With just one week to go until International CES 2014 begins, the excitement is building and the communications and rumors are coming fast and furious.
Here are a few of the things I and others at Mac Edition Radio are looking for at this year's show:
- More maturity in technologies like Bluetooth 4.0 and 3D printing. 3D printing has been the "next big thing" for years, but the options are really beginning to broaden and make this less of a "bleeding edge" technology.
- Actual 4k content options instead of just the (admittedly gorgeous) 4k displays. I call this the "Elephants versus Top Gun" problem and it happens with every new viewing standard. The elephants (or parrots) are the video that some manufacturer goes and shoots at the local zoo early on to demonstrate the new standard because there is no mass market native material. When you see Top Gun on one of new displays, that means that the native content is actually coming. I'm expecting meaningful announcements from Netflix and others in this area.
- Mac Edition Radio Founder Harris Fogel is excited about the first ever CES Hi-Res Audio Experience tech zone, along with an accompanying exhibitor line-up and three seperate high-res discussion panels.
- Rounding out of notebook and tablet offerings based on Intel's Haswell microprocessor technology. I expect Intel to talk about the next-generation Broadwell technology at CES, but any device that is going to be quick to market will be running Haswell.
- Further integration of smartphone and telematics from major automobile manufacturers, because they have finally figured out that the average age of a car in the United States is about 11 years, while the average age a smartphone is closer to 2 years.
- Wearables everywhere. CES actually has a "WristRevolution" section this year and I expect many announcements from both the usual players and some new entrants.
- More of the faster wired connectivity standards. Expect more USB 3.1 (introduced at CES 2013) and Thunderbolt 2 devices.
Mac Edition Radio will be following up in a few weeks with a report on what actually happens at CES 2014.
John Mulhern III, Posted 12/29/2013
