By Emma H
Another January, another set of resolutions we won’t keep, gym membership we’ll stop using come March, detoxes we’ll abandon almost as soon as we’ve started and yes, another CES.
Except this year the mood in sunny Vegas (sorry everyone in the UK complaining about the snow!) is not worried or tentative but full of optimism. I’d even go so far as to say it’s brimming with excitement! And what is there to be excited about? Well, quite a lot actually. You’ve got the big boys announcing some real leaps forward: LG announcing 3D TV, Skype TV and even broadband-bundled TV, Nintendo telling us the next DS will have a motion sensor like its Wii brother/sister (pick your gender, mine is a girl) and Samsung launching ebook readers which let you write all over them. And let’s not forget about Google’s new baby, the Nexus One. The phone will be available in the UK through Vodafone but interestingly enough you’ll actually be able to buy it through the Google website itself. For Google this is huge – they have never gone straight to the consumer before and some would say it’s a really risky move. Only time will tell what the sales experience will be like. Could we be seeing a series of #Googlefail on Twitter later on this year?
Then there’s the up-and-coming brands like Parrot really blowing people away with its AR Drone – an iPhone controlled flying machine that hovers at head height and lets you play augmented reality games.
As a big fan of Slingbox myself (anything that lets me catch up on Gossip Girl and my other half on MOTD while we’re abroad gets my eternal loyalty), I was always likely to navigate towards them at the show. Having had a quiet year in 2009 they’ve just launched their Sling Touch Control 100 with a 4 inch screen that will speak to any SlingEnabled device and DVRs over WiFi and older set top boxes via infra red. Yep am all over that. I suppose the cynic would question if we really need any of these new innovations. But the gadget geek in me will always say a resounding yes – innovation is alive and well at CES and it’s great to be here watching it all unfold.
And then of course there are the parties…
