Three consumer electronics motifs for 2010:
A) 3-D HDTV: More intense experiences in a more diffused world
With 3 films including Avatar having been launched with 3-D versions in 2009, this is likely to become the biggest video trend in 2010. Those of us who have seen Avatar in 3-D would find it difficult to think of Sci-Fi without 3-D, anymore we need more comfortable glasses than the ones I got at PVR, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon).Not only Sci-Fi but anything that needs conjuring up huge cosmic vistas, panoramic landscapes or nature detail (imagine National Geographic in 3D). 3-D TV is one of featured attractions of the CES this year and YouTube has already launched its test versions.
I provide the links here - thanks to mashable.com, - but you would need to see these on the YouTube site and not as embedded video - just hoping posterous does not embed these (use glasses - in case you did not have to return yours after Avatar - or select cross-eyed from the pull-down at the bottom right of the video screen):
Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba are all displaying their 3D products (TV, blu-ray players) at CES 2010 along with smaller players like Vizio (TV). 3-D camcorders (from DXG) and PCs (from MSI) are at the concept stage. These two are unlikely to hit the shelves in 2010. Again, the blu-ray format is likely to take some time before it becomes the standard. Look up the CNET coverage on 3D at CES:
The pessimism from some industry watchers on 3D centered around the inconvenience argument is likely not to be borne out as consumers look for a customizable TV viewing experience. The success factor is likely to be the possibility of having the ability to choose between convenience (without the glasses) and the experience (with the glasses) in the confines of consumers' homes. Also, 3-D glasses are likely to evolve with combined audio-video providing for a much more integrated and intense experience (shut-out). These are also on display at CES.
An important aside from the CES is that blu-ray seems to have won the day.
B) Simplifying the Interface - The Power of Touch:
Not many Indians use the Kindle (appears to be a judgement on value for money and reflecting reading habits of the well-heeled - for a book-reader, it is expensive) and Amazon has not disclosed sales figures for the Kindle (not even on Wall Street - see http://bit.ly/62x7ZG). Touch Screen tablets are likely to do much better because of the broader functionality and it is likely that the slate form - not really convenient for a computing device (you would still need a keyboard to write programs and syntax and it is not easy to type documents and long notes on a virtual keyboard) and more convenient as a reader, browsing and social networking device - would really do much better than netbooks have done on 2 counts, the touch factor and slate form factor. Ballmer showed two more slate PCs running on Windows 7, one of which was from Pegatron. This will obviously beat the HP on price, but brand? (Pegatron is the former manufacturing arm of Asus that is now branding itself). The Pegatron slate would be competing against the Eee PC netbooks in the ultra-portable category and the same is true with the HP slate vis-a-vis the HP mini-notebooks. The Pegatron slate is on the Intel atom unlike its smartbook which is on the ARM Cortex. This is likely to be a decisive victory for the Intel-atom over the ARM Cortex.
The F5 from Motion Computing (on Windows 7) and the Dell Latitude XT2 convertible Tablet (both with the Intel Core2Duo) are probably the most appealing. The latter supports multi-touch with gesture recognition. Watch these videos:
The move to "touch" is pervasive. Samsung came in last year with the Corby touch at INR 7,800 and the market for touch-screen mobile phones is growing worldwide. Look up this (back by a few months) review of offerings in the Indian market from dancewithshadows.com
Carrying touch forward, Samsung has also announced its highest end LED-TV with a touch-screen remote. The power of touch is everywhere. The consumer is the Midas once more.
B) Always connected - On the Clouds
Businesses have realized the importance of harnessing the social media. There is push and pull involved here. While Twitter is covering the CES live, consumers are busy exchanging notes on many hundreds of thousands of products and services. Samsung's LED TV has a Facebook page of its own - and promises first release of updates to fans on Facebook. The power of social media technologies was on full display at CES when Twitter reported Leo Laporte (The Tech Guy) gave the short shrift to a senior executive from Trend Microsystems even as the latter's CEO, Eva Chen announced taking malaware detection from local stations to the cloud. Ford is upping the sync on its Sync System - free Wi-Fi connectivity via the cloud is what it hopes will differentiate it from Toyota and Honda as it enters the small car segment riding on a new focus of consistent global delivery of the Ford brand. Web 2.0 unleashes its full potential with cloud computing.
There is also increasing evidence now that far from creating a global community of recluses, online connectivity is promoting social mingling in the physical space as well. What we have today are interconnected global "community-scapes" inhabited by consumers who are or would like to be "always on". More and more electronic gadgets and software applications on open-platforms will try to make this possible.
This, then, is the third major trend for this year. It has already picked up a lot of steam and what we saw in 2009 was just a precursor of things to come. A major part of movement here, among Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, MySpace users, in 2010, is likely to be the movement towards integrated social networking with applications like posterous and ping.fm providing users the ability to integrate across different social networking platforms.
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