Search »

Consensus at CES: Internet Will Be Everywhere

The Associated Press released a synopsis of products debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. Many share an underlying theme: “that absolutely every device in our lives is becoming a computer connected to the internet.”

Of particular interest is how the internet will increasingly be incorporated into television, the article pointed out (via MarketingVOX).

New products, and their internet-oriented functionality, below:

• The Palm Pre mobile unit enables users to look up friends’ numbers on Facebook, then call them.
• An updated Ford F150 pickup truck lets contractors peruse service manuals from a web-enabled dashboard.
• New TVs from LG, Samsung and other vendors let viewers stream films from Netflix. (Prior to these releases, streaming Netflix films were only available to PC users — or to those with TiVo or Boxee, a set-top box vendor.)
• The AP itself worked with Microsoft Mediaroom, which fuses interactive capabilities to television, to launch a news ticker widget and a red carpet events app. Both engage users like internet applications but are available on TV.

CES didn’t only conceive product launches; attendees and tech insiders also took advantage of the hype to make ambitious (and imminently quotable) statements about their future plans.

CEO Howard Stringer of Sony projected that in two years, all Sony products will connect to the internet. And chairman Jonney Shih of Asustek — which developed a touchscreen computer that hangs from walls — claims one day, everything in a person’s house — including bedroom mirrors — will be computer displays.

CEO Reed Hastings of Netflix placed his bets on TV-as-web-browser technology. “One view is that the Web, a browser like Firefox, Chrome or I.E., will be right on the television in the next couple years,” he said; meanwhile, CTO Woo Hyun Pak of LG Electronics argued in favor of 3D television. “That’s really a major, major revolution coming into consumer electronics,” he proclaimed.