To say that CES can be overwhelming is an
understatement. This year there were
153,000 people in attendance including 34,000 international attendees. There were 3100 exhibitors displaying some
20,000 new products. Innovation was the
key theme for an industry expected to reach one trillion dollars in sales
globally in 2012.
To put the enormity of the show in perspective, the 1.861
million square feet of floor space would fill 37 football fields and if you
walked all the aisles in the show you would log 15 miles !
Some of the trends could be found in what was missing or
leaving. There was the notable
announcement from Microsoft that this would be the last year they give the
opening keynote speech and the last year they have a presence on the show
floor. They claim that their product
launch schedule does not coincide with CES and they can attract greater analyst
interest with their own conferences.
Again, the lack of Apple’s presence was noticed, although there were plenty of Apple execs
spotted walking the floor. The rumor
mill was abuzz with talk of Apple’s forthcoming 50 inch display and it’s impact
on the industry. There were hundreds of vendors displaying
apple related accessories.
Another thing missing this year, thankfully, was the hype
surrounding 3D TV, although there were plenty of developments in this space. Expectations for 3D growth have been lowered
and it might take the release of “glasses free” displays known as autostereoscopic
to be released in the next 2-4 years to fuel significant growth in the market.
Some of the key trends and highlights that I saw include:
4K resolution TV for the home has
arrived (4 times the resolution of 1080P)
Connected TV’s and devices. Everything connected to everything..
Crossover devices. Is it a tablet, laptop, phone, camera, gaming
console, etc.?
The resurgence of Google TV
Windows Ultrabooks (think Macbook
Air clones) with a strong marketing push by Intel in 2012
TV displays were bigger, thinner
and badder (better processing and aesthetics),
including OLED
including OLED
Proliferation of consumer
entertainment cloud services.
A move from active 3D glasses to
passive
More android tablets from numerous
vendors at low price points ($150 to $300) including Android 4 (Ice Cream
Sandwich)
Cool new gaming consoles; Nintento’s
Wii U and Sony Playstation Vita
LTE (4th gen wireless
network) compatible smartphones and a tablet
Health, fitness and medical related
devices for iphones and android
Ipad-like displays in cars
(including Siri-like voice activation to hopefully mitigate dangerous driving)
Point and shoot cameras with
wireless capability (immediate uploads)
Prior to the show, there were some
40 OTT (Over The Top) deals announced between pay-tv providers and connected
device manufacturer’s. I’m sure the number increased
significantly during the show.
Disney and Comcast signed a 10 year
deal for TV Everywhere. Ten years !
Samsung showing my colleague, John Caldwell, the Galaxy note, a combination tablet/phone |
Connected devices are the next big thing. There was a lot of growth in 2011 and there
will be exponential growth in the next few years. By the end of 3Q11 in the US alone there were
106 million smartphones, 62 million game consoles, 20 million tablets, 6
million OTT boxes and by the end of 2011 there were 5.4 million Smart TV’s
sold.
Windows 8 will be something to watch when it’s released in
time for the 2012 holiday season, as it will work across tablets, smartphones
and PC’s. It has the potential to speed
up integration between these devices.
Consumer cloud services are very closely linked to connected
devices (think Amazon Prime) and every content provider wants a piece of this
new pie. App development is also part of
this new paradigm.
Sony announced two consumer clouds services called Music Unlimited Streaming and Video Unlimited
Streaming. Several manufacturer's are planning cloud services.
Ultraviolet (a digital locker service) is making headway with studio
participation even though they’ve done an awful job at marketing to date.
The work that still needs to be done, in my opinion, is
making it easier to navigate Smart TV apps.
Several manufacturer’s announced voice activation capabilities to
replace keyboard entry for internet browsing (think Apple Iphone4s Siri).
Samsung showed their 55 inch OLED TV due out late 2012. LG showed their 55 inch OLED display due
out in 3Q12 for retail $8000. Sony
produce OLED’s for their professional market (Broadcast monitors) below 40 inch
displays. Their technology for larger
screens is called Crystal LED. Sony
believes there are problems with longevity for large OLED displays so it will
be interesting to see how other manufacturer’s deal with this.
Sony and others introduced 4K displays, home projectors and camera's. LG introduced an 84 inch 4K display. Sharp introduced a prototype 8K display! 4K is the digital film standard and it will allow consumers to see films as they were created, the same experience they get in theaters. 4K displays are also a prerequisite to "glasses free" or autostereoscopic displays.
Steve Ballmer announced a windows app store due out at the
end of February. He also said that Xbox Kinect has become more of an
entertainment platform then gaming. Ballmer
said they would add Comcast Xfinity in the near future and announced a deal
with Newscorp for programming on Xbox.
He also announced a new interactive “Sesame Street” program that would
utilize Kinect.
Google have been busy with partnership deals for Google
TV. They announced deals with Samsung
and LG. Sony was already a Google TV
partner. Google also announced deals
with chip makers MediaTek (Taiwan) and Marvell (US). Google claims there are more than 150 Google TV-specific apps.
Google also acquired Sage TV, a software DVR maker, in the summer of 2011.
All in all, once you looked under the CES covers… it was an interesting show.
Of course, it was impossible to cover the full 15 miles in a
few days…..but it felt like it…
Looking at 3D with Sony's CTO, Hugo Gaggioni |
If you're curious to see more from CES have a look at these videos:
best of CES awards from CNET, Mashable CES videos, Walt Mossberg on Fox Business,
and Walt Mossberg walking the floor at CES
Nice post Stavros! Did you see anything about the Samsung Smart Window? Looks like a pretty interesting product.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5rlTrdF5Cs
-Adam Lake
Thanks for the add Adam.. there were so many intriguing products there.. this one seems to have endless possibilities !
ReplyDeleteGreat read -- thanks for the recap!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stavros for the roundup this year. I also saw a whole slew of tablets (allegedly indestructible) made especially for kids at really amazing and competitive prices. Cool stuff!
ReplyDelete