Things Engineers Like: CES
It's that time of year again! CES (International Consumer Electronics Show) is upon us and the newsfeed has been going off nonstop. There hasn't been many show-stoppers it seems so far. One of the most significant new stories of the of day has to be the stop of production of the Playstation 2 worldwide. Due to the success of the PS, Sony has became a dominant player in the video gaming industry. It's hard to believe that the console was still being produced until now but I guess the popularity of the console pushed it this far. I think the N64 should still be in production.
One surprise was seeing NVIDIA going into the portable console business with its Project Shield. An console that plays Android games and will be able to stream games from a GeForce-equipped PC. It looks like a 5" screen attached to a Xbox-sized Playstation controller (if that makes any sense). This is very similar to the Wii U concept without the touch but would be more open since it's an Android platform and would allow full PC games to be played on it.
As always, televisions and cameras seem to be the large chunk of the devices shown at CES. And finally, I think companies are ending the size competition by stopping at what seems to be 100 inches or so (The ones announced so far today seem to max out at 65); good news for everyone! Now it's about the software within the television; mainly, what streaming services are available. As I said many times before, integration is going to win the game. And that is what companies are doing; easy to use integration with tablets, phones, computers, and other devices are appearing everywhere. I'm hoping for a standardized form of wireless communication between devices especially televisions (Good thing Intel is pushing their WiDi (Wireless Display)). With streaming services making deals with certain television/film labels, majority of customers will probably end up with multiple streaming services. Instead of searching individual applications for a show/movie, there is a need for a universal search for all the services that you subscribe to (natively too, I don't want to have to rely on/download a third-party application). I want to be able to use the universal search to find the show I want to watch, without having to open Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/HBO-Go/Xfinity/Comcast/Vudu/iTunes/Android Play...etc myself.
One race that I'm interesting in seeing is whether touch televisions or 3D televisions will be adopted faster by consumers (maybe both at the same time).
It seems like we've been waiting for Intel's true arrival to the mobile side. But Intel may actually do it in 2013 with their new Lexington Atom processor if those devices can get decent sales (Acer, Safaricom, Lava). And they may disrupt the tablet market with their Bay Trail 22 nm quad-core Atom Processor but we won't know till its release late this year. But while we wait for Bay Trail, we'll see Clover Trail+ devices in the market. And of course competing in the laptop/ultrabook/high-end tablet markets, Intel has announced the new Core processors. The new Haswell Core Processors promise lower power consumption and requires a touch screen and WiDi (I approve!). Hopefully this means the evolution of mobile will rapidly increase with Intel truly entering the market.
So much to read! So little time! This is the best! Can you feel the excitement on the Internet!?