The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show

Now that CES has come and gone, it is about time that I write a wrap-up post with some of the cooler technologies and products that were on display. This year’s show was much better than 2007, when there really weren’t any new technologies, but still not as great as 2006 when High Definition became a consumer reality.

CES is quite possibly the only event where speakers can be described as “sexy” and everyone understands what that means. And you never know how cool Bill Gates was until he rocked out live on Guitar Hero with Slash.

Top products:

1. Sony’s 11 inch Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) HDTV
2. Panasonic’s record setting 150 inch plasma HDTV – This is the world’s largest TV, stretching a monstrous 8 ft x 11 ft, with a kickin’ 4k resolution.
3. Pioneer’s Project Kuro – This video says it all
4. GM’s Cadillac Provoq – GM’s fifth-generation fuel cell with a lithium-ion battery to produce an electrically driven vehicle that uses no petroleum and has no emission other than water
5. Motorola’s Moto Rokr E8 phone – This flat glass covered phone, which shifts from music player to phone to imaging device at the touch of a button. What’s even crazier is that there are no buttons. This is a touchscreen phone with vibe feedback. Yes you touch a flat surface (think iPhone) and via the haptic feedback it feels like you are pressing an actual button.
6. Bug Labs’ open source modular gadgets – what if you could design the gadget you need, not what some company wants to sell you.
7. NEC and Alienware’s curved gaming DLP gaming displays – The Crysis 2880 x 900 res curved screen not only mimics peripheral vision, but also gives a player the ultimate surround experience.
8. The Eye-Fi SD card that wirelessly sends photos to a PC or any of the online photo sites

The worst gadget of the show:

1. Philips Swarovski crystal USB pendant – are they serious? Did they really announce this at a press conference?!