Last week the annual
Consumers Electronic Show happened in Las Vegas. As usual, there
were thousands of whizzbang gadgets that will never hit the store
shelves. Car makers were out in force with devices to tech-up new
cars and take our minds off of driving. Hundreds of toys, games,
bots, and tablets were on display, but almost no PCs. The buzz is
that PCs are so yesterday.
According to Cisco, 1 trillion devices will be connected to the
Internet in 2013. Interesting note that Apple iPhones only made a
bit over 14% of smartphone shipments during the last quarter of
2012. How far it has fallen from leader of the pack.
TVs - Of course, there was a plethora of 4K and OLED TVs that are
amazing in clarity (4k is four times the definition of your HD TV,
OLED is same definition as current HD, but much better quality),
size (up to 100 inches), and price (up to thirty+ thousand dollars).
Only thing small on them is the width of the screen at just 23mm.
Samsung introduced a TV that can display two shows simultaneously.
The 3D TVs that were supposed to be the next best thing to sliced
bread last year were said to be dead on arrival this year.
Here are a few of my other observations:
Bad Tech, iPotty
This is a training potty for youngsters with an ipad to distract
them while they are supposed to learn what to do on the potty.
Cool Tech, Papertab - a tablet as flexible as paper and has a
10.7in plastic touchscreen display
It is as thin as a piece of paper with a fully interactive plastic
touchscreen display. The tablet is powered by a second generation
Intel Core i5 processor and aims to replace the need for paper. A
few phones and pads will have bendable screens in the not too
distant future. This technology has been discussed for a number of
years, but finally has reached the demo stage and it is impressive.
Samsung, who has been outselling Apple three to one has this 'Youm
Flexible Display'.
Awesome!
Dumb Tech, HAPIfork - This little device starts to
vibrate if you are eating too fast.
Good Tech, Leap - My personal favorite (and I will be getting
one when they come out in next few months) is a $69 sensor from Leap
Motion that enables full control of PCs or other devices using hand
and finger gestures.
The 3D motion control technology has the ability to track the
movement of the user's hand (including all 10 fingers) at 290 frames
per second, tracking movements to 1/100th millimeter. It will make
any screen react as if it was touch screen, so you do not need to go
buy a touch screen.
My observations and prognostications for the next few years:
ubiquitous wireless everything, smartphones getting larger toward
the 5 - 6 inch sweet spot, smartphones as the universal controller
for everything from TV to stoves to robots, Apple needs a new device
to remain competitive, the mouse will begin to go the way of the PC
as new technologies, like touch screen and Leap become more common,
personal privacy is dying faster than the rotary dial telephone,
devices controlled by the mind are progressing beyond games and will
continue to go mainstream, smaller proved to be not better as we
went too small with phones, thinner is the new 'better'.
