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Jan 8,2006 - Jan 15,2006 |
iPod and home entertainment
Las Vegas trade show unleashes new and not-so-new novelties that benefit personal use
By Alessandro Cancian
Originally Published: 2005-01-16
Last week saw the closing of CES 2005, the yearly show of the best of the world's consumer electronics. This year's event, held in Las Vegas, was focused on the latest novelties in Home & Digital Entertainment. The living room battle, i.e. the battle for what is currently the most sought after market, and iPod were the dominant themes of the show, which did not include a great many novelties. In regards to products usable at any moment and in every area of the living room, the most significant novelties came from hi-res TV, network appliances, and audio and video recorders.
Korea-based Samsung, for instance, presented the biggest plasma screen ever, no fewer than 102", available on the market for the affordable price of $100,000 US. The general trend for flat TV screens sees prices descending and technologies improving, which consumers will certainly appreciate.
The advance of big flat screens in the living room carries with it a wave of new-generation DVD appliances, and of course the controversy about the real standards of the future. Solutions, ranging from Sony's Blue-Ray to HD-DVD, were present; however, the future of video technologies remains a big question mark.
Bill Gates gave his ninth consecutive keynote speech, entirely devoted to digital entertainment. Movies and TV on cell phones, media centres routing video, audio and images to every device available in a house, and portable gaming consoles, live TV programmes on car-mounted screens, appear as Microsoft's choice of killer applications where they will invest resources in trying to lead the rush to consumer electronics.
Gates explained that the increasing diffusion of broadband and decrease in data storage costs are driving people to "translate" their music, photos, movies and so on to digital form. The digital lifestyle according to Gates bears a strange resemblance to a speech given by Apple's Steve Jobs a few years ago. Coincidence?
Anyway, this strategy also accounts for the deal Microsoft struck with MTV allowing users to receive programmes ranging from rock, pop and country music to the contents of the Comedy Central channel on their laptops and other devices. During the CES, Gates also announced an agreement with TiVo and Yahoo, having the purpose of transferring many digital contents on Microsoft's new portable player, the Portable Media Center.
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