Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2004 | 10:55 a.m.
While the rest of the world is still spinning from the current holiday frenzy, organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show are preparing for Christmas 2005.
The annual CES extravaganza, which is expected to draw more than 120,000 attendees to Las Vegas from Jan. 6 to 9, is billed as the place to see the next big thing in the world of consumer electronics.
"The majority of the products you see at CES will be out for the next holiday season," said Karen Chupka, vice president for events and conferences for the Consumer Electronics Association, which runs the CES show. "It's always a lot of fun."
The 2005 version of the show will not disappoint, she said. The conference will draw 2,440 exhibitors, showing off everything from home electronics furniture to the next generation of cell phones. The 1.5 million square feet that the show will occupy makes it the largest CES by nearly 10 percent, Chupka said.
Some of the wide range of innovations that will be on display at CES include digital radio technology, Chupka said. That would be similar to its HDTV cousin, offering higher transmission quality. In addition the larger bandwidth would allow on-screen text information and possibly printer technology that could allow receivers to spit out coupons.
Other trends on display, Chupka said, will be the evolution of flat-screen and high-definition televisions and monitors. On that front, she said rapidly falling prices might be the greatest advance.
"We have certainly seen better price points on many of these items," she said.
Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone products -- which use high-speed Internet to deliver telephone calls -- also will be making a splash, Chupka said. Such new technologies delivering services once dominated by single-product utilities will be a common theme at CES. Telephone provider SBC Communications is planning to roll out its television-over-fiber optic products at CES.
Also, products such as TiVO, a digital recorder that allows consumers to record television programs for future playback, will be making strides at CES.
"We are looking at portability and personalization," Chupka said. "Rather than you having to be in a certain place at a certain time, you can download from TiVO and play it back on an airplane from your laptop. It's about the ability to move content into any size or format you want it."
That means being able to move a digital music library from an MP3 player to a home theater system and being able to move digital photographs to a laptop from a cell phone.
"These products are about helping people with their lifestyle, about cramming more into a day," Chupka said.
Brian Cooley, editor at large of the Internet-based electronics publication CNET, also will be prowling the CES floor for the next big thing in consumer electronics.
He said one major area of interest is in automotive electronics, particularly devices to allow Apple iPods to work on car stereo systems.
"There are going to be four million iPods sold during this holiday season alone," Cooley said. "You can use them in your car now, but it is complicated and messy. This is going to be a mini trend."
Generally, he said automotive electronics continue to grow.
"This is the new place for car buffs," Cooley said. "It's not under the hood. That's impossible these days. It's behind the dash."
Cooley also said this show could put a damper on the everything-included hand-held devices. He said consumers have not piled on the devices attempting to incorporate everything from phones, cameras and e-mail technology.
"The compromises are just too great," he said. "They are more expensive up front and consumers are savvy and concerned about 'What happens is one technology becomes obsolete or breaks.
"I don't think consumers are going to buy into it, but I am going to watch out at CES for the new tricks to convince us to go that way."
Chupka said that the advances on display at CES will continue to allow consumers to connect more and more of the products they own in an effort to create a "digital home." That effort is being bolstered by the rapid proliferation of high-speed Internet access, according to a study by the analyst group Parks Associates.
Parks estimates that by the end of 2004, 33 million U.S. homes will have broadband Internet access, and 17 million have a home data network used to manage multimedia applications, such as music, photographs and video content.
"The integration between content services -- voice, video, data and value-added applications -- and digital products will be a significant theme at (CES) and will generate substantial momentum for these markets in the next year," Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst for Parks, said in a statement.
Cooley said he also will be on the lookout for a bridge between two disparate home-integration areas. He said until now consumers have been quick to adopt networks that incorporate computers, television, stereos and digital photographs. But those networks have been incompatible with products that link security systems, air conditioning, heating systems and other items, like lawn sprinklers.
"Those two networks just haven't come together yet," Cooley said. "I really want to see if someone can pull it all together at CES."
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