Live from CES Unveiled, pre-press day, Tuesday 6 January 2009

Steve Blum — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:59:58 +0000

Last to first, real time tweets from Las Vegas…

Tethering is deciding battle between mobile carriers & CE industry. CE guys don’t get it, think it’s a tech problem. It’s the money!
Novatel Wireless hasn’t signed any carriers yet. Expects to Real Soon Now. If they do, it’s a significant market signal re tethering.
Novatel Wireless also into tethering. Selling gizmo combining mobile data card, embedded Linux, WiFi tethering. Serves 5 users at once.
Blaupunkt has Internet car radio. Needs tethering-capable mobile phone. Don’t count on mobile carriers cooperating with the biz model.
Buzzword Alert! iGo makes travel adaptors. Nice, same sh** different year. But now (pause for effect & wink knowingly) “we’re green”.
Boxee talking to Sigma & Intel. Broadcom reportedly doesn’t care yet: he who is last is lunch.
Boxee vs AppleTV. Good interfaces. AppleTV tied to iTunes. But
Boxee runs on an AppleTV & pisses off Steve Jobs. Great business model!
Boxee runs on 1 GHz processor or better now, working towards reducing code to run as embedded app with less horsepower.
Boxee managed $4 mil in VC financing last month. In this market that’s like winning the Nobel prize. Nobody gets funded these days.
Boxee runs on Mac, Windoze, Linux. Takes content from all sources, including your computer. Puts it on TV. TV, photos, music, whatever.
Boxee only potential disruptor at this press event. Open source media center software. Takes content from everywhere, puts it anywhere.
HD Radio has neat idea. Listen to song on radio, push button, tag song, sync with iPod, buy song from iTunes. GPS integration too.
Lenovo on same track as MSI, good not revolutionary. When you have a hot category, take market share, not press clips I guess.
MSI Wind product looks good, not game-changing. WiFi, but no WiMAX. When I asked, PR person thought WiMAX was a kind of hard drive.
ASUS has best new stuff. Love the netbook with the swivel screen. Turns into a tablet PC or e-reader. Under 1kg. WiMAX on roadmap.
Three netbook makers pushing hard at CES: MSI, ASUS, Lenovo.
CES Unveiled, big turnout nice buffet. Open bar, but Powermat display has bigger line. This crowd is fueled by electrons, not booze.
Make that ASUS chairman Jonney Shih.
@jodrell Truphone Anywhere uses GSM to make a plain old mobile voice call to a voip portal. Nice but not mobile voip.
Microsoft guy unveils a rad new concept: voip. Next hot idea from Redmond: padded laptop cases!
ASUS hot on WiMAX, introing a 512GB solid state drive
ASUS press conf packed, already learned something: it’s pronounced “ah-zeus”.
In car TV top product pick for young parents, other mobile TV products getting lots of attention. More dough for services and content for sure.
Early leader for WTF award: HD diving mask.
Services seen as integral part of media product sales, “wouldn’t make sense without”.
Mobile, cloud computing, green tech all getting serious attention. Squares with VC predictions for 2009.
E-readers a top growth product in 2008, albeit from a small base
Green products, mobile stuff, embedded Internet, input & display tech tagged as top trends for 2009.
Early leader for Alice in Wonderland award: “CE is a necessity not a luxury”. So are cars, and auto sales are zip.
Early leader for understatement of the show: “consumer spending is in transition”.
CES state of the industry press conf: DTV, mobile phones, video games & PCs account for 70% of CE sales in 2008.

A Lensman always goes in » CEA

Live from CES Unveiled, pre-press day, Tuesday 6 January 2009