Cool Things at CES

By Chris Loncto, Sharp

NBCU certainly is doing some cool things at CES. Flat screens everywhere. Looks like they have two working studios right in their booth. It was cool to see Al Roker do the weather on one of our 108" LCD's yesterday. Our CEO is going to be interviewed by Maria Bartiromo live on CNBC a little later this afternoon. I hope she takes it easy on him!

Just met Jim Louderback here. Jim's been a respected tech journalist for as long as I've been in PR. He's got a new venture called Revision3 that's exclusively internet video. Was great to meet him and I'll definitely be checking out the site.

Chris Loncto (Sharp), Jim Louderback and Ron Richards (Revision3)

There's been a lot made of the fact that CES attendance is down this year. I must say, cab lines are shorter, hotels and restaurants seem less crowded, and here at the show, it does seem the crowd is considerably thinner than in recent years.

Still, there's lots to see. I'm excited to check out the new LCD's with LED backlighting technology. I'm also a wireless geek so I'm looking forward to heading over to the booths from the key wireless players like RIMM and Verizon to see their latest technologies. Despite some doubts about its prospects for success, Blu-ray seems to be all over the place.

At Sharp, we're excited to be showing off our Limited Edition XS1 TV. It has gotten rave reviews since we introduced it in September. It uses RGB LED backlight and advanced color filter technology to produce an awesome picture. We've also unveiled a line of AQUOS LCD TV's with an integrated Blu-ray player. Of course, even though we introduced it two years ago (at CES 2007), the 108'LCD still stops people in their tracks.

But it's about more than just LCD TV for us this year. We're taking Blu-ray into new places, like HTiB and offering a total home theater experience. My colleague Liz Savery will write more about that later.

I'll also write back later with more thoughts on what's standing out at the show this year.