Results tagged “Bonnie Optekman” from NBCU at CES
CES 2010: On the Floor
By Bonnie Optekman, NBC News (@boptekman)
Literally. I spent eight hours yesterday touring the floor with NBC's talented Peter Rosenberg and three hours today. This show never was for the faint of heart.
Yesterday, when I arrived back at the booth, Curtis Walker of DVICE.COM
Yes, I feel like I'm on sensory overload. But there are themes that emerged. First, all the TVs - LED, OLED, AMOLED, 3D, 3D OLED - kinda make a small part of me - the Luddite part - the part that still takes notes with pen and paper - long for rabbit ears. But seriously folks, I have found what I want. Only problem, it's only a prototype. Not even built. Not even being built for sure yet. It's the SONY 3D OLED. I've never seen anything so crisp, clear, or beautiful. It's like looking through a window sitting from any angle. I'm not alone. Many consider the Sony to be the best in class for 3D displays.
Have to mention the TCL TV too. Displays 3D TV without glasses. Great if you're dead center in front of the TV albeit a little grainy. Look for it in China in two years. Maybe it will be better by then.
Also amazing, the Sony 3D PS3 Baseball game. I felt like I was on the field. Home run, David Wright!
But purchasing a TV has become significantly more complicated, as if you didn't already know that. Yes, of course you're going to want the most beautiful picture as always. But here's a new phrase for you - Over the Top Delivery. That means content (shows, movies, videos) delivered to you not by cable, satellite, nor telephone company. The technical term? Disintermediating MVPD (Muti Video Processing Distribors). (Thank you Peter.) So that means internet TV's, wireless TVs and even widgets (or applications) on TVs. It means using the Boxee Box or Iomega's Screen Play Director to gather your content from the web, Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon Unboxed, Hulu, YouTube, Picasa, your own downloaded material, etc. It also means using your Internet connected TV giving you the content from whatever companies they've made deals with. Boxee says they believe we've passed the paradigm of DVRs and TIVO and that by using the cloud they remove the need for recording, saving, and worrying about disk space. Wonder if, every TV will have that capability one day and will all serve up the same content, paid or free, and if so, if that will affect the popularity of those interim boxes. I really like the way Boxee organizes all your material. For example, all movies are in one folder, regardless of their source. You can search, and the remote even has a QWERTY keyboard on the back. Hmm. More interactive possibilities; that's great for viewer text-to-tv.
By the way, Boxee won the 2010 LAST GADGET STANDING live award. That's always a fun session with a participant vote. The on-line winner is the Pico Projector.
Ok, back to my theme - TV. How do you navigate all the entertainment choices? Intel has a great conceptual demo of an Electronic Program Guide. Like Picture-in-Picture, it shows small displays as you scroll through the options. One of the best demos I saw was from Toshiba. Their Cell TV 3D Motion Gesture Control is on the horizon. Just move your hand left and right, up and down, forward and back. No more looking under the couch for the remote. Looked very similar to Microsoft's Project NATAL for the XBOX. And, I neglected to mention yesterday that a Blackberry executive I met Thursday believed that at some point, you'd be able to activate the touchpad on their newer models even with a finger only hovering on top of it. I love this stuff.
I also saw Hillcrest Lab's The Loop today. It's a round (duh) remote that you hold in your hand as you move your hand in any direction - even out of range of the TV. They won a CES Innovation award this year. But they were the first company I saw talk about this process years ago. I think I first heard the term "lean forward experience" from them.
Netbooks, tablets and eReaders another big draw this year. There's a gazillion of them. I saw the ones that Lenovo and Asus have that convert into tablets. Lenovo's doesn't let you write on it except with a virtual keyboad. Asus does. Have to look at that again. I'm always looking for a faster way to convert my notes into bits. But I'm going to tell you the one I want. It's the EnTourage eDGe combination e-reader and netbook. Read on the left. Watch related video and hyperlinked content on the right. Write notes on what you're reading. Believe I mentioned this yesterday. Not that I'm hinting how much I want this or anything.
Heaps of cameras. I love the Poloroid Pogo. Saw it last year. So fun.
NBC's intrepid cameraman and producer Craig White showed us the Hero HD camera. It's an amazingly tiny HD video camera that even streams live video out and is waterproff down to 180 feet. Whatever Craig says is great, is indeed great.
I also really like Sony's Bloggie camera. Takes stills (no optical zoom) as well as HD video. AND you can put in a spare charged battery as well as additional memory. It comes with a 360 degree lens that shoots panoramic shots. Why the name? Because a blogger can lay it flat while writing. Clever.
And of course, there are oodles of smartphones and other cool gadgets. Read enough about the Droid? Good. I'm skipping it. But have to mention Motorola's Tru 2-way for the set-top box that allows the kind of viewer interactivity we're working towards. IOMEGA makes something called the VClone. Very cool. Take your entire PC virtual image with you on a hard drive that fits in your pocket and can diisplay on another other PC with Windows XP, Vista or 7.
Skype is everywhere, too. There's the Asus Skype videophone. Wasn't that at the World's Fair a million years ago? Well, this one looks a lot better. And there's SKYPE on TV. I saw it at LG and Panasonic. And winner of a CEA innovation award is the Saygus V Phone VI which is the first cell handset with low bandwidth two-way video calling on existing 2.5G networks. It runs on Android and has a QWERTY keyboard that slides out.
What else do I need? (C'mon, it's my blog!) The Power Mat. Currently it can easily power Blackberries, iPods, iPhones as well as bluetooth devices and camera batteries. And more devices are coming in Q3. Would be great not to carry around a power strip. Yes, I travel with a power strip. Don't laugh.
I also have to buy a new computer some time soon. My VAIO is terrific but it's five years old. And my hard drive is full! I've been holding out for Windows 7 with a touch screen so here we go. I'm going to choose between the HP Touchsmart 600T which has the CPU built into the monitor or another laptop - maybe the Lenovo T400SMT which is also a tablet. Still have to think through that. And my Apple family and friends are trying to convert me.
What's MIA at the show? No Dell nor HP except displaying technology within other booths. There are fewer outdoor exhibits. Gibson guitars moved indoors. Parrot has a helicopter you can control with your iPhone. My friend and colleague Brett Holey highly recommends taking it for a spin. And the Sony OLED flexiscreen laptop is not here either. At the booth, they said it was a concept display last year. Actually, that's about all they said. Are they still working on it?
Can't leave you without mentioning the new way to watch DTV on your cellphone through Open TV. NBC was instrumental in making this happen which is fitting since we led the way in 2004 with NBC News Mobile. And it will give us even more opportunities for interactivity. Ok, shameless plug over. No, not yet. Go to http://alerts.msnbc.com to see all the text subscription groups we offer - from Way Too Early with Willie Geist to Nightly News with Brian Williams and everything in between. Or text the right keyword to 622639. Try to guess what they are: NN, DL, EARLY, HB, ED, JOE, RACHEL, TODAY, MTP. Or Text BUZZ to 46833 for the latest entertainment news.
More later! I want to head over to the North Hall. It's been fun. Follow me on twitter at boptekman.
