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2010 CES Show by VMI
2010 CES Show by VMI
By Cameron Mehin, Vanguard Marketing International, Inc., January 12, 2010
The consumer electronics industry is projected to generate $165 billion in U.S. shipment
revenues in 2010, according to a forecast released by the Consumer Electronics Association
(CEA)* at this year’s annual International CES. CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro
announced “that industry revenues were down some seven percent in 2009… even though
unit sales volumes grew– up nearly 10 percent over 2008.”
The tradeshow this year in Las Vegas featured 2,800 (including 330 new) exhibitors spanning 52 CEA defined
product categories, including markets such as: audio, biotech, eco‐friendly, gaming, embedded technologies,
IPTV, robotics, mobile applications, and wireless communications.
Each year, CES attracts the “who’s who” of the technology and related industries, including C‐level executives
from the entertainment, wireless and consumer electronics (CE) industries. More than 24,000 industry and
corporate buyers use CES as a means to compare and evaluate new products scheduled for showroom debut in
the fall of 2010.
While CES is the platform to launch, demonstrate, and publicize new technologies and products, since the
show’s inception its appeal has stretched beyond CE to include areas such as medical and defense. Often these
companies are searching for commercial solutions, partnerships, and competitive ideas.
In 2009 “our global economy teetered on the brink and is only now edging away from the cliff” said Shapiro. The
evolutionary devices, robust applications, and innovative designs on display at CES 2010 promise to lead the CE
industry back onto solid ground.
To begin our top choice review, we’d like to share a noteworthy observation with regards to the innovators.
Over the past several years of attending CES we have seen the Asian (China, Taiwain, Hong Kong, Singapore)
area substantially grow from vendors at card tables, to make‐shift booths, to full suites. There’s a lot of
investment, interest, and innovation happening. Singapore and Taiwan have been moving away from making
smaller and less expensive devices as a follower, toward creating indiginous innovation for the world’s
consumers. China, while still lagging being the top names in consumer electronics, has made great strides in
their ability to market capabilities and products at the world stage level. China has demonstrated a tremendous
capability to quickly get up to speed. With their advancing technological experience and drive, it will not be long
before they are at full speed. Enter the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC)… definitely an
organization to watch, who set up their own innovation center at the CES… and their winners were impressive.
At this year’s CES, Korea surpassed Japan in “gadgetry”; China will become the next contender.
While the Best of the Best list on the next few pages contain the top areas that we felt are pushing the
consumers experience, we wanted to put forth another notable mention: Carnegie Mellon University funded by
the National Science Foundation and the work of the doctoral students who, with (prospective) commercial
Vanguard Marketing International, Inc. January 2010 Page1
partners, are looking to transform inventions into innovations at their Quality of Life Technology Center
(www.qolt.org).
A few inventions that the students showcased:
1. A Smart Phone that can detect a wide range of materials like denim, wood, rock, tile, etc. through the
use of an embedded camera with infrared and other sensors, and an internally stored library of
signatures.
2. Intelligent GPS which will learn and direct your route preferences and driving habits over time.
3. A display (monitor) that reacts to your movement like zooming into an image as you get closer
4. Another display that based upon you turning your head slightly, will change your vantage point, allowing
you to see more of that side of the target image ‐‐ as if it’s 3D. This technique makes a more realistic,
personable video conferencing capability. Works over Skype.
5. Music “haptics” embeded within jackets to allow you to feel and hear the sound (if the video showed a
train passing by you could then hear and feel the sound pass over you)
6. Smart home techology that will enable periodic health monitoring (blood pressure, weight,
temperature, etc.) linked to your healthcare provider; as you enter a room or chose to do an activity
there (such as exercise), the room changes (lights, window shades) to produce your prefered/ideal
setting.
7. First‐person eye direction sensor, where an eye‐glass attached camera will follow the movement of your
eyes and film what you’re looking at.
Best of the Best
So now… on to the Best of the Best. Besides the bigger, thinner and better televisions (LG’s .27” thick LED LCD
TV, Wireless HD v2, Panasonic’s 152‐inch Ultra HD Plasma and 3D‐TVs), from our perspective the following were
a few of the top ideas and concepts at the show on 2010:
1. “Apps” – Whether it is an iPhone, Blackberry or a device running Android, the need and use for applications
has exploded over the past year. Our cell phones have literally
turned into the remote control of our lives, giving us access to
nearly every aspect of our lives in the palm of our hand. A few
shown at the show were Chevy Volt’s app allows for remote
starting, unlocking, and system information for your car on both the
iPhone and Android platforms; ThinkOptics’ IWaveIt gives the iPhone
the ability to control your media devices, AKA a Universal Remote
app, just as any other remote; Parrot’s AR.Drone iPhone controller
allows users to control a UAV while fighting fictional robots, jets and
other AR.Drones through Wi‐Fi and the use of the devices
accelerometers. In today’s mobile/highly‐connected world, to have a consumer‐
oriented business without an app means being left in the dust!
2. Robots – Besides Parrot’s AR.Drone, a quadricopter (check out the following link)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/06/parrot‐ardrone‐control‐a‐_n_413143.html, there were several
Vanguard Marketing International, Inc. January 2010 Page2
other ground and air robots for gaming, entertainment, and social interaction for the
elderly and special needs. The applications for robots continue to grow rapidly in many
directions but robot gaming could be a real fast mover hit. The best was from innvo
labs corporation – pictures don’t do it justice. It even responds to you!
http://www.pleoworld.com/Home.aspx
3. Media Extenders – With high speed broadband and 4G connectivity sprouting all over the country, the
quality of online information and media, whether that is cloud data or a
centralized server, is increasing each day. This year D‐Link’s Boxee was on
top of those devices, not only does it allow you to stream online media from
places like Hulu, Netflix and Pandora but you can also tie it to your social
networks, enabling you to show your favorite shows, movies and songs.
Dish Network was also pushing the ability view your shows, whether live or
DVR’d, on your PC, netbook, or smart phones with the use of Slingplayer,
one of the big items in last year’s show. These systems along with the online
media outlet giving each person an individualized experience are quickly
pushing out the need for traditional media connectivity. TVs are already
being sold with built in Wi‐Fi, Netflix and Hulu applications… that coupled
with the use of media extenders is ensuring that the consumer will always
have their personalized content with them wherever they go, even on the
go.
4. Mobile Computing (E‐Readers, NetBooks, Laptops, Tablets, Slates, Smartphones) – The most publicized Pro
E‐Reader from the show was Plastic Logic’s Que (besides Apple’s rumored tablet like device). Utilizing
AT&T’s 3G network, the Que has the capability to download all the news you could want. Another 3G
enabled E‐Reader was announced during the show, Skiff, in partnership with Sprint. Having the world’s
news at your fingertips and a week’s worth of battery life (that’s without the 3g
connection enabled) will win many over, however, it will struggle against its
cousin, the netbook. Many netbooks now boast 8 hour battery life, a full range
of multimedia capabilities, and half the price tag of the Que. The market will
quickly become saturated with these devices, all part of the continuum of mobile
computing. While the laptop is the mobile version (with nearly the same
computer power) of what nearly all of us have in our home office, the E‐Reader (think Kindle) covers the
other end of the spectrum by being the most stripped down version. Now, we are now seeing a “rebundling”
of capabilities, mixing and matching the pieces back together to find the most widely accepted set of
capabilities in a form factor that is accessible to the masses.
5. 3D Television – The TV section at CES was packed full of the usual
enourmous televisions with “Ultra High‐Def”, vibrant screen
featuring LED backlighting, and 3D technology. While nearly each
well known TV company had 3D technology demonstrated this year,
and almost all of them required the use of some sort of wearable
lenses. However, a China based company, TCL (tag line: “The
Vanguard Marketing International, Inc. January 2010 Page3
Creative LLife”) had cre eated a type of “on‐scree en lens” (actu ually 8 of the em) that remmoves the neeed for the
user to wear
w any pe eripherals. Unfortunately
U there are only four id deal viewing angles, limitting your
placemen nt while watching, and the e system costs $20,000 fo or 42‐inches. 3D is obviou usly not a new w term to
anyone, bbut most peop ple’s exposurre is limited to o those horrib ble red and b blue glasses, a
and clear len nses in the
past few yyears. NiVidia a had a systeem to enable 3D on video games at lasst year’s show w, which now w supports
over 400 different titlees, though that still requirees specific pla atforms (mon nitor, graphicss card, etc). P
Progress is
being mad de, but sadly no one has hit the golden combination n of technolog gy yet.
6 Gesture /
6. / Intuitive Co w only a litttle over three years ago that
ontrols – It was
Nintendo’’s Wii made its debut and d successfullyy placed theiir controls in the
hands of children, the e elderly and everyone in between. Sin nce then, thee big
three connsole gaming companies (SSony, Microsoft and Ninteendo) have b been
on the bandwagon
b to make conttrols that arre intuitive enough
e to allow
anyone to o jump right in. Microsoft this year ann nounced theirr “Project Na atal”
peripheraal that allows the users to interact with the Xb box 360 thro ough
gesture, ffacial, and vo oice recognittion. This would be much like the bow wling
game on the Wii, with hout the neeed for the controller, allow
wing for a much
m
more truee entertainme ent experiencce. While “Project Natal” iis the epitom me of ease of use, the Pereegrine is a
highly cusstomizable gllove that allo ows for 30 “to ouch points” w which can bee used with evverything from gaming
to CAD syystems. Contrrol systems continue to ad dvance, both in their mea ans of receivinng command ds and the
method in n which we h have deliver th hose comman nds. The end goal will alw ways be seam mless integrattion in our
lives whilee being fully ccapable of com mplex directio on with extreeme accuracy.
We believe th
W hat this coming year we will see the adoption of these technologies by gaaming, training, social
n
networking, and simulattion playerss, and furth her enhanceement of the human‐tto‐machine interface.
V
Virtualization
n of sight, so
ound and fee
el (smell and
d taste next) will be the ultimate Reality… Wii and
a other
g
gaming will n ever be the ssame! The next new fields… making one device‐p platform such h as the iPho one/Smart
P
Phone an all e
encompassingg controller; ssecuring them m, ensuring in
ntegrity, and privacy will b be key. We’ll be seeing
a
a lot more appplications of 3D, beginnin ng with gamin ng but movin ng into every aspect of our lives. Yes, there will
b
be 3D without t the glasses; this will be the next big thhing.
Our question
O ns: What happpens if peo ople stop interacting facee‐to‐face? What
W happenss to trust? What
W if it
b
becomes all vvirtual? Are th
hese new soccial networks stronger? Arre we too dep pendent? Aree we making ourselves
v
vulnerable to
o exploitation
n? It’s anyon
ne’s guess. We
W believe th hough, that convergence
c and adoptio on will be
u
unbelievable!
V
VMI would lovee to hear yourr comments. Iff you are interrested in speciffic contacts or information a
about the techn
nologies
a
above, please l
let us know. EEmail your tho
oughts to Cameeron@e‐vmi.ccom or call 480 0‐488‐5707
V
Vanguard Ma
arketing Intern
national, Inc. JJanuary 2010 Pagee4