CEA industy forecast; CES Unveiled

Steve Koenig and Shawn DuBravac, CEA analysts, gave their presentation on the state of the consumer electronics industry Saturday. They saw four overall trends for this year: the “going to 11″ approach instead of stopping at 10 (pushing products to be one notch better as consumers demand more and adapt to new technologies faster); the 360 degree solution approach (combining content, services and devices in innovative new ways, such as digital cameras that can wirelessly download to a computer or upload to a photo sharing site); evolving distribution methods for content (getting the songs and videos from the PC, iPod, etc. to effortlessly connect to the home theater system); and redefining mobility (as content, GPS capabilities and more functionality are demanded of mobile devices, which are hardly just phones anymore).

They also said that even though there might be an economic slowdown or slump in other areas, that shouldn’t affect the consumer electronics sector, as consumers seem to be slowing in buying homes and other household purchases (like appliances, commonly called “white goods”) but putting that money into consumer electronics purchases. That also explains why companies like Maytag will be incorporating more features like digital photos on the door to replace the refrigerator magnet, showing more of the 360 degree solution trend.

Shortly after, hundreds of media representatives lined up to enter the CES Unveiled showroom to preview some of the innovative new products that will be at the CES. Some of the showings were more innovative than others, and I picked a few standouts:

Both the InternetVue by Addlogix and the Moxi by Digeo went with the concept of evolving distribution, wirelessly transferring content throughout the home. The InternetVue is a wireless receiver that takes PC content to any display it’s hooked to, whether playing downloaded movies from laptop to TV or slideshows from laptop to projector. With one of these hooked up in a classroom, students with laptops giving presentations could simply transmit from their seats when it’s their turn without any cabling or network hassles.

The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR takes the 360 degree approach to content and distribution, acting as a digital video recorder, cable box replacement, DVD player and wireless distribution point, accessing digital media on a PC or using a Moxi Mate to share programs between different rooms in the home from one source. It can also be connected to an external hard drive for more capacity. While the Moxi’s capabilities can be done with a couple of properly-equipped and networked computers, it’s a simple out-of-the-box solution for the average consumer.

A lot of the products showcased were about simplicity, such as the design of Kreative Power’s Powramid surge protector. It’s nothing new technology-wise at all, but its innovation is all in the shape and form. It might not get an immediate “wow” reaction, but its space-saving design, widely-spaced outlets, hold-down knob for easy plug removal and its safety switch cover combine to make it a product with a lot of value.

Yoggie Security System’s Gatekeeper Pico was named the “Best of Innovations 2008 – Computer Accessories” for CES by combining user-friendly simplicity with lots of benefits. It’s a USB-sized mini computer that acts as an all-in-one security solution for PCs, with firewall, anti-virus and spyware protection and more. By taking all the security functions to a separate computer, it allows it to act before your computer is ever affected, and can’t be corrupted by any programs that would bother Windows. It updates itself (without annoying reminders) for a “set it and forget it” security solution. Best of all, by taking all the security off the computer, all those performance-eating software applications can be removed, increasing the PC’s speed. Having had several viruses (I hate Brontok) slip through my defences recently, I can appreciate the value of having an independent watchdog monitoring my system.

Iqua’s purely solar-powered Bluetooth headset was interesting, as was SanDisk’s solid-state drive laptops, but more on those later, since more announcements on those fronts are anticipated later in the show.