The second biggest show of North America has taken Las Vegas by storm for another year…the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) is here! With five days of releases and mobs of attendees needing mitigation, your favorite Geek Apostle is here for you with a live report. Minus this year is the concurrent timing of AVN (Who doesn’t like a friendly Porn convention during mobs of Nerds) — and, of course, no Apple TV set — but in Vegas, between Sony/Panasonic and a newcomer on the streets in Hisense (Chinese Television Company), there was more than enough wiring to keep everyone’s hormones happy.
4K/OLED TV’s
With CES nearly wrapping up, it was time for the the future of the G.E.E.K. revolution: the new 4K OLED technology. During the CES keynote speakers, electronics giants Panasonic and Sony both debuted the hottest thing since 3D went no where! Of course, the chance of your average consumer getting their hands on a TV of this caliber is likely to be slim unless their wallet bleeds money like Paris Hilton bleeds dignity!
Your obvious first question should be: “what is 4K?” 4K is a technology that uses 4,000 pixels of horizontal resolution on a HD display. Which, if you’re counting at home, people, means that 4K is four times the resolution of any current HDTV on the market. So in layman’s terms, you’re receiving a much sharper picture, blacker blacks than Mark Henry, and whiter whites than “The Big Bang Theory”. Go ahead. Take a magnifying glass to your TV screen and search for pixels!
Good luck.
On display in the Hisense booth was a 110 inch 4K that would have any gamer venturing an apocalyptic alien invasion ala Gears of War: Judgment excited-er than a motherfunner.
Samsung has an 85-inch coming out at around $20,000, Sony’s 84″ will hit $25,000.00, and if your on a budget (ha!), LG will be releasing one for $12,000.00 that hits 55″. Final thought: Hey, these TV’s are beautifully “unreal,” but I just don’t think there is much of a market for super expensive TV’s this side of the 90210.
Active 3D TV’s
The next big thing to come out of CES is the Active (Glasses Free) 3D TV’s. You can just hear Moody rejoice! As you may already know, the 3D TV has been out for a couple years and has truly never taken off, no matter how popular 3D may be at the cinema. Blame those damn glasses for the overall lack of consumer gusto.
Manufacturers have — finally — created the prototype glasses free 3D technology. The primary companies pushing for this technology are Stream TV partnered up with Hisense, Dolby, Philips, Vizio and Toshiba. After reviewing each of the manufacture approaches (but being unable to do a side by side comparison), Dolby appears to be ahead of the game so far, perhaps only because I didn’t get dizzy watching their demos at Dolby (same with Vizio). The 3D effects may be less dramatic though, in comparison to what Hisense is doing with their 2D conversion to 3D. Unfortunately, staring at Hisense’s glasses free HD 3D TV could turn you crosseyes. Forever. Ever-ever?
But look, when you don’t factor in glasses there will always be sweet spots and prime-viewing distances from which to watch. Sitting at an angle limits what 3D effects you can perceive. When will these be on the market? Not for a minute, says these marketing execs. Ooglo-oo.
Smart Watches
They always say the smart watch is the one you left at home. But, for now, with the mass appeal of smart phones and fashion, there’s a chance for combining both. No longer at the wayside of killing battery life — if only that problem were solved for all of our smart phones, eh? — there’s newer companies, such as Martian wristwatches and Cookoo, that have picked up the Smart Watch slack. The Cookoo watch runs on a standard button cell and should last for about a year. The novelty of both watches, however, is the Bluetooth signal picked up from a consumer’s cell. These signals will announce incoming calls or texts, and vibrate email notifications or upcoming appointments. The watch can also communicate to the phone through voice commands for when you want to text back. You can now couple a smart watch with a fashionable band from Mobile Mob too. Come on, people, Jimmy Bond’s been doing this for years!
Smart Gaming
The future of gaming is no longer hindered to the size of your box (hey nowww) or that disk you can’t stop holding (hey nowww, again). The Big 3 (Playstation, Microsoft, Nintendo) have all showed interest in streaming games from the cloud, which in turn cuts out the middle vendor, such as Gamestop. The bigger controversy in all this, however, has been about the lack of revenue gaming companies will lose to the resells of used games that typically lines the gaming stores’ pockets. There have already been several server issues on the XBOX Live and PS Network. Imagine a wildly successful release such as Halo or Call of Duty bludgeoning servers on opening night, or those massive multi-player battles that could crash without the disc helping save some face.
Also, sadly yet not surprisingly, there were NO new announcements from Microsoft or Sony on new systems. Perhaps this June at E3, there’ll be something (it’s to be expected). Hisense is working with a Smart TV app company called AIWI, which has created an app for Hisense Android-based Smart TV’s that lets you download Nintendo Wii games directly to your Smart TV. Your smart phones, in turn, can then be used as a motion sensor control…or vibrator, if that’s your thing.
Use those gyroscopes!
An end to another amazing CES. What does the future hold, and where does it go next year? What will be the HBK Show Stopper?
I’m still waiting on that flying car and hover board….
Slackers.