A lot of the coverage and comments coming out of CES were to the extent of “there was nothing new” and there were only marginal updates to products. I think you need to look at some of the blogs to find the really gee-whiz fun or weird stuff - although AP video managed to find a device that Texas Instruments is developing that will project high quality images/video from your mobile phone. I guess this is what they mean by marginal updates... it’s a projector and there are plenty of projectors out there... but it seems pretty cool to me. Not too mention the fascinating science & technology development that goes into shrinking this projector down to fit into your pocket. (no TI is not a client :-)
Another theme that was talked about was content (over hardware) being more prevalent at CES and the partnerships to bring more content to internet enabled set-top boxes. Coincidentally, my first experiences with connecting my computer to the TV happened this past week when the storms blew DirectTV out. DirectTV informed us that we would have to wait 12 days until someone could come out to realign our dish.
We pretty much went through all of our saved shows on TiVo and finished season 1 of Heroes on DVD.... so it was time to connect the computer to the TV. Simple enough to do because we have a LCD TV – so no different than connecting my laptop to a monitor.
It is impressive the amount of content and first run shows that you can access (without downloading from iTunes or being part of the Hulu or Joost club). We streamed Desperate Housewives one night and the next we started making ground on season 2 of Heroes. I was amazed at how well my simple 802.11b Wi-Fi router did in streaming.
This experience definitely made me even more of a believer in the IPTV future as well as making evident the improvements that are needed.
Even if the TV is suppose to be the “sit back” experience - I can see the potential and fun for interacting with the show as a family (and dare I say the fun of interacting with commercials). The interaction might not be as active as one would do while watching a show alone but there were still enough content extras that were worth clicking on without causing a coup d’etat for the remote control.
So... here is to more marginal improvements in 2008.
