Reel Word

Here are a few items and trends that stood out for me at this year’s CES

Face detection in camcorders; A number of vendors showed HD camcorders that can detect and track human faces in motion.  The information is used for adjusting the color to more accurately refect skin tone.  This is not face recognition technology, which could be used for security, image search, and other data gathering and processing purposes.

OLED displays: Organic light emitting diode displays.  They are still small, and are far more expensive than the competing LCD, Plasma, and DLP display panel / TV technologies.  But their image looks amazingly clear and bright.

Contrast ratios; there seemed to be a lot more panel displays with 35,000:1 and higher contrast ratio.  The contrast ratio is the range of image brightness that the panel is able to display.  The range from the blackest black it can show to the whitest white.  Panasonic even showed one that they claimed could simulate 1,000,000:1, although to my eyes it was really closer to 35,000:1.

Wireless HD networks; there was a big push toward moving large amounts of content wirelessly within the home.  Unfortunately, there were multiple technologies on display and little convergence on interoperability.  I believe the Sony booth alone displayed three different technologies addressing three different specific applications.  This is an area where cooperation and convergence will be good for the industry and the consumer.

Price gouging continues; This year it cost $30 to park in the normally free parking structure at the Hilton.  Room rates were up to five times their normal rate.  It was big news on local TV in Las Vegas that CES is now threatening to move the show elsewhere if prices are not brought under control (New York, Orlando, and Chicago were mentioned).

My favorite gadget was the FairyFly by WowWee .  It is a robotic Fairy for children that flies in an upright position by flapping wings on its back.  WowWee has a full line of flying robots and other strange toys .