Roger Kay: CES Trends

Roger Kay at Endpoint Technologies Associates ruminates about the upcoming CES at Technology Pundits. Some of the trends that Kay sees are:

• Digital entertainment has brought the PC and CE companies into direct competition.
• Portable navigation and location-aware devices are rising in prominence.
• Convergence in the small mobile device area will show up as every possible combination of phone, personal information manager, global positioning system, music player, video player, and gaming capabilities.
• Supporters of various communications standards — Bluetooth, UWB, WiMAX, 802.11, powerline, satellite, and others — will be arguing their points.
• Both flash- and hard drive-based entertainment and navigation systems will be on display.
• There will be lots of add-ons, peripherals, and docks for iPods and other portable devices.
• Despite a faltering market at yearend 2005, gaming devices will be big.
• Vendors will be displaying cheap 8 megapixel digital cameras along with improved photo editing software.