Consumer Electronics Show: Press launches
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show kick-started in Las Vegas yesterday, with Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic all showing off products and services…
Samsung:
Samsung showed its Smart TV (with a built in camera and facial recognition), promising that models bought now will be upgradeable every year with a simple add-on, as well as 3D TV content, a new ultrabook, the 5 inch phone / tablet ‘phablet’ (already available in the UK) and a 55 inch Super OLED TV.
Boo Keun Yoon, president of Samsung Electronics, said Samsung was “pushing boundaries” and claimed that the company was the world’s number one TV brand in its sixth consecutive year. Samsung sold 5.7 million sets in November.
Click here to read the Guardian and BBC articles.
LG:
LG debuted a Google TV-powered HDTV, a high-powered Verizon Android LTE phone and a connected fridge that can order your food shopping!
LG’s new Google TV offering is expected to be released in the next few months. It also released its new 3D TVs, which will feature cinema 3D, with 2D to 3D conversion, 3D sound zooming and 3D depth control.
Read the full VentureBeat article here.
Microsoft:
Microsoft gave its last keynote speech at the CES after 15 years. CEO Steve Ballmer said the CES is not in the right place in Microsoft’s product cycle.
The company made no major new announcements – with just a cut down version of Windows 8. The company did say it plans to launch its PC Kinect on 1 February.
Read the ZDNet article here.
Panasonic
Panasonic plans to relaunch MySpace as a social TV platform – called Myspace TV. It will work with Panasonic HDTVs as part of Viera Connect.
The service, which is co-owned by Justin Timberlake, will focus on music at first – with music channels on Myspace TV using the company’s rights to 100,000 music videos and 42,000,000 songs.
Users will be able to watch and listen to songs and comment on what they think about them simultaneously. It will then be expanded to television and movies, with additional channels featuring news, sports, and reality TV.
Click here to read the PCMAG and T3 articles.
Sony
Sony showed off its HX850 – its ‘flagship TV’ – and a prototype of the Crystal LED Display TV, a 55 inch LED TV. It also launched its first smartphone in its Xperia NXT series, the Android NFC-enables Xperia S.
The company announced plans to expand its Google TV line-up this year with its new NSZ-GS7 – a network media player, which is powered by Google. Sony plans to update its existing Google TV Blu-ray disc player with the NSZ-GS9.
Sony’s presentation highlighted the Sony Entertainment Network for streaming video and audio, the upcoming PlayStation Vita gaming portable (which streams Netflix) andt he Sony Tablet P – a folding dual-screen tablet.
Read the Streaming Media article here.
Sharp
Sharp unveiled an 80-inch 3D TV (yes, 80 inch!!!) and a prototype of an 8K resolution TV.
Read the full cnet article here.
Other emerging themes…
Ultrabooks, ultrabooks, ultrabooks… the word of the day, according to cnet.
Via Twitter – Sam Johnson @aPostEngineer – #CES2012 is basically the same kit as 2011 but with ‘in the cloud’ or ‘4K’ attached.