next big thing

CNET's Next Big Thing: Are we all too connected?

LAS VEGAS -- Pervasive Internet connectivity has changed the world, connecting people and objects and countries like never before. Data is the new oil. Sensors are ubiquitous. Electricity? Expected.

Is this trend healthy or harmful? Key players in the technology industry assembled here at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show to discuss just that. CNET's Molly Wood and Brian Cooley hosted entrepreneur Mark Cuban, LG Electronics executive James Fishler, Ford futurist Sheryl Connelly and Sprint executive Fared Adib in a rollicking, sometimes raucous debate on the connected revolution.

The discussion addressed three topics: how connected devices will evolve, how … Read more

CNET's Next Big Thing at 2013 CES: Join us Tuesday, 3 p.m. PT (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--Join us Tuesday at 3 p.m. PT for live coverage of CNET's popular Next Big Thing SuperSession at 2013 International CES 2013. This year's topic: the connected revolution -- or, put another way, the movement toward having many more devices and things connected to the Internet. Like the Nest Learning Thermostat shown to the right.

CNET's Molly Wood and Brian Cooley will sit down with an exciting panel: billionaire investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban; James Fishler, a senior vice president at LG Electronics USA; Sheryl Connelly, Ford's in-house futurist; and Fared Adib, senior vice … Read more

7 reasons to get excited about CNET at CES 2013

What happens when 90 editors, writers, photographers, and producers from CNET relocate all our operations to Las Vegas to cover the biggest U.S. tech trade show of the year? The most comprehensive coverage of 2013 CES, that's what.

If you live and breathe tech and you'll be at the show in Las Vegas next week, you'll want to park yourself at the CNET booth in the South Hall to watch the action. Our live stage show will include celebrities, live Always On torture tests, product demos galore, panels, interviews of top tech execs, and the best … Read more

CNET's Next Big Thing: The connected revolution

It's been called the Internet of Things, the connected future, the post-PC and even, in our minds, the post-mobile world: however you want to refer to it, the trend toward ubiquitously connected devices and people is inescapable and poised to change everything about the consumer electronics world.

At CNET, we're calling it the post-mobile future: mapping the next frontier of consumer electronics. Because let's be blunt: consumer electronics has been kind of a boring world for the past couple of years. It seems like all we talk about is smartphones and tablets, tablets and smartphones. Last year'… Read more

CNET's Next Big Thing of 2012: The ecosystem. Should we fear it?

When is a phone just a phone? A TV just a TV? A Blu-ray player just a Blu-ray player? How about last year? Because in 2012 and beyond, the next wave of consumer electronics evolution is all about the "ecosystem."

That concept, in fact, is the topic of CNET's Next Big Thing Supersession at CES 2012. We'll be talking about this idea of the ecosystem, and how it's changing the landscape of consumer electronics--and turning media and service companies into hardware partners, if not actual hardware makers.

We'll talk one on one with Google'… Read more

CNET is the official streaming media partner for 2012 CES

Every year, CES gets better and better. And every year, CNET has the pleasure of bringing the biggest tech show of the year straight to you.

For the 2012 International CES show, we're pulling out all the stops to bring you more video, news, photos, blogs, and reviews than ever before.

For starters, we're the official digital media and live streaming partner of CES this year. That means that we're going to live stream the heck out of this show, including every major press conference and the coveted Best of CES Awards from the CNET stage. Plus--and … Read more

Next Big Thing: Life in the Cloud revisited

In 2009, CNET predicted that the Next Big Thing in 2009 would be "life in the cloud." Cloud computing was, in 2008, starting to become a major topic of discussion: would consumers trust their personal and corporate data to the cloud? Would businesses embrace the idea of offering more and more storage as we stored less and less data locally? Would enterprises re-architect their offerings and their businesses to take advantage of this revolution in cheap storage and online services? We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of consumer data storage and entertainment, the hurdles facing cloud … Read more

Top 10 technology flops

Every few years, some new technology or application comes along that everyone's sure will miraculously conquer every obstacle in its path and, in some ludicrously short time period, make existing technology obsolete. And then, long after all the media hype fades away and investors' checkbooks disappear, well, nothing happens.

So what? Who cares? Why bother talking about our industry's bombs, the next big things that weren't? Well, for one thing, it's interesting to note how hungry we all are for news about new technology. It gets us excited. We complain about media hype, but love the hype.

It's also fascinating how existing technology has this way of hanging on by its fingernails way past the point of its predicted obsolescence. More importantly, we learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. That's part of the scientific method: hypothesis, test, learn, repeat until you get it right.

Lastly, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Those are all good enough reasons for me. So here are my top 10 technology flops. But first, some ground rules. I stuck to the last 50 years or so. And I avoided specific company products. We've heard enough about the IBM PCjr, Apple Newton, Microsoft Bob, and OS2 to last 10 lifetimes.… Read more