CES 2009 Overview and Recap

There is no doubt that Palm owned CES with the Palm Pre, effectively doing from within the show what Apple did from outside two years ago with the iPhone. But this was hardly the only big thing: We saw 3D everywhere, wireless power, affordable or ecological gaming machines, incredibly attractive and affordable laptops, tiny inkless printers, multi-screen laptops, ever smaller PCs, and the first time Linux was used to improve Windows. This is not to mention the fact that we got our first real look at Windows 7, which might be the most popular version of that platform ever.

Let’s do this by the numbers.

3D:  The Next Big Virtual Reality Step

I’m a big fan of Star Trek and, like many, I’m looking forward to the day that something like the Holodeck where you can step into a virtual world and experience it like you do a real world. The next big step in this direction is 3D, and when done right, it makes your screen (PC or TV) appear more like a window than a display. The most compelling example of this was at the Nvidia booth, where they had a display that actually made games look vastly more real. While there are a number of TVs that can be made to do 3D right now, there are only two monitors on the market, both 22 inches. One is from Viewsonic, and the other from Samsung. Makes you wonder if the other guys missed a meeting.

Wireless Power

Wireless power was all over the show, but most associate wireless power with broadcast power, and what was all over the show wasn’t broadcast power. Generally there were pads that you could place your device on, and have it charge without having to physically plug it in. The most compelling was the inductive charger for the Palm Pre, which came as the "one more thing" moment at the end of that phone’s introduction. 

All the charging mat technologies were cool, but ever since Intel announced they had broadcast power working last year, that has been the Holy Grail. Here, PowerBeam stood out as one of the few companies showcasing power that truly worked like Wi-Fi does, without wires or mats. 

Gaming:  Affordable or Energy Efficient

There were two clear vectors at the show, one towards green and energy efficiency, and one, due to the economy, towards low cost. The system that carried the low cost banner for gaming was the XPS Dragon System from Dell (which really needed Dragon graphics on the side). At under $1,000, this ATI-graphics-based product was the lowest cost XPS gaming machine that has ever hit the market, and yet it was still a true gaming machine. 

The ecological leader was the HP Firebird, a stunning, water-cooled, highly energy efficient gaming machine that started at around $1,600 (but was sold out in the higher $2,200 configuration because so many wanted the extra power and goodies). This energy-efficient beast was one of the top products of the show, and started showcasing an interesting battle between HP and Dell.

Laptops that were Lustworthy

Once again, with the economy clearly in the forefront of folks’ minds, a laptop that was both very attractive and very affordable took center stage. The HP DV2, which is based on the new AMD Yukon technology and falls into the Apple MacBook Air size class, had a lot of folks thinking this might be the laptop of the show for a number of reasons. It was very attractive, had an entry price of under $700, and could be optioned up (for about $150) to play Blu-Ray movies. 

But if price were no object, Dell had the Adamo, which was a glass-and-brushed-metal masterpiece that looked more like it should be on a pedestal or in a display case than on your lap. This has to be one of the best looking laptops that has ever existed, and it clearly put Apple on notice that when it comes to beautiful, Dell is in this game to win it. Price and internals weren’t announced, but Dell indicated that this beauty would even cause the Voodoo Envy to be, well, envious.  

If you wanted something that had everything though, it was the twin-screen, yes I kid you not, twin-screen 17" W700ds monster that Lenovo announced for the workstation set. While this thing could probably scare small children, for engineers it’s a laptop to be lusted for. And given its size and weight, they could actually use it as a piece of exercise equipment or a personal defense weapon, too. An amazing piece of engineering.

Inkless Printer

Dell had this cool little inkless printer at the show called the Wasabi. Like an earlier product from Polaroid, this product uses a paper that is infused with liquid crystals and can be reused.  This means when you put the used paper back in the printer, the technology updates the picture to the new image.  Now is that cool or what? And the whole thing fits in a pocket (about the size of the original iPod).  

Tiny PCs

The floor was awash with sub-$600 netbooks, which kind of made Apple’s most recent announcement of a big $2,700 laptop look a little out of touch. HP’s Vivian Tam edition netbook , which came out just before Christmas, was reported to be so popular it was sold out for weeks. Dell showcased the Mini 10 netbook that had both a 10-inch screen, and a built-in digital TV tuner. This option could go a long way for all those folks who will, next month, discover their portable TVs stop working. But the wildest thing was the Fugoo, a little $100 modular PC that could be used to turn appliances into connected, PC-like devices which ran a custom form of Windows XP. It made me wonder, given how cool this concept was, why more folks don’t do the custom Windows XP thing.

Windows and Linux Sitting in a Tree…

Windows and Linux have been at war since the very beginning, but Phoenix Technology released a product called Hyperspace that actually uses Linux to make the Windows experience better. It was a cooperative kind of product that gave the user two clear benefits: a machine that would seem to boot much faster, and one that could provide a much more secure browsing experience. This is a product and approach I expect to see a lot more of in the coming months, and which could possibly define the future of Linux on the desktop.

Hyundai

If someone had told me a few years ago that the cars at any show I would want to own were Hyundais, I would have laughed them out of the room. But in a room full of custom cars I couldn’t possibly afford, the cars that stood out were both from Hyundai, one a really cool Crossover Prototype, and the other their soon-to-be-released Genesis Coupe with an Aero kit. When I get hot for a Hyundai, something is truly wrong with the auto industry.  

Of course they had one of the original KITT cars from Knight Rider, an International Harvester Pickup truck (think, if gas was $.10 a gallon you could afford to drive this to the store) , and the most tricked out Nissan GT-R I’d ever seen. They also had a car with a sound system that actually caused the roof of the convention center to flex; I’m thinking that was the first WMD sound system. The car section is one of my favorite parts of the show.  

Thinking of cars, one of the back stories from the show was how much Microsoft Sync helped Ford rise above GM and Chrysler last year. Evidently, it was a huge success for the firm, and it looks like Hyundai, which also uses the same sound system as Rolls Royce (I bet that pisses RR off), will be doing it next.

Wrapping Up

CES was a ball this year, though I think it comes too early and is too big in terms of how much space it covers, to continue as it is. Like MacWorld, it will likely go away, but here’s hoping that doesn’t happen for a number of years. I had a ball, and if I could just figure out where my wife hid my wallet, I’d be out buying a bunch of the things I fell in love with. I tried to tell her I’m just doing my part to save the economy, but she turned up her iPod and isn’t listening.