Think your high-definition TV is hot stuff - as sharp as it gets? At the
biggest trade show in the Americas, which kicks off next week in Las
Vegas, TV makers will be doing their best to convince you that HDTVs are
old hat, and should make room for "Ultra HDTV."
It's the latest
gambit from an industry struggling with a shift in consumer spending
from TVs, PCs and single-purpose devices such as camcorders to small,
portable do-it-all gadgets: smartphones and tablets. The Consumer
Electronics Association estimates that device shipments to U.S. buyers
fell 5 percent in dollar terms last year excluding smartphones and
tablets, but rose 6 percent to $207 billion if you include those
categories.
The trends suggest that the International CES
(formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) is losing its stature as a
start-of-the-year showcase for the gadgets that consumers will buy over
the next 12 months. It started out as a venue for the TV and stereo
industries. Later, PCs joined the party.
But over the last few
years, TVs and PCs have declined in importance as portable gadgets have
risen and CES hasn't kept pace. It's not a major venue for phone and
tablet launches, though some new models will likely see the light of day
there when the show floor opens on Tuesday. The biggest trendsetter in
mobile gadgets industry, Apple Inc., stays away, as it shuns all events
it doesn't organize itself.
Apple rival Microsoft Corp. has also
scaled back its patronage of the show. For the first time since 1999,
Microsoft's CEO won't be delivering the kick-off keynote. Qualcomm Inc.
has taken over the podium. It's an important maker of chips that go into
cellphones, but not a household name.
None of this seems to
matter much to the industry people who go to the show, which is set to
be bigger than ever, at least in terms of floor space.
Gary
Shapiro the CEO of the organizing Consumer Electronics Association,
expects attendance close to the 156,000 people who turned out last year.
That's pretty much at capacity for Las Vegas, which has about 150,000
hotel rooms. The show doesn't welcome gawkers: the attendees are
executives, purchasing managers, engineers, marketers, journalists and
others with connections to the industry.
"We don't want to be over 160,000," Shapiro said in an interview. "We do everything we can not to be too crowded."
Nor
do the shifting winds of the technology industry seem to matter much to
exhibitors. Though some big names are scaling back or missing, there
are many smaller companies clamoring for booth space and a spot in the
limelight for a few days. For example, while Apple doesn't have an
official presence at the show, there will be 500 companies displaying
Apple accessories in the "iLounge Pavilion."
Overall, the CEA sold
a record 1.9 million square feet of floor space (the equivalent of 33
football fields) for this year's show.
These are some of the themes that will be in evidence next week.
Sharper TVs
Ultra
HDTVs have four times the resolution of HDTVs. While this sounds
extreme and unnecessary, you've probably already been exposed to
projections at this resolution, because it's used in digital movie
theaters. Sony, LG, Westinghouse and others will be at the show with
huge flat-panel TVs that bring that experience home, if you have a spare
$20,000 or so.
While the sets are eye-catching, they will likely
be niche products for years to come, if they ever catch on. They have to
be really big - more than 60 inches, measured diagonally - to make the
extra resolution really count. Also, there's no easy way to get movies
in UHDTV resolution.
"While there's going to be a lot of buzz
around Ultra HDTV, we really think what's going to be relevant to
consumers at the show is the continued evolution of 3D TVs and
Internet-connected TVs," said Kumu Puri, senior executive with
consulting firm Accenture's Electronics & High-Tech group.
Bigger phones
Unlike
TVs, new phones are launched throughout the year, so CES isn't much of a
bellwether for phone trends. But this year, reports point to several
super-sized smartphones, with screen bigger than five inches diagonally,
making their debut at the show. These phones are so big they can be
awkward to hold to the ear, but Samsung's Galaxy Note series has shown
that there's a market for them. Wags call them "phablets" because
they're almost tablet-sized.
Acrobatic PCs
Microsoft
launched Windows 8 in October, in an attempt to make the PC work more
like a tablet. PC makers obliged, with a slew of machines that blend the
boundaries. They have touch screens that twist, fold back or detach
from the keyboard. None of these seems to be a standout hit so far, but
we can expect more experiments to be revealed at the show.
"All the PC manufacturers recognize that they have to do things differently," Accenture's Puri said.
Attentive computing
CES
has been a showcase in recent years for technologies that free users
from keyboards, mice and buttons. Instead, they rely on cameras and
other sophisticated sensors to track the user and interpret gestures and
eye movements. Microsoft's motion-tracking add-on for the Xbox 360
console, the Kinect, has introduced this type of technology to the
living room. Startups and big TV makers are now looking to take it
further.
For example, Tobii Technology, a Swedish company, will be
at the show to demonstrate "the world's first gaze interaction computer
peripheral" - basically a camera that tracks where the user is looking
on the screen, potentially replacing the mouse.
PointGrab, an
Israeli startup, will be showing off software that lets a regular laptop
webcam interpret hand movements in the air in front of it.
Assaf
Gad, head of marketing at PointGrab, said that CES is usually full of
hopeful companies with speculative interaction technologies, "but this
year, you can actually see real devices."