Look how old this is!
I post at SearchCommander.com now, and this post was published 14 years 10 months 20 days ago. This industry changes FAST, so blindly following the advice here *may not* be a good idea! If you're at all unsure, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and ask.

My trip to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show was unlike last year, or any other years I’ve gone, because I cut myself short on time.

The organization of the show changed quite a bit, and in the past, all of the breakthrough inventions were situated in one giant hall, over at the Sands Expo Center.

After last year’s downsizing of the show, I was able to make it through that entire emerging technology area in just one day, and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands, so this year I decided to only come for one day.

Little did I know, that this year, likely due to the economy, they would downsize even further and cut out the Sands entirely, cramming everything together in the big convention center.

To make matters worse, rather than group all of these inventions in one space, they spread them throughout the entire show on red carpeted “Tech Zone” areas, so I had no choice but to try and make it through the entire show in one day.

Anyone who’s ever been there before knows that it’s impossible to see everything in one day, not to mention that it’s totally impossible to find all of the separated tech zones.

Amazingly, I can swear that I’d pretty much walked and jogged up and down almost every square foot of the entire North Hall, Central Hall, and Southall, along with at least two of the second floors that I can remember.

It was a whirlwind tour, and something I’ll never try again, because I really do feel somewhat slighted.

Why Do I Attend?
My goal in going each year is to seek out new technology, products, trends and inventions, then buy domain names and begin development of some web properties to start to become visible in the SERPS.

Generally, in the beginning there are no revenue opportunities, but soon, as they catch on, merchants create affiliate programs, and we’ve got several well earning sites based on thing’s I’ve discovered at CES.

CES 2010 Was in 3D
What struck me most all day long, was that I saw more 3D TV signs than I could believe. Nearly every manufacturer seems to have 3-D TVs, and nearly all of them require that you wear glasses.

Having just seen Avatar in 3D, I was pretty impressed, but I’m amazed that everyone is banking on the average American family wanting to put on glasses to watch TV.

In the international area, I saw aftermarket vendors of fashionable 3-D glasses, all the way down to toddler size, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you could get 3-D lenses put in a set of Ray-Ban frames.

I also saw screens to go on top of your monitors and handheld multimedia devices too, that would eliminate the need to have glasses. If you’re looking at non-3-D content you just take the screen off.

Only Intel had a 3-D television that did not require glasses showing, so I’m sure we can expect that having to wear glasses will soon be a thing of the past.

Besides my short stay, I also apparently forgot my headset and microphone, so dictating my summary when I got back that night was impossible.

Instead, I used my Blackberry to make a few audio notes, and have only now finished organizing my thoughts and photos.

Here, in no particular order, are my own personal CES 2010 highlights.

BlueTooth Rear View Mirror

Oregon has now passed a law that you can’t hold your phone to your head while you drive because steering takes two hands, so I was wondering if there would be any solar Bluetooth speakerphones, and there were.

I was pretty impressed with the idea, as I wandered through the auto area, but then I came across this unit. This would be great, since I’ve usually got a dead Bluetooth headset.

Caller ID scrolls across the mirror, and it’s a speakerphone AND it comes with an earpiece too, for when you prefer privacy.

USB 3.0

This isn’t really a particular product it’s just a technology, which will soon be everywhere, as it becomes widely adopted standard.

This is a chart showing how fast USB 3.0 or the trademarked term “super USB” – You can transfer 27 gigs in 70 seconds!

Unless I miss my guess, would be increased size of flash drives, and these increased speed of data transfer, there’s no reason why my entire computer won’t someday be able to fit on my USB drive.

For years we have been able to boot a computer from a USB stick, but with these increased speeds it’s going to be possible to do a lot more. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if by this time next year, I’ll bet we are able to boot to the Google OS from a USB stick, browse the web, use Google docs, check mail etc., and even store local copies of documents that are created with the Google Docs platform.

If you haven’t said goodbye to Microsoft already, I’d say that’ll be the day to sell your Microsoft stock.

Data Jack

In many cases, a brick-and-mortar location may be effectively “out of business” when their Internet connection goes down and there’s a company that’s being marketed as an “Internet access backup service”.

Functioning through the cellular phone provider networks GSM / 3G connections, your connectivity is assured from almost anywhere, at speeds that are about three times faster than your old dial-up connection.

They also offer daisy chaining and routing capability for multiple users, so at 40 bucks a month, seems like a pretty affordable insurance policy.

Personal Cell Tower – 5barz

A clever name for a clever solution to an ever frustrating problem, this is a cellular signal repeater, it’s going to be marketed as your own personal cell tower.

It works with any carrier by multiplying any signal, even under “half a bar” into a full strength five bar connection. (Don’t ask me why they can’t just build that into phones in the first place).

Thumb ring Blue-tooth

Fashion and technology are merging in many forms, and Bluetooth clothing is nothing new, but I thought this piece of jewelry was pretty slick.

This is a Bluetooth cell phone accessory, with a vibrating thumb ring, with an LED display that’s large enough to read the caller ID.

Should you decide to answer, simply twist it, and stick it in your ear. I I didn’t stick around long enough to see if it had a speakerphone, but I’m guessing it does.

Man-powered Generator

What makes this unique, is that you can charge up this big box of power, and take it with you wherever you need to, since it has all of the necessary electrical connections to plug in any device from anywhere in the world.

There are adapters that allows you to use your bicycle, tricycle (so your kids can do the work), and for all I know, a hamster wheel adapter will be coming next!

The Storm – Digital TV Receiver

This dongle just plugs into your smart phone or laptop, and gives you free digital TV reception. Of course, since free TV is probably going away entirely, its life may be limited, but it still seemed like a fun thing to have.

I can remember being stuck at charity auction during a World Series game, and one of these would’ve been awesome to have.

With this device, you can open up a TV screen, drag it to a second monitor, and if you’re on the road with a dual monitor laptop, you don’t have to try to figure out the hotels TV computer system 😉

Extra Laptop Monitor

Speaking of two monitors, I’m pretty spoiled with my multi-monitor setup at home, and when I travel, I can usually work just fine on my laptop. Some people though, are real road warriors, and need multiple monitors to be productive. For them, there’s now a solution.

Stylish Dresser Valet

Get rid of unsightly cord tangle, and the mess of having your E- equipment strewn all over the dresser with this stylish and fashionable electronic device caddy.

Okay, maybe it’s not that technologically amazing, but it would make a pretty good Father’s Day present, wouldn’t it?

Tiny DVR

The camera doesn’t do this one justice, because the guy apparently moved his hand and I had my camera on a weird zoom thing, but it’s a full functioning DVR that records to removable Flash memory.

It’s designed to be a wearable or clip on spy cam, and it has motion sensing technology, easy on off switches, and the option to have the red recording light flash or not.

Solar Wing

This solar car was built as a school project by engineering students in Japan. If you look closely, you can see that in the background the pictures on the wall show that this “wing” is visible on a flying airplane. I couldn’t tell if it was an artist rendering or a photograph of an existing prototype, but I think you get the idea.

Audio Egg

Okay, I do have to admit that I was impressed by the sound. It really was every bit as good as any pair of headphones I’ve ever tried. However, with the size being roughly 400 times larger than a good set of headphones, and a limited fashion colors available, I just don’t see them becoming widely adopted.

Bone Conduction Audio

It’s probably been two years since I first tried on a set of these bone conduction headphones, but there have been some technology breakthroughs and now, their popularity is spreading.

The concept is that instead of sticking something in your ear, you can more comfortably wear it on top of your ear, and the vibration in your skull actually sounds as clear as a bell, just like you wearing a standard earbud.

The technology was at multiple booths, and I believe it will continue to grow in popularity since so many people absolutely hate the way some of these things feel when they are inside your ear.

65 inch HD Combo Touchscreen Monitor & Interactive Whiteboard

Need I say more?

Video Game Seating

Due to cutting myself short on time, I didn’t get to drive a single lap or single mile this year, and as a former gameaholic, it was pretty disappointing. I didn’t get to try any of the flight seats, cockpits, driving consoles, beanbag chairs with speakers, or any other gaming furniture that only the most spoiled children on the planet usually get to own.

Hovering Spy-Craft

In just a tiny booth from an inventor, this little XWing is precisely maneuverable, and you can easily hover, go forward, backwards, and make tight corners. Check out this Cnet video

Believe it or not, the unit can be radio controlled from up to a mile away! Never mind the fact that you can’t see it, but the guy does claim it works from a mile away.

The black ones, from a bigger vensoldor, look like little military drones, and had similar maneuverability.

How long it will be before civilians can attach one of those little cameras to these drones, and it also has internet or cell access to broadcast photos?

People will be flying spy vehicles around their neighborhoods from their home computers pretty soon! Here’s a still image of one, and a quick video of the Xwing.

The Hall of Innovations
I usually linger for a couple of hours in here, since it’s where the awards are given for best of the show gone through the best of the entire show. This year though, I had to plow through pretty quickly, trying to reading the description lines of each sign, but I’m sure I missed some cool stuff. In many cases the device was too small or obscure looking, so it took a picture of the sign instead.

Start Your Car with an iPhone

This is an iPhone app that will unlock or even start your vehicle. I hope there are safety precautions that would prevent you from starting a manual transmission vehicle while in gear, jumping it through your garage wall!

Power Line Gigabit Networking

I really don’t know how slowly data used to travel over a network, but in 1997, if I had networked your office, we would’ve run cable everywhere in your office that a computer needed to be.

Although there was technology for running data over phone lines, and even running data over all electrical lines, it never really caught on, and data typically traveled at 10 mb, and it was quickly multiplied by 10 times, and 100mbs became the norm. That jumped by 10 again, as 1000mb, or Gigabit speeds were introduced and today’s standard is “gigabit networking”.

Now, gigabit speeds are available directly over your power lines, so no additional wiring is necessary beyond regular electrical. Since this is 10 times faster than wireless, computers support it natively, right through their ethernet port, it sure sounds to me like it’s poised to take over as the industry standard. Does new construction still typically have ethernet cable run? I’ll bet it won’t for much longer…

Family Storage and Networked
BluRay

An LG network storage device that was (umpteen?) terabytes in size, and even had a built-in Blu-Ray player to watch movies from anywhere in your home.

Built In Speakers

Speakers are being built into everyday devices, in all sorts of furniture and appliances. The technology really surrounds you in sound, and sounds great even over wireless connections. with no freestanding speakers to worry about and even no speaker wire for some of the models, I’m sure there’s lots more to come.

The Dorky Geektoy Award

Last year, the silliest thing I saw, (although functional) was a wire coat-hanger type device for holding your cell phone to your head to be “hands free”… seriously.

Does this look equally as silly when you wear it? Um, yeah…

Hat’s off, (literally) to this thing, designed to tuck your iPhone into the holder at the end of the visor, then slap it on your head, and put on your headphones, retreating into your own little universe of “private” viewing. Amazing.

I have a few things I’ve held back, primarily because my wrists are sore, they weren’t that fascinating, or in a couple of cases, I need to get a site up first, before touting the technology. 😉

Next year I’m definitely staying for at least two full days…

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