CES: And Away We Go

Whatever the actual influence or prominence might be of CES, it keeps drawing more press every year.

I’m at the very first session for press at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, inside the “Marcello” ballroom of the Venetian Hotel, where we are about to be treated to a State of the Union-style overview of how the industry is doing.

It’s standing-room-only here. Even though Microsoft (MSFT) has said this is their last year doing the keynote (Monday night), and there is chatter about the show losing some importance for major vendors, the press presence only seems to grow thicker and deeper with each passing year that I’m here. Many around me are wondering, I think, why they don’t get a bigger room.

I’ll be here all week, by the way, reporting on the events both official, and unofficial. Tomorrow is the main press day, with briefings by Intel (INTC), Samsung Electronics (SSNLF), and many others.

The Consumer Electronics Association’s Shawn Dubravac is at the podium to give the talk. He starts off by pointing out that the show has been going on since 1967. More than 20,000 new products will be introduced this week, he points out.

The big theme two years ago at the show, in 2010, was about “Beyond HD” in television sets, and a “plethora” of new screens for content, including the first “slate” computers that preceded the Apple (AAPL) iPad. Dubravac notes that 2010 also saw the introduction of Microsoft’s Kinect controller, and some larger-screen smartphones.

2011′s themes were “pocketable devices,” sensors in devices, and the rise of “apps.” Tablets were the big hardware story last year. Some sensors and apps let you control one device with another, such as using a smartphone to control a blood-pressure monitor. Wireless audio also made a splash, things trying for the effect of Apple’s “AirTunes.”

This year will be an even bigger year for wireless, with even more smartphone introductions, he opines.

Dubravac opines we are entering the second decade of the “Digital Transition.”

Dubravac offers some feedback on what buyers at CES said they think are the “hottest” trends. “Wireless,” and “Wireless devices,” as a single, combined category, got the most votes, followed by “lifestyle electronics.”

The top of the hot list was “apps,” and at the bottom, Netbooks (way not hot!)

Dubravac goes into the three trends he sees: “friction between pulling computing” out of traditional devices and shoving that computing power into non-computing devices. Think Internet TVs. Internet TVs were 12% of those shipped in 2010, this year over half will be Internet-enabled.

“Superphones“: quad-core phones, 4G phones , things that are more and more like pocketable fully-fledged computers.

There will another 50-plus tablets this year, and maybe 100 different models of “ultrabook,” the ultra-slim laptop design that Intel is pushing heavily.

“the story with computing is not the power aspect of the device but where it fits into the broader suite of products,” Dubravac remarked.

About fifty million units shipped last year of tablets worldwide, he notes. They don’t need to be radically different, just different enough, he concludes.

Dubravac mentions the “Nest” networked thermostat as an example of a different kind of computing devices.

Another big story will be “interconnectedness,” as opposed to power of individual devices. Think of “head units” for Pandora radio, to control more experiences from the smartphone. “From Verizon and Dish [network] I expect to see a real focus on the media server” to access content from a variety of devices.

“2012 will be the year of the interface,” declared Dubravac. That involves the challenge of how to read email on a 50-inch television set. So far, that has been a “very bad” user experience. With more and more TVs becoming connected, the interface becomes the key area of focus.

This year will see a lot more of voice control and gesture control in devices. LG Electronics is rumored to be adding voice control to their remotes, and we’ll see tablets this week integrating gesture control.

Dubravac shoes off a very early, very simple Zenith remote. It was changed into today’s bewildering multi-button remote control. Simplicity becomes important as complexity threatens to take over.

Google’s (GOOG) GoogleTV has focused on search and discovery to make choices across all your distribution possibilities. The next big hurdle will be search and discovery, said Dubravac.

Dubravac’s final theme is “the prevalence of the personal.” in contrast to the early days of the show, which was about appliances shared by a group — a television, say — the trend is toward more personal devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Even with the exact same device and wireless carrrier, things such as apps let the user make them personal.

Dubravac notes how many articles leading up to the show always mention that Apple isn’t at the show, and says it’s not news, to much applause. “platforms come along at different points in time in the development of technology,” he observes. Standard platforms have always allowed others to build around them, developing accessories, etc.

“When I look at smartphones, the much broader story is that this hardware core has developed. In the history of platforms, it didn’t matter whether it was open or closed. What mattered was, Is it open enough that we can build industries around it?”. Dubravac concludes that wireless is the new “loss leader,” the thing that gets consumers in the store. It’s the leveraging of the Android and iOS “core” that will be leveraged in devices being shown this week.

Watch for examples of “indoor navigation,” and of integration of social networking into products, he advises.

As regards TVs, Dubravac concludes by going through the history of that technology. It took years for digital TVs to catch on. Same with hi-def TV. Then the wave of flat-panel TVs, some of which were not always successful. So, not every technology catches fire immediately, he argues.

Looking forward, Dubravac sees a big push to TVs without a bezel. Corning’s (GLW) new version of “Gorilla Glass” will be an important step in that direction. Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs will be shown with bigger display sizes.

Also water-proofing technology, so you can have your smartphone operate underwater. And there’ll be lots more 3-D printing shown off this year. Some of those things won’t be mass-market anytime soon, but they’re important nonetheless.