‘Content, Content, Content’ seems to be the flavour of 2006’s Consumer Electronics Show. In one form or another, focus appears to be delivering and distributing, viewing or producing mainly video in the comfort of our living rooms and on personal, portable devices. Here’s a round up of the major keynote speech’s
Beginning with the analogy the media is now pulled not pushed, Sir Howard Stringer begin the Sony Keynote with a lot of talk about direction for the company. One of the few examples displayed was the location free capabilities of the Sony PSP that was released with a recent version of the firmware. He demonstrated receiving TV broadcast from his London home while being on stage.
There are rumours circulating that Yahoo may be interested in acquiring social bookmarking/ technology site Digg. Rodney Smith blogged about this about three weeks ago and Thomas Hawk’s added his argument and slant on this subject.
Personally I think adding Digg to their existing social networking stable of products would make enormous business sense for Yahoo. Digg, a tech news site with an existing user base and undeniable potential for expansion into other subject areas, seems an irresistible acquisition. As mentioned before I firmly believe the future of web search is not solely with the best algorithm but how well it’s integrated with the human element of such social networking sites. The question that remains is whether Digg and the VC’s that invested would be willing to talk business.
It looks like Sony is trying to corner the electronic book reader market – again. The ‘Sony Reader’ is about the same size as a paperback and electronic versions of bestselling novels will be available through a Sony along the same lines as Itunes. After failing with a product in Japan that was thought to be too expensive, I can’t see that launching a product with a $300 – $400 price point is much different. Further, as we are moving to an age of convergence, carrying another device that doesn’t have anything like the features of an Ipaq, simply doesn’t look productive to me. Come on Sony; simply integrate this E-ink technology into devices that we already use……
A very entertaining remote controlled chopper gets my award for the easiest way to blow about £60 (US $100) this summer. Demonstrated at CES Unveiled, a press event preceding the main show, the Bladerunner II looks like it could be lot of fun as this footage shows.
- Their website could really do with some work though!
It’s been a long time coming, but Email, or rather the apps and applets that provide it, are developing into services that people will enjoy to use rather be forced to use. The advent of RSS can be seen as a significant advantage for virtually anyone who browses the web, it simply a matter implementing it right.
