If anyone expected Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013 to be a sleeper event, they were wrong. After only the first of three days of the CES wrapping up, a myriad of consumer products have already popped out of the woodwork ready to make their way to the hands of eager customers in upcoming months.
Giant 4K UHD Televisions
First up, giant UHD TVs. Remember HD? Remember thinking about how awesome video quality was with those? Well you can forget those as all major TV makers--Samsung, Sony, Vizio and others--announced their lineup of 4k Ultra HD (UHD) television sets for the upcoming year. And its not just the UHD/4k technology, the sizes of the screens is massive too: the major TV vendors are boasting TV sets that go up from 55 inches all the way to 110 inches in size.
In order to allow for TV content to display well in screens of such large sizes, the TV vendors are using a variety of techniques. Sony is pushing hard its 4k resolution format, which natively comes with four times as much resolution as HD. Samsung is boasting about its “upscaling” techniques, which allows normal HD video to be displayed crisply on really, really large monitors.
New Processors from Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia
Processor and chip makers Intel, Qualcomm and Nvideo took advantage of their keynotes and special press conferences to highlight their latest products. Intel promoted the power savings of its latest lineups of processors, touting new smartphone and tablet lineups from its hardware partners. In addition, Intel also talked about “perceptual computing” and gave a demo of users navigating a computer using sensors and head and body movements instead of the regular keyboard and mouse.
[related-left] Qualcomm’s CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs shared the stage with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to introduce their latest Snapdragon 600 and 800 processor, reportedly the first quad-core processor for smartphones. The processor will clock 2.3 GHz and are based on the ARM architecture that is popular for smartphones and tablets.
Not to be outdone, Nvidia, the 3D and gaming chip company, announced its own lineup of hardware and chips for the coming year.
Nvidia Project Shield
But what likely surprised people most was Nvidia’s announcement of its new gaming console, which it calls Project Shield. A portable gaming device that seems to be meant to rival the Nintendo’s 3DS and Sony’s PS Vita, Project Shield will run on Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 chip, feature a 5-inch 720-p retinal display and run the Android operating system and games made for the Android platform.
In addition to the latest and greatest in televisions and gaming and mobile hardware, vendors also announced their latest smartphones and laptops... as well as every other type of hardware imaginable to CES.
With two more days to go, its predictable that there are more knock-your-socks-off hardware waiting to be announced. So stay tuned.