If you’ve been Tweeting or Facebooking or G+ing at all this week, you’ll notice that there is something called “CES” happening in Las Vegas. CES is clearly overwhelming the tech news cycle – it can’t be helped – but this seems to be the first time it’s started overflowing in social media causing one TC writer to quip: “Wish what happened in Vegas actually would stay in Vegas. #CES”.

Topsy is seeing 77,000 #CES2012 and #CES Tweets in the past 7 days, plus countless Facebook messages.

This constant chatter acts as a sort of back channel you find at most conferences these days, but with an intensity that is unique to massive news events. Most blogs are Tweeting contests, news, and assessments faster than they are actually posting and attendees and folks who are following the show at home are also flooding streams with commentary.

This is also the first year I’ve seen the consistent use of hashtags at almost every booth and event. Maybe – just maybe – the hivemind can cover the show in the future. That, friends, would be a dream.

Here are some ways social media changed CES this year – mostly for the better.

Don’t Mess With Leo – Digital Experience, one of the two parasitical press-event lampreys hanging off of the white, wet underside of CES, gathered ire when they denied Leo Laporte entrance to the event. Digital Experience, run by Pepcom, makes it clear that they do not accept non-registered, non-credentialled attendees, which seems a bit weird since more press is better than less press – even when that press is from DasIfoneBlugger.de, Germany’s 10th largest iPhone blog in Hamburg. In order to maintain this policy, they denied Leo Laporte entrance to their event for not having the proper journalistic credentials. You can hear him talk here.

Leo was planning to cover it for his legions of fans and when they found out he was kicked out, they were livid. Pepcom’s Facebook page is devoid of comments now after being bombed with hate messages and no one from Digital Experience will speak to the press.

While I agree that “Do you know who I am?” is no answer to the velvet rope, this is Digital Experience and it’s paid for by people who would love to talk to Leo Laporte and presumably the other cream of the tech press showing up here.

The CES Trailer – For some real inside baseball, check out @CESTrailer. The persons running it are clearly old hands (I suspect I know who they are) and they’re thrusting a stake between the desiccated dugs of the howl-voiced wraith that is tech blogging. Want more? Try @ScobleDoes for updates of a fictional Robert Scoble doing things.

The Geek-Cred Of Google Plus – Why render your judgement in 140 characters when you can create a conversation! G+ has become a sort of tech back channel where posts are shared and discussed off of their actual homes.

Then again, some people just use it to explain how they’ve fall off the straight-edge wagon at CES.

Rather than do a CES pre-round-up of exciting products I’d like to address this interesting slant on the whole “massive electronics trade show in the middle of the desert” concept that has kept the Gadgets crew here up for the past few weeks. MG said Apple won CES. He was being snide, but, in a way, honest because, in the end, nobody wins CES.

The Consumer Electronics Show is, as its name implies, a show for consumer electronics. These include, but are not limited to, TVs, DVD players, Blu-Ray players (if they still make those), and accessories. TV stands! TV brackets! Speakers! Remotes! In fact, there’s an entire hall dedicated to the Asian purveyors of the components that make up those consumer electronics, a sort of Fishmongers Row to the CE industry where the smell is at least far more tolerable.

You’ll notice that nowhere in there did I mention PCs, laptops, cellphones, tablets, and Microsoft Windows. That’s because those are typically termed “mobile devices” or PCs or operating systems. There are trade shows for those, as well, although they are far fewer these days than they ever were. Why? Because the Internet took away all the fun of schlepping a booth to the Javits Center in New York and paying for hotel rooms and food for a bunch of salesmen to stand around giving out tote bags. Why have a COMDEX when you can get Engadget, The Verge, and Gizmodo to cover your geegaw the moment it’s launched. Why pay $100,000 in booth fees at SXSW as a start-up when you can talk to TechCrunch to get approximately the same number of eyes? It doesn’t make sense.

CES is really for buyers. Sure it’s a hoot to see what gadgets will launch at back-to-school in September and we, regrettably, will be there reporting on start-ups and cool gadgets we find. But it’s buyers – men and women who love to spend a week eating steak and playing backgammon at MGM grand – who really drive CES. Buyers may be considerably more plugged in these days than they were in the past, but the orders they place at CES are usually the last time they actively pursue the noephillic instinct until January of the next year. Again, with the rise of the Internet, this is swiftly changing but for now the mom-and-pop electronics shop in Scranton trying to fight off Amazon and Best Buy comes to CES to see which TVs to stock.

Microsoft left CES because the news cycle it imparted on the industry didn’t suit it. You can talk backroom politics all you want, but in the end Microsoft could make its own news without CES. Every company is beholden to produce something new and great for CES and their R&D teams are geared to follow this schedule. Microsoft wanted off the treadmill, and they’re big enough to do it.

Ultimately, nobody wins CES because there’s nothing to win. Most products announced don’t launch for months (if not years) and the major news articles end up being trend pieces rather than actual reviews. Sometimes companies can take the air out of the event by launching something “huge” – the Palm Pre is the last item in recent memory that really stole the show – but CES is about selling real goods to real people, not impressing some tech blogger with a 1 terabyte cellphone. It behooves us to remember that the Consumer in Consumer Electronics Show is less a term of endearment and more a target for a precision strike. We are the consumer. They want to sell to us. CES is geared to making that happen.

If you’re a gearhead, I don’t want to cancel Christmas on you here. Yuck it up. We’ll be covering it in our own way over here. However, just remember that CES exists not to offer solace to the unmitigated fanboy. It exists to make money and when that money can be made elsewhere, CES will go away.

Are you ready for CES? I know I am. The PR emails are flowing in and I’m going to respond to every single one of them. I can’t wait to hear about Samsung’s social media stuff. And Vizio’s new thingy. I can’t wait to get my hands on that one thing made by those guys who did that other thing last year that no one bought. It’s gonna be fantastic. So pumped.

…

No, I’m not going to CES. I’ve never been to CES. I doubt I’ll ever go to CES. Why would I?

As far as I can tell, every person that I know who is going to CES views it as more of a chore. They’re not excited to go; they dread it. PR people may seem overly enthusiastic about it (27 emails about iGoldenShower or whatever — really?), but following this tweet, a few messaged me to say that they actually hate it more than any other week of the year. By all accounts, CES is a shitshow. And to make matters worse, it’s not even timed with the porn convention this year.

Maybe I’m being a bit unfair. While those of us on this side may be burned out (apparently even Microsoft), there are clearly still plenty of consumers and trade folk buying tickets to go or CES wouldn’t happen. And while I might not give a damn, I also only cover Apple now for TechCrunch (like this post, clearly). And as everyone is well aware, Apple never has any presence at CES. But others have to go to cover it because there is more to the gadget (and larger technology) world than Apple. Yes, I’m actually acknowledging this.

But actually, thinking back to the past few CES conventions, all I seem to recall is people talking about Apple anyway. If Sony announced something, it was compared to what Apple was doing in the space. Each keynote was compared to a Steve Jobs keynote. If LG sneezed, a thousand bloggers would check the tissue for Apple snot. Everyone else was consumed with what Apple was always just about to announce…

In years past, Apple used the stage at Macworld to one-up CES. More recently, they hold their own events to do so. Two years ago, it was the iPad. Last year, the Verizon iPhone. That tradition of overshadowing is likely to continue — only this year, it will be overshadowing on steroids.

Part of this will be the fault of the companies actually at CES. Oh look, an iMac clone. Oh look, a MacBook Air clone. And another one. And another one. Don’t forget the blatant MacBook Pro rip-offs too! And a few iPhone rip-offs for good measure. And 35 “iPad killers” that will ultimately kill themselves.

But the biggest story is going to be the beast unseen: the Apple Television.

Talk about this still-mythical product kicked into high gear leading up to the release of Steve Jobs’ biography — and for good reason. Now that talk is in pure overdrive. It will come later this year in 32-inch and 37-inch sizes. No wait, make that 42-inches. Actually, a 50-inch one already totally exists in a dark dungeon somewhere in Cupertino. “Advanced backlighting” FTW!

At this rate, by the end of CES, the thing is going to be 200-inches and be powered by cold fusion.

Every single television that is unveiled at CES this year is going to be accompanied by talk of Apple’s device. Executives from other companies will try to deflect this talk, but they won’t be able to. Instead, they’ll have to stray into talk about “Apple forcing everyone to up their game” or worse “we’ll just have to wait and see”. The truth is that Apple — which again, hasn’t actually said a word about any such product — already has the entire industry scrambling.

The tidal wave of Apple talk will be compounded by whispers of the iPad 3. It’s coming, but when? What will it look like? This manufacturer over at this booth talked to someone in the supply chain. How does the screen on this device compare to the as-yet-unseen 9.7-inch Retina Display? SIRI!!!!

And finally there’s the known-but-unknown Apple event taking place just after CES in New York. Publishing and textbooks will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue at CES. What do those have to do with gadgets? Doesn’t matter, just go with it.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to CES this year.

[image: flickr/primeimagemedia.com]

This year will be Microsoft’s last year at CES where the company usually runs the keynote and takes up a huge portion of the show floor. “In looking at all the ways that Microsoft is now reaching its’ customers today (its’ owned events, marketing campaigns, retail stores, etc.) this felt like a natural time to make this transition,” wrote an MS PR rep.

This will also be the last time CEO Steve Ballmer keynotes the show.

The software (and hardware) giant usually commanded a great swathe of the CES show floor including tents outside the convention center. Traditionally a PC-centric show, CES has slowly moved into an event dedicated to iPhone/iPod accessories and, to a lesser extent, other electronics including cameras, PC components, and mobile devices. Because there are currently a plethora of potential shows where Microsoft could exhibit, including both MWC in Barcelona and CTIA for mobile and its own events for Windows-related news, not to mention a huge presence at E3 for Xbox, it’s clear that the audience at CES is now less important to Microsoft on the aggregate.

CES 2012 is going to be a crapshoot of predictable products. How do we know? Meetings, lots and lots of pre-show meetings. Like previous shows, Apple will not be present in person but still has a major presence. Consumer electronic companies are seemingly trying to build product lines and feature sets that compete directly with current and future Apple products. It’s as if these companies are prematurely releasing items just to head off Apple. The iPad took them by surprise and they’re not going to let that happen again — even if that means announcing and releasing half-baked products.

So, what can we expect to see at CES this year? What are we going to cover live at the show? Read on.

MacBook Air Clones

First up, every computer company will debut several ultrabook models. These slim notebooks will drop into both business and consumer product lines. Most computer companies’ ultrabooks fit within Intel’s definition of the product as an ultra thin notebook void of optical drives and built around a mobile Intel chipset. However, the term “ultra” looks to be a major buzz word next year as it’s used in other product names as well just without the word “book” following it.

Larger screened ultrabooks are also on tap. Look for 14-inch and larger models. Just like it we predicted, many of these models feature prices lower than current models and in some cases, dramatically lower. 2012 will be the year of the ultrabook, for better or worse.

So-called Smart HDTVs

Google chairman Eric Schmidt previously stated that by the summer of 2012, “the majority of television you see will have Google TV embedded in it.” At the time the Schmidt’s comment was certainly laughable given the sorry state of Google TV adoption. But that’s set to change with CES 2012 where his statement will be somewhat validated.

From what we’ve seen, several major manufacturers will debut Android powered HDTVs that feature little to no Google TV 2.0 design elements. We’re not sure how much Google TV underpins these smart TVs, but the majority of what we’ve seen has been labeled as Android TV, not Google TV.

The companies debuting smart TVs at CES are seemingly determined to get the jump on Apple this time around. If Apple is in fact releasing a smart HDTV product in 2012, these companies will be ready with their own models built around Android. Ironically, since there are several such TVs coming from different manufacturers, the smart TV market might collapse prematurely under the weight of half-baked models all trying to outdo an Apple HDTV that doesn’t even exist yet.

Android Tabs And More

Even with the Kindle Fire currently getting all the attention, the Asus Eee Transformer line is the Android fanboy favorite. The original Transformer tablet was cheaper than others, featured great specs and, most importantly, a keyboard dock that turned that tablet into an Android netbook of sorts. Now, a year later, several other manufacturers will debut their own take on the dockable product. They’re all about the same: slim casing, quad-core, ICS. The keyboard docks add additional I/O ports and an additional battery.

Predictably, these tablets and the others we’ve seen, mostly run on quad-core platforms with the Nvidia Tegra 3 as the clear favorite. Ice Cream Sandwich is of course present, and most of the tabs are set to ship within the early months of 2012 at $399 to $499 price points.

Voice Control Is The Unwanted Future

A smaller but still notable trend for the 2012 CES involves Siri clones inside new product types. Using off the shelf systems, companies have developed “me too” voice controls. From what we’ve seen, none best Apple’s system in any way but the sheer numbers state that, for better or worse, voice controls will be a major trend next year. And since many perform worse that Apple’s system, consumers will no doubt instantly discredit the usefulness of voice controls in general.

Several smart TV concepts have optional voice controls. Using a mic embedded in a remote, viewers are supposedly able to control certain functions with just their voice. We haven’t seen any demos but the company’s limited descriptions lends us to believe that the feature set is very limited and is probably more of a novelty than a useful feature.

But don’t fret, friends. CES 2012 will be huge. We didn’t ruin all the fun. We’re still going to be there, reporting with a constant live video stream. It will be the biggest collection of exciting gadgets and tantalizing products assembled to date. Items like voice controls and smart TVs will likely fade to obscurity shortly afterwards, just as 3DTVs did last year. The real star of CES is the odd, unusual, and paradigm-busting item that defies the popular trends. That’s why we love CES.

Tune in Sunday, January 8th (around 4:00 PST) as we kick off our live video coverage of the 2012 International CES. Like previous years, we’re going to livestream all of our tomfoolery as we roam the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center. There will be giveaways, tweetups and, of course, a drinking game. It will be great fun for all.

Microsoft head honcho Steve Ballmer will return to CES in January 2012, kicking off the consumer technology tradeshow with a preshow keynote, the fourth time he’ll be taking the stage to do so.

“We are pleased to welcome Microsoft back to the CES keynote stage,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which owns and produces CES.

The 2012 International CES is scheduled January 10-13, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada. CEA says the full line-up of 2012 International CES keynote addresses will be announced in coming months.

Ballmer’s preshow keynote address is slated for 6:30 PM on Monday, January 9, in The Venetian.

Microsoft has used the CES keynote stage in previous years to unveil products like the original Xbox and Avatar Kinect.

Care to venture some guesses as to what Ballmer will be announcing next January?

(Picture courtesy of Microsoft Sweden @ Flickr)

The so-called HAL-5 is probably the most advanced of the robotic suits designed to help elderly or disabled people walk out there. Made by Japan-based Cyberdyne, it enables handicapped people to walk around and lift heavy objects almost effortlessly – by thought alone.

I’ve seen the spectacular exoskeleton in action several times in Japan, but never got around to wear one. But tech journalist Evan Ackerman did (during the recent CES), as the first American ever.

The way HAL-5 works is that it transforms brain signals sensed through the skin into motion (Ackerman had a sensor on each thigh plus two on his waist). HAL-5′s battery pack lasts for over 2.5h on a single charge.

In the video below, you can see Ackerman wearing HAL-5′s legs, which weigh 15kg in total and support their own weight (the full suit with arms weighs 8kg more). It looks like he’s pretty impressed, and he doesn’t seem to have problems walking (I previously heard of “serious” users in Japanese hospitals complaining about HAL-5 steep learning curve).

Via IEEE Spectrum

This is the CG CES Crew: Jon Orlin, Matt Burns, Greg Kumparak, Kyle Thibaut, Devin Coldewey, and John Murillo. Nicholas was somewhere else and I was taking the picture. They are the coolest bunch of guys you’d ever want to meet and we had a blast talking to you via Twitter and UStream all last week. If you’d like to see the things we carried, check out Jon’s post on his streaming rig and check out our remaining CES coverage here.

The traditional, old-school way of broadcasting a live event would involve driving up a satellite truck with a C or Ku band transmitter. Or, getting a special expensive video fiber circuit connected at the venue. But, that would only allow a video feed from a single location. Otherwise we’d need multiple circuits or time to drive and set-up the sat truck at different locations.

We wanted to stream at a moments notice, from the Sands Expo during CES Unveiled and the following Media Day, from the inside and outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, and from hotel parties and events all over the Las Vegas Strip. Plus, we wanted to roam the halls without any wired connection. We investigated some RF and microwave transmitter options but they involved great expense and production limitations. We finally settled on a mobile streaming solution, with a backup ‘nearly live’ wired solution. We never needed to resort to the taped backup.

We used a LiveU mobile package provided by our live streaming partner, Ustream. The livepack fits in a custom designed backpack. It takes a firewire input containing video and audio from a camera. We used our Panasonic HVX200a camera and some wireless microphones and a camera LED light. The livepack has 6 data modems and attempts to connect to 3 different mobile phone networks (ATT, Verizon, and Sprint). The signal is put back together by LiveU and then sent to Ustream for live streaming distribution.

Giving the bandwidth issues to be expected when 125,000 (Update: CES now says 140,000) tech savvy people get together in one place, we had some concerns that the technology would work. Those concerns grew when we tried un-successfully to use our mobile phones. But, with its 6 modems, the livepack was able to get a connection 95% of the time. The bandwidth was constantly changing. During the best times, we were getting more than 1Mbps upstream. At a few locations, such as the lower level of the Sands Expo Center during CES Media Day, and inside of few of the exhibitors private conference rooms, we weren’t able enough bandwidth. So, the stream froze, stuttered, or turned into audio only at times.

On the livepack, we chose the small CIF video window setting. While a sacrifice to quality, this allowed for more consistent streaming performance. Ustream distributed an encoded feed at 400k, with a 480×270 window and h.264 video. We didn’t get any viewer complaints about the video image quality.

Batteries and battery planning was key. The livepack has an internal battery and also runs on hot swappable external batteries. We got about 2 hours on a full external battery and carried lots of spares. We also had lots of camera batteries (not hot-swappable), wireless mic, and LED light batteries.

Most of the time, the system worked way above our expectations. But, we did have 2 other non-transmission issues. The camera connects to the livepack using a firewire plug. Not the best, robust connection. Even taped down, that came loose a few times, but there is a monitor screen on the pack that alerted us to the problem.

One night, the pack wouldn’t start up. A quick call to the phone number on the pack for LiveU at 10pm Eastern Time, helped us confirm a hardware problem, most likely a loose circuit board. We had just carried it for miles on a busy convention floor. A gentle nudge got the livepack working again. But, we weren’t ready to trust it, and used a backup wired solution for coverage from a fixed location that night. But with another day of coverage coming up with miles of walking the halls, Ustream rushed us a new livepack overnight, and we were up and running on Friday.

The LiveU livepack we used has been out on the market for a year and a half. It’s used by streaming video providers Ustream and Livestream, in addition to broadcast networks. It’s been used at all kinds of sports event and the Grammy Awards. A new HD livepack started shipping last week. It contains 6 to 12 cellular connections (including T-Mobile), and supports Verizon LTE 4G and Sprint and ClearWire WiMax 4G. The new units also feature SDI, HDMI, and analog input, in addition to FireWire. And they output SD and HD to 1080i.

Even with our 1st generation livepack, we succeeded in our mission to bring CES directly to our viewers. Our viewers got to hear about dozens of new TVs, phones, tablets, cameras and headphones plus interviews with the CEO of Ford and T-Pain. And behind the scenes previews of the RED Scarlet, the Notion Ink Adam tablet, and Microsoft’s Surface V2. And they got a chance to see what it’s like to drive around in GM’s EN-V futuristic car.

They also got an honest look at CES, warts and all. They saw when we didn’t get into the Samsung event on Media Day, after waiting in a Disneyland size line. And they came along to several booths where no one wanted to talk to us or our viewers even though the booth representatives were standing there talking with other convention visitors. Our viewers gave us instant feedback on what they were seeing, which booths to see, and even some help when we got lost. All in all, quite the interactive, front row, video experience.

John Borthwick weighed in on the inevitable Year of the Tablet discussion from New York, where my view of Apple dominance is met with healthy skepticism but no real counter argument. Borthwick’s Bit.ly service continues to prosper even as Twitter consolidates services and clients in-house. As a self-described former member of the entertainment cartel (AOL), he declined repeatedly to join my cartel-bashing while essentially agreeing with me.

Androiders @JTaschek and @KevinMarks ably represented the Android-will-beat-Apple-if-we-have-to-ship-individual-tablet-models-for-each-customer crowd. Marks even had one of the paperweights that he brandished on camera. I fended off a plea from @Borthwick to fix the RSS feed for the 7 remaining people who would rather podcast than stream. Other stuff was talked about. I had fun.

He demoed the app on a Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.2.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of the price of the app, nor if it will net you an extra subscription fee.

I guess time will tell.

[via Mobile Burn]

Microsoft are clearly choosing an entertainment spin on Windows Phone 7 at the moment (also reflected by their upcoming Mango update sitting in the “entertainment” code branch), and, as such, the keynote focussed on this aspect, looking heavily toward Xbox Live integration.

The first interesting announcement from Big-B Ballmer is that Fable is coming to Windows Phone 7… in the form of golf. The game will be called Fable Coin Golf, and the neatest feature of it is that all gold earned in the game will be immediately available to your Fable III character on your Xbox 360.

This was shortly followed up by a video showing off some of the games coming soon/available on Windows Phone. The list includes (in order of appearance):

• Rise of Glory
• Full House Poker
• Zombies!!!
• Pac-Man
• Fable Coin Golf
• Halo Waypoint
• Fruit Ninja
• DeBlob Revolution
• Parachute Panic
• Tetris
• Game room: Centipede
• Game room: Shao Lin’s Road
• Game room: Asteroids Deluxe
• Assassin’s Creed
• Monopoly
• Pocket God
• Zombie Attack! 2
• Butterfly
• PES 2011 (Pro Evolution Soccer)
• The Sims 3
• Need for Speed Undercover
• Star Wars: Cantina

They also showed off Avatar Gadgets, which are simple little things that your avatar can do, like flipping a coin.

If you like numbers, Steve also gave us the latest WinPho 7 stats:

• There are currently around 5,500 apps available on the Marketplace
• 100 new apps added every 24 hours
• 22,000 registered developers
• Most customers are downloading a new app every day
• 9/10 Windows Phone 7 customers on AT&T would recommend it to a friend

Finally, Steve B-fresh outlined the update that will automatically be pushed to customers soon. As we mentioned yesterday, the update will bring Copy/Paste support, CDMA support, bug fixes, and “significant” performance improvements when opening and switching apps.

The rest of the demo showed of the 7 best features of Windows Phone 7. We’ve seen them all before, but, for the curious, they were:

1. The dedicated camera button and easy sharing of photos
2. Interactive lock screen and tiles
3. Voice search, with location awareness
4. Dedicated search button and Bing integration
5. Hubs, including the Office Hub and OneNote support
6. Apps, including those from Bank of America, Travelocity, Fandango, Amazon.com
7. Xbox Live, where they showed a demo of Fruit Ninja

And, sadly, that’s really it. No big news on new hardware, or any surprise features coming in Mango. I guess we have to wait until MWC for that info.

But don’t take my word for it, you can watch the whole event here.

The vacuum is available now in the UK and will sell at Best Buy for $300. And I said CES would be boring!

Product Page via Giz

Every year, it seems the buzz starts building around now for CES, the giant consumer electronics expo in Las Vegas. And every year at CES, much of the buzz seems to be around the one company that isn’t there — perhaps the most important consumer electronics company these days: Apple.

And this year will be no different. Except that this year, the CES buzz-kill may be more intensified as there are not one, but two key Apple products expected to be announced shortly after the expo: the iPad 2 and the Verizon iPhone.

With just about a week to go until CES, the Apple rumor mill is beginning to ignite. Today alone, we have stories of Apple winding down iPad 1 production to get ready to ramp up for iPad 2. And then there’s this BusinessWeek article (once again) announcing the impending launch of an iPhone that will work on Verizon’s network for the first time.

More specifically, here’s how AppleInsider phrases the iPad production story:

According to a new report by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Equity Research, Apple has shifted iPad production from an estimated 2.1 million units in November to just 1.6 million in December in order to prepare for the launch of revised new tablet, expected to be announced in January.

And here’s what BusinessWeek has to say about the Verizon iPhone:

Very soon, maybe by Valentine’s Day, Apple will likely host one of its splashy product introductions to announce a new version of the iPhone that works on Verizon’s network.

In other words, if these reports are to be believed, Apple will likely be holding either one (massive) event in January to unveil both products. Or they’ll have two separate events in January for each different product. Neither event, obviously, would be CES.

And so the buzz surrounding all the tablets and mobile devices that will be shown at CES will likely once again be overshadowed by the lingering promise of new products by Apple. It used to be that Apple screwed CES by announcing such products a few weeks later at Macworld. But now they go it alone, overshadowing the conference dedicated to them as well.

The only real question is if Apple would actually unveil both the Verizon iPhone and the iPad 2 at the same event — or even in the same month?

Both are tent pole-worthy announcements in their own right. The iPad 2 is bigger news than the Verizon iPhone, which is expected to simply be a current-generation iPhone 4 with CDMA-insides. But there are millions of people waiting for a Verizon iPhone, and Apple would undoubtedly want to use a stage to announce that the device is finally available on the biggest network in the United States. And most accounts have such an announcement taking place in January.

The iPad 2 announcement would likely be a bigger one because it would also be a state of the union for Apple’s newest billion-dollar revenue stream, and supposed future of computing, and the future of iOS, etc. Apple announced the first iPad at an event last January, but didn’t actually release it until April. So while some, like AppleInsider, are betting on a January unveiling, Apple could conceivably wait until the Spring to show off iPad 2, closer to when it’s ready to ship.

Of course, the talk of iPad 2 production already ramping up may suggest that they would release the device sooner. And spacing it 6 months apart from the traditional iPhone unveiling date does make some sense.

And the other hot rumor is that the iPad 2 will come in three flavors: WiFi, GSM, and CDMA. That latter, obviously, would be an iPad that is Verizon-compatible. Apple could conceivably tie the two announcements together that way. I can see it now: “oh, and one more thing, the iPad isn’t the only device coming to Verizon…”

But what about that other Apple event that was supposed to take place in early 2011? You know, the one to show off the new News Corp.-created iPad newspaper? Does that also fit into a iPad 2 unveiling? And what about rumored MacBook Pro and iMac upgrades? Oh, and what about the Mac App Store, which is set to launch on January 6? Funny timing, that’s the first day of CES.

[photo: flickr/outcast104]

Note that instead of bright lights the Sony booth actually used big dishes made of aluminum foil to focus light on the booth.

The Grube talks about an Apple-less MacWorld and how it will be a pretty sad show without the regular one-ring circus that is the Steve Jobs keynote but that it won’t be absolutely horrible, with smaller companies actually getting some attention this time. My thinking? Nah. Big trade shows are going down and here are a few reasons why:

The Economy Who can spend a few thousand on airfare, hotels, and coference tickets? Not many small companies right now and big companies that might not care too much about conferences like MacWorld or even the Game Developer Conference or CES are loathe to send employees who will probably just get a nice steak dinner and lounge around watching pay-per-view instead of attending workshops. There’s a reason “going to a conference” has always intimated something untoward in movies and TV. What else do you do at a conference besides look for coffee and wish you were home?
Us and You Blogs and other news sources – Twooter, Booz, and Facetwoot included – give everyone a methodology for sharing interesting information. In the past, information sharing was one to many. Now it can be one to one. A Chinese company doesn’t have to wing its way to Las Vegas to show off its resistors.
The Next Generation These kids these days. You think they want to wander around a big hall full of men and women dressed in suits? No! They want cosplay and cartoons and video games. Birds of a feather conferences like PAX and ComicCon are different animals entirely and should be the next model for conferences like MacWorld: small, focused events in multiple cities, some events online. Tech conferences are like science fairs and with the crackdown on booth babes, they’re not even fun anymore.
Networking and Sales are Online The guys from Best Buy and Wal-Mart don’t need to go to CES. They get stuff shown to them all the time. The guys at B&H Camera don’t need to go to CES. They, too, have a set inventory and most of their hottest gear is announced regularly online. Sure, you need face-time sometimes but that face time can be done more efficiently and with less hassle.

A big tech conference is a hassle. Things are changing on that front, but I doubt we’ll see a MacWorld in the next decade. Thoughts?

First the Wii stuff. The Wand+ is Nyko’s latest replacement for the standard Wii Remote. Other than being fully compatible Wii Motion Plus games without needing an extra dongle, it doesn’t have a whole lot of extra functionality that the standard remote doesn’t. As you can see above it is slightly smaller, although the buttons have been enlarged a bit. It rests comfortably in your hand, does what it’s supposed to, and doesn’t suck. It comes in the two designer colors you see, for $39.99.

The Type Pad is an interesting attachment, applicable mostly to those who browse the web a lot on their Wii. The QWERTY keypad is within easy reach of your thumbs, and the A and B buttons become triggers on the underside. It fits both Nyko’s wand series and the standard remote. No extra batteries needed, it’ll leech power straight from the remote. $29.99 if you just absolutely need a full keyboard for your Wii experience.

And speaking of power, the Charge Base Quad let’s you recharge four controllers at once, either the Wand or original. One cool thing is that complete contact between the remote and the charger isn’t necessary to charge, meaning you don’t have to take off any gel cases or the like. There’s also a USB port on the base so you can charge your phone, beard trimmer, etc. all for just $49.99.

Okay, if you really need me to explain this product, I’m not sure what I can tell you. It’s a gun. For your Wii. It’s $14.99. It works.

Now we make a quick delve into the Playstation realm. If you were disappointed the PS3 Slim reduced the number of USB slots, you’re in luck. This media hub attachment will give you 4 USB ports, a media card reader for SD and Sony memory sticks, and an IR remote to control DVD and Blu-ray playback. They run $24.99 a pop.

And from the PS3 we bounce over to its mortal enemy, the Xbox 360. The SpeakerCom 360 is a combination headset and loudspeaker, so you can share you profanity laden Xbox Live conversations with the whole room. It requires a single AAA battery, and the backs of the earbuds are magnetic. I personally prefer an actual headset for gaming, so the weight isn’t on my ears. But to each their own. $19.99.

First, the science. The primary method your brain places sounds is based on the time discrepancy of the sound arriving to your ears. If you hear a sound off to your right, the sound waves from that source will hit your right ear milliseconds before your left one. Based on the length of time it takes for your brain to register the sound in the “far” ear, you can place where the sound is coming from.

The 5 drivers are located on the headband, aimed upwards. They feed the sound into hollow channels, which lead to the ear cups. There are two such sound channels, one for the front and one for the back. It truly is a brilliant, innovative system. A sound that is supposed to be coming from your left, will be emitted from the driver closer to your left ear. It has a shorter path to travel, meaning the sound will reach your left ear first, creating the directional illusion. Since there are no speakers around your ears, the acrylic shield on the cup can fold open, letting your ears breathe. Even though you already have other organs for that.

The unit proved its worth in our hands-on demo. A quick run through Crysis showed the technology really does work. These headphones seamlessly deliver surround sound, and with much less hassle / setup of a traditional 5.1 speaker system. Since its completely physics based, there’s no digital processing to slow the signal down. I give these a thumbs-up, and if you have $300 to spend, I highly recommend it.

[Psyko Audio Labs]

We found a pair of these previously announced Sennheiser headphones here at CES and got a hands-on demo for you guys.

The short version: They have a rugged, solid feel and great sound quality. A bit pricey, but if you are an avid outdoorsman, you won’t go wrong with these.

There are four models in the series. All have a reported frequency response of 18Hz – 20kHz, maximum output of 120 dB (save the MX which peaks at 118 dB), and 16 Ω’s of impedance. The kevlar-reinforced cable is a bit short, which cuts down on the amount of bounce while you’re running. You can add a cable extension if you want, which also gives you an in-line remote with volume control and a shirt clip. The headphones can supposedly withstand temperatures of up to (or down to, in this case) -10 degrees Centigrade. Unfortunately, no one at CES was showcasing a super walk-in freezer, so I wasn’t able to give these headphones a proper test. Nor was there a sauna company, so their sweat-proof claim is untested as well.

The difference in the models are in the design styles. The OMX are pictured above, and go over your ears. I wasn’t able to get a good fit with them, due to my glasses. The MX and CX in-ears are shown to the left, with only the CX actually going into your ear-canal. The “ear-fin” secures the earbuds against the inside of your ear. It works, but it’s not the most comfortable configuration. The PMX, below, is a neckband design, and in my opinion, the most secure fitting and comfortable of all four.

The audio quality across all four is great all around. If you jog often, and utilize your media player while you do so, these headphones are a good investment. Provided you have the 80 to 120 bucks for them.

[Sennheiser]