holds presenter notes.
• Microvision attempted to one up both of these by making the projector itself mobile. The Microvision SHOWWX projector (about the size of a 1st generation iPhone) can easily project images in excess of 50” and doesn’t require an external battery source.

TV manufacturers are betting on 3DTV (Greg Chapman)

You needed to spend about 30 seconds at this years’ CES show to realize that TV manufacturers are betting on 3DTV in a big way. Just about every TV supplier’s booth bowed a 3D offering (or several) and the lines to don a pair of glasses and sample the 3D content were long.

After previewing a number of the 3D screens, I was somewhat impressed with the quality improvements that have been made in 3D, but it wasn’t one of those “game changer” moments that I had experienced at previous CES shows and technology introductions.

I can’t get past the glasses. My perspective as a consumer is that TV is generally family entertainment time. Whether watching a game with neighbors and friends, or the Wizard of Oz with family, gathering in the Living Room or Home Theater space to watch video content is a social event for many of us. The glasses seem to remove me from that potentially social environment – seeing my little girls’ eyes light up is a big part of DVD watching in my home.

This leads me to ask, why not just embed the 3D content on a screen inside the glasses? I would have a totally portable 3D experience. My suggestion: Pass up the 3D and look at the new LED screen and HDTV technologies. 3D is going to be a short-lived novelty.

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Tagged as: 3d content, 3d glasses, 3D television, 3dTV, CES, Consumer Electronics Show, HDTV, iphone, Location-based apps, Mobile Computing, mobile ecosystem, Mobile phone, near field communication, NFC, television