21 Jan CES-Twenty08 & Beyond

The 2008 CES was definitely different from the last few years I have been in attendance. For starters this was the last years will see a keynote from the SOFTWARE DON DADA himself, Bill “To Much Money” Gates. According to his keynote, and his blog, this move is in alignment with his much planned retirement from Microsoft to focus more on running the Gates Foundation. With 50 Billion + to spend, and lots of problems in the world, I believe his time will be spent much better now tackling these issues for humanity. We saw an “All Grown Up” of Sling Media, the company has come far from the small 2 man booth in 2005 to a full grown”BIG WILLY” with big plasma TV screens, jazzy marketing people, and a few hot chic’s in the booth for all the retail buyers who have had their heads under a rock for the last 2 years. In case you missed it, see another $380 Million Silicon Valley Payday at GIGAOM.COMI have to say that this year was the show that “Connected Devices” were literally everywhere. Everything from WIFI enabled Photos frames, portable internet radio devices, Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (Geeks and developers see UMPC). This will finally be the year that users can see voice activated text messaging and phone calls integrated into the car from Ford in the US, and Fiat in Europe. The BIG IDEA had the “RIGHT IDEA”; legendary marketing guru Donny Deutsch follows three hungry entrepreneurs to make the pitch at CES 2008. The show followed one high tech start up to an angel investor, and the another consumer electronics accessories company to a mass retailer to make the pitch. See who won, and more on Donny’s Blog.As many of you who follow my blog you may already know about my obsession with Microsoft’s Sideshow technology, and the work I have been doing on the Freescale developer’s platform. I met up with my friends from Ricavision and got a glimpse of the new Sideshow gadgets they are manufacturing with my old employer Accton. The company showed an integrated internet radio gadget with the remote, and headphones. So imagine taking your remote control to your bedroom, and using it to stream your favorite internet radio station.A personal friend of mines was recording tracks with Sean Kingston in Vegas during CES and he invited us to come and kick with them while he performed for Norscent. Sean performed for the company’s largest retail buyers [Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry’s], investors from China, and employees from the US. The company also announced it was planning on launching a digital music service as a companion service to their portable media devices.Chuck D and DJ Run teamed up to launch a new digital music service called Beyond FM, the site is a destination to discover and purchase (for personal use) or license (for commercial use) music, music videos, photography and podcasts/radio programming. The company has partner with eMotion Electronics, and will bundle a free subscription to some sort of a music service possibly bundled with a digital MP3/MP4 device.I will post a reference list (in a few weeks) of vendors for those you who may be looking to do some business with Chinese CE vendors, but have not be able to find any resources. I spent two full days on the international pavilion with companies from Korea, China, and Taiwan to gather all these contacts just for you guys.