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A View From The Road – Volume 3, Number 1
Observations on technology trends from the latest conferences
and seminars.
January 11, 2009
 In
This Edition:
• CES 2009 – Yada, yada, yada
• Take Your TV With
You
•
Sustainability – Now Visible Everywhere
• Cisco’s Keynote
• Telepresence and
Video Conferencing From Home
• More Details From
The Floor
What if you threw a trade
show and nobody came? Well maybe
that’s an exaggeration but the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show was certainly
more lightly attended – both by exhibiters and attendees. The 42nd annual version of
this exhibition displayed something never seen before. No, not technology and gadgets, as this
show had so much more of the same old stuff that even I was getting tired
of it. “Come take a look at us! We
have larger, thinner, brighter flat panels this year, yada,
yada, yada…” What was truly seen here for the first
time in recent memory was empty exhibit space on the show floor –
presumably from exhibitors that decided not to attend:
Official attendance
reports put the number of attendees at about 130K, down about 7% from last
years 140K. However, some of my pals
at the Las Vegas Hilton confided in me that the hotel was only 80% full –
including casino guests. For the
main hotel at the world’s largest trade conference this 20% down figure is
really a better indicator of attendance and also of how badly the economy
is doing. Amazingly, few of the
manufacturers and speakers addressed this issue – with most looking past
the current downturn and hoping for the best. Because of this there were a few notable
announcements and plenty of items to highlight.
~~~~~
Though often
discussed before, I believe mobile TV has finally hit critical mass and
will become a reality this year.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly there is now an Open Mobile Video Coalition – an alliance of
US broadcasters and manufacturers – which announced that 63 TV stations in
22 markets will launch services in 2009.
These services would include news, weather and traffic updates and
selected entertainment content – and would most likely be free. A small number of manufacturers have
signed-on to the process – most notably LG with phones and Kenwood and Delphi with units for cars. It is expected that more devices will hit
the market once the signals are actually available.
The second reason
is one I have personally been waiting for for a
long time. Sling showed a working
version of the SlingPlayer for the iPhone.
They promise to
send it into Apple for approval by the end of the first quarter this
year. This is a groundbreaking
announcement, as it has implications that may not be obvious. It will not just bring cable TV to one of
the most popular mobile devices (watch your favorite game or soap opera)
but it will be a tremendously inexpensive way to move personal content to
anywhere a person is. Can’t make a
live video conference or web conference?
Send a feed to your TV and then watch it on your iPhone. Can’t attend a forum or town hall? Make it available via video then watch it
on your commuter train. Want to see
your daughter’s new prom dress while on a business trip? Have your family connect a video camera
to your SlingBox.
While this will be a one way, awkward and somewhat lower resolution
solution it still does represent a very disruptive advance in transportable
content that visionary technologists will surely utilize in ways Sling has
not even considered.
~~~~~
 One thing that was very visible at CES for the first time was
the theme of “Environmental Sustainability.” Whether one called it “saving the planet”
or “Eco” this or that, it was everywhere.
In fact, as opposed
to song downloads or electronic doo-dads, Sony was giving away “recycled
bamboo tote bags” at its booth. And
speaking of bamboo, just in case you hadn’t seen it before, Asus was
showing their bamboo finished netbook PC.
~~~~~
On the second day
of the show I had the opportunity to be present for Cisco CEO John
Chambers’ keynote presentation to close the Technology in Emerging
Countries session. As I’ve said before,
Mr. Chambers is a brilliant person that is always enjoyable to listen to,
but he has a tendency to take a technology that’s already been on the
market for a while and announce that it is a Cisco creation. (I’ll leave it to all of you to decide if
that should be judged as annoying or just good marketing.) His very detailed presentation included a
demonstration of a prototype Cisco “HealthPresence”
system that combined one of their TelePresence codecs with a number of
medical diagnostic tools. It showed
many of the Telemedicine features one would see on any of the systems
already widely used in countries like Canada – where patients are much
further away from doctors and the society is much less litigious than in
the USA. One true innovation demonstrated
for this unit was real-time language translation built in to the codec –
which is a marvelous idea if it can be done. Mr. Chambers also commented a few times –
treating it as if it were an inside joke between he and his Cisco
colleagues – that “Home TelePresence” would be available in fifteen
months. Clearly he wanted this
concept floated out but provided no details on what it would be like.
~~~~~
While the folks at
Cisco work on their eventual home solution – sure to be aiming for a
high-end experience - the world of inexpensive video conferencing took a
few strides ahead with a number of products in the sub $1k range:
·
 Asus showed a Skype video
appliance for people who want to have video conferences with Skype users
but don’t have the skills to or just prefer not to use a PC.
·
 Creative Labs again showed
their “In-Person” video appliance.
They also said there would be an HD version later this year. It may be time to take them a bit more
seriously, as Michael Baker (formerly of Polycom) has joined their
sales/marketing team.
·
Sony showed their “Playstation Eye”
camera for the Playstation 3. (It’s not new, but was never shown at CES
before.) As a $30
add on to the gaming console, it enables people on Sony’s free
gaming network to use the Playstation as a free
video conference device. For some
unknown reason Sony has put no marketing behind this groundbreaking
availability, and doesn’t even talk about how there is an h.264 codec built
in to the Playstation.
~~~~~
There were a number
additional details from the show floor that you may not see in mainstream
media coverage – and some very cool items:
·
 First there was the SD card,
and then came the even greater capacity SDHC card. Now the SD Association announced SDXE –
an SD card with a capacity up to two terabytes. Two TB on something about the size of my
thumbnail is really amazing. In the
early 90’s we only imagined terabytes of data…last year my 12 year old son
and I installed our first $130 1TB drive at home…in the near future an SD
card the size of my thumbnail will double that capacity and probably cost
less. To think that some believed Moore’s Law couldn’t
continue…
·
SanDisk revealed a series of third generation Solid State Drives
that in their words “will be the inflection point for the death of the hard
drive.” They have a 260GB model
that will list for $499, last 10 years, survive being dropped from six feet
and will operate at a comparable virtual RPM of 40,000 (as opposed to one
of the quicker disk’s speed of 7,200RPM.)
There will be smaller sizes for lower prices as well.
·
A few companies showed wristwatch mobile phones that would
make a Dick Tracy fan proud. Some
examples include LG’s “Wearable Mobile
Communicator” and Nutec’s “WristPhone.”
·
A number of exhibitors – including Panasonic this time - were
showing 3D displays and associated technologies. It was a concerted effort to push 3D as a
viable consumer technology. In my
opinion though, these demonstrations were still in the “cute idea” phase –
I see no hope for a real 3D product in the next few years.
·
IO gear showed a Wireless USB video transceiver that allows
high resolution screens to be wirelessly transmitted from a PC to a nearby
display. Notable is the addition of
stereo audio transmission in the same module, available mid year.
·
 Samson expanded their very
functional line of audio recording products with a high quality USB
microphone for notebook PCs (along side their already released ultra high
quality USB production microphone.)
These will come in very handy for the mobile user that needs better
audio than a notebook’s microphone will provide.
·
Soundolier showed some very innovative room lamps that double
as wireless speakers - which looked and sounded excellent. This represents an excellent option for
rooms where speakers are needed but do not match the required aesthetic
theme.
·
From the cast of manufacturers that brought you the 120hz refresh
rate for LCD displays last year - representing being “as good as Plasma for motion,” we now
have them telling us about their new 240Hz refresh rate – Sony calling
theirs “motion flow.” While I’m sure
this is a valuable (though barely perceptible) improvement I couldn’t stop
thinking about how Spinal Tap’s amplifiers go up to eleven.
·
Lastly, I’m happy to report that a new firm purchased the
“Sharper Image” name from the now bankrupt company and launched 24 new
products at this show. Granted
they’re only little things such as iPod docks, clocks and speakers, but it
was good to see in any case. I
didn’t want my children growing up in a world without the Sharper Image.
~~~~~~
The final word to
wrap-up this romp through technology requires me to get on my own personal
soapbox for a moment. While I was
out at CES some internet mail spammer decided to spoof my family’s email
address on a huge amount of spam mail.
This resulted in the real email to and from myself
and my family being summarily rejected by the wizards that handle such
things on the internet. I don’t even
want to think about how much important information I have missed and
friends and colleagues I have not responded to. For the time being, if anyone needs me,
please use the alternate address Davedanto @
yahoo.com. I hope I can find a way
to restore the use of my own domain.
It is a sad commentary that I may have to give up the use of a name
I own because email technology is so abused and we are often powerless to
defend ourselves from attacks. It
seems that the more our technology advances the more we have to worry about
the nefariousness from the dark side that will always find a way to abuse
it.
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A View From The Road is written by
David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions. David has spent
30 years in the audio visual and broadcasting industries. He has designed
facilities for firms such as AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley,
NYU and Lehman Brothers. He has recently joined JPMorgan Chase &
Company and is the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging
Technology. Email David at David.Danto.IMCCA@Danto.com
About the IMCCA
The Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA) is a not-for-profit
user application and industry focused association with membership comprised
of service and product providers, consultants, and users. Members benefit
from the understanding and the use of various interactive and collaborative
communications technologies in their professional and everyday lives.
For further information please contact Carol Zelkin, IMCCA Executive
Director, at 516-818- 8184 or czelkin@imcca.org. Visit the IMCCA web site
at www.imcca.org
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