cea

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which organizes the gargantuan gadget-fest known as CES, predicted at a press conference in London yesterday that there will be 20,000 products at the 2013 show, with 150,000 attendees and 3,000 exhibitors from 150 different countries.

The CEA showcased a small number of products that will be shown off at this year's Las Vegas-based show, several of which are from British manufacturers hoping to make a big push into the U.S. market. Have a look at our photo gallery to see what was there.

Generally, the CEA is predicting a … Read more

NEW YORK -- Believe it or not, the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show is just eight weeks away. And that means it's time for the show's organizer, the Consumer Electronics Association, to begin drumming up excitement for the world's largest showcase of new gadgets and electronics. First up: the announcement today of the CEA's Best of Innovations 2013 Design and Engineering Award winners at the CES preview event in Manhattan.

The awards are given across 29 consumer electronics product categories, and include two new ones for 2013: "Accessible and Universal Design Technologies" and "Tech … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It's a big day for The 404 as we welcome two big Hollywood names to the CES stage--Eliza Dushku and Wayne Brady drop by for a chat about video games, robots, gadgets, and more!

It's not every day that The 404 is lucky enough to have one big name celebrity guest on the show, much less two in one episode! We've been waiting all week to chat with Eliza Dushku about her official duties as the official Entertainment Matters Ambassador for CES 2012, which sounds like a fun job!

She's been here hosting parties and covering the show all week, so we'll talk to her about the next wave of 3D televisions and her voice acting work in games like Fight Night Champion and WET, but we'd be doing our listeners and nerds everywhere a disservice if we didn't ask her about her involvement in role in Ghostbusters 3!… Read more

LAS VEGAS--The technology community has made substantial in-roads in efforts to stop SOPA and Protect IP, two bills pending in Congress that would expand the ability of federal law enforcement and rightsholders to police the Internet for violations of intellectual-property laws.

But the fight is far from won. That was the message yesterday at a contentious panel discussion at CES's Innovation Policy Summit, featuring Congressional staffers along with industry representatives from both Hollywood and the technology community.

"Opponents have organized," said Ryan Clough, legislative counsel for Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). "But we haven't stopped SOPA … Read more

Gary Shapiro, the head of the Consumer Electronics Association, is frustrated by TV broadcasters' lack of innovation, and he isn't shy about voicing what he thinks they should do with spectrum licenses that have been give to them for free.

Shapiro and the CEA, which lobbies in Washington, D.C., on behalf of gadget makers and retailers, support a controversial proposal from the Federal Communications Commission, which calls for TV broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum to be auctioned off.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed the incentive spectrum auctions as a way to free up … Read more

Update, June 10, 2011: CEA President Gary Shapiro responds

The Consumer Electronics Association recently commissioned a poll that found that fewer than 8 percent of US households use over-the-air broadcast as their sole means of receiving television programming. This number has been descending, according to the CEA, since 2005.

It is the CEA's position that because fewer and fewer households are getting their TV from over-the-air (OTA), the wireless spectrum used for these broadcasts should be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

In other words, do away with free over-the-air broadcasts as we know it.

While it's true … Read more

This year's Black Friday saw a healthy rise in online sales, according to stats out today from ComScore.

Cybershoppers collectively plunked down $648 million online on Friday, a gain of 9 percent over the same day last year. Thanksgiving, a day where people typically spend more time filling their bellies than emptying their wallets, saw a solid 28 percent rise in cybersales from last year, hitting $407 million.

Overall, the online holiday shopping season has been robust so far, according to market researcher ComScore, with $11.64 billion spent at e-commerce outlets from November 1 to 26, a gain … Read more

The California Institute of Technology is joining forces with France's CEA-Leti on a new initiative geared toward speeding delivery of nanotechnology systems and equipment from the lab to the business world.

The partnership will focus on several areas of nanotechnology systems, including high-sensitivity gas-phase chemical-sensing systems; highly multiplexed, microfluidic-interfaced mass spectrometry; and liquid-phase biochemical sensors for pharmaceutical research and point-of-care diagnostics.

Nanosystems are used to design microscopic, atomically precise structures and objects and are employed for a variety of applications and industries, from wireless devices to biology to health care.

CEA contributes to the nanotechnolgy field in four main … Read more

The good news about the 3D TVs coming out this spring and summer is that they'll come packed with two pairs of 3D lenses. The bad news? Those plastic glasses work only with the brand of TV with which they're shipped.

That means that if you buy a Panasonic 3D TV, you can't use the accompanying lenses with your neighbor's Sony 3D TV, should you want to get together to watch the World Cup in 3D this summer. That's because each TV brand has a sensor that picks up a signal from the corresponding brand of glasses.

If that seems backwards, it's because it is. But it's also the sign of a new technology that hasn't yet worked out all of its kinks. Thankfully, the burgeoning 3D industry knows that this is a shortcoming and is concocting a fix.

One company that makes 3D eyewear, XpanD, has staked its claim to be the vendor of choice for brand-agnostic 3D glasses. The company has been manufacturing 3D glasses for movie theaters in Europe and Asia for years, and it is now moving to make the glasses work for people's homes as well.

XpanD has been contracted to produce the lenses that will ship with Panasonic and Vizio's 3D sets, but the company is also aiming more broadly: to be the provider of one pair of glasses that people buy once and use everywhere. XpanD's glasses will be available for between $125 and $150, starting June 1 at retailers such as Best Buy and Sears.

"The goal of the glasses is to work with every (size of) 3D display, from laptops to cinema," said Ami Dror, XpanD's chief strategy officer.… Read more