Show time in Las Vegas

location based services

Big flat screens, high definition and GPS navigation have been hot topics at this year's gadget-fest in Las Vegas. Simon Tsang checks out the best buys.


Bill Gates is talking to a kitchen bench. It seems years of running Microsoft might have finally taken their toll. However, if you look more closely, you'll realise Gates hasn't lost the plot - he's demonstrating the speech-recognition capabilities of a home of the future as part of his keynote address at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
On the bench is a projected image of a recipe that checks off "flour" from the ingredients when Gates plops down a bag of flour. "Screen technology, projecting onto walls, onto surfaces ... will be very pervasive," Gates says. "So this surface, although it's just a normal surface, we can project onto it; we can use voice to drive this."
This is all very clever but, frankly, seems a little out of place at the gadget-fest because unless you live on the Microsoft campus, the connected home of the future is about as close to reality as the personal jetpack.
The electronics show, on the other hand, is all about the immediate future - the next 12 months in fact. And, judging by the show, those 12 months will be all about big flat screens and plenty of them.
High Definition is the buzz term and this year the big war will be over 1080p (a term used to describe ultra-high-definition screens).
Plasma and LCD television makers will continue to butt heads over who is superior. Blu-ray and HD DVD, well and truly armed to the teeth with products, will intensify their efforts to win new territory. Console gaming will also be bullish about HD content. Camcorders are embracing the HD movement, too.
Then there are mobile phones that are thinner than Kate Moss turned side on and so much wireless technology you can almost see the airwaves. People will be less likely to get lost, too, this year. Research by the Consumer Electronics Association (organiser of the show) has found GPS navigation to be a hot emerging category, second only to flat-screen televisions (see our GPS comparison on page 8).
Desktop PC sales will get a much needed kick-start with the launch of Windows Vista this month and the designs on display showed companies are finally thinking outside the box.
It's impossible to wrap up in one article an entire event comprising 2700 exhibitors but we've compiled a shortlist of products to watch for. Enjoy the show.