Brett Winterford's CES blog

Cyborg tech predicted as next big disruptive technology

The next explosive growth in the microprocessor industry, according to chip guru Levy Gerzberg, won't be powering a consumer electronics device. It will more likely be planted somewhere in our own bodies, under our skin, delivering critical information and executing actions that can quite literally prolong our lives.

Speaking at a forum at the Consumer Electronics Show on disruptive technologies, Gerzberg, the CEO of microprocessor designer Zoran, said that by definition a "disruptive technology" is one that changes our lives in a drastic and positive way. With that in mind, there can be no greater disruptive technology, he said, more

Facebook: We still believe in the social ad

Little over a month since Facebook's Beacon advertising service came under fire over privacy concerns, the company's chief revenue officer has said that the "social ad" will remain a key focus for the social-networking site.

Owen Van Natta, chief revenue officer at Facebook, told an audience at the Consumer Electronics Show that most Facebook users are comfortable with sharing information about the products and services they consume.

Facebook's Beacon is an advertising service which posts messages on users' Facebook profiles about any purchases they make on Facebook-affiliated e-commerce sites. These social ads expose to other users such more

Lenovo takes brave step back into consumer PC's

PC industry watchers have long figured that Lenovo, which holds number one market share in China for consumer laptops, would make another play at the consumer market in advanced countries like the US and Australia, markets IBM had abandoned well before it sold its PC business to the Chinese manufacturer.

Even the most dedicated long-time IBM veterans say that IBM "really failed" in the consumer business in the nineties before it abandoned it in 1999. Upon acquiring IBM's PC division, says David Nichol, director of Lenovo's small business and consumer line for Australia and New Zealand, Lenovo's more

Music industry urged to drop download prices

The music industry needs to drastically cut the price it charges for downloads if it wants to survive the Internet revolution, according to CEO of one of the world's most successful independent labels.

Terry McBride, CEO of the Nettwerk Music Group, which manages such best-selling acts as Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and Dido, told the CES conference today that the music industry needs to "let go it's control and let consumers own their music" in order to survive.

The industry, McBride says, has been "hitting a glass ceiling" in terms of sales. It won't grow beyond that, more

D-Link simplifies home networking with 'D-Life'

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that for the bulk of home owners out there, the great promise of a networked 'digital home' has been all noise and no substance.

Despite all the hype and bluster of industry giants such as Intel and Microsoft, the promise has to date only been realised by the small percentage of the market that can afford high end products and services from specialist integrators, and a handful of technical folk armed with the skills necessary to install their own kit.

Even people with a reasonable grasp of networking more

eJamming helps virtual bands meet online

Just as the Internet has changed the way geographically-dispersed knowledge workers can collaborate on a document, new technology on show at CES allows musicians from across the globe to collaborate in real-time over the network - creating a 'virtual' jam session.

The technology, patented by California and Florida-based start-up eJamming, was among several new collaborative tools demonstrated by Intel CEO Paul Otellini on stage at his CES keynote, with a little help from pop group Smashmouth.

I cornered eJamming chairman and president Alan Glueckman at the Showstoppers event later in the day to discuss how the technology works.

"We literally more

Intel CEO predicts a more 'personalised' Internet

In a visionary speech to the CES trade show in Las Vegas, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini predicted the rise of a more "personal Internet" - one which will be proactive in serving users the information and entertainment they need in a more intuitive and personalised way.

Today's Internet, he said, is a "go-to" Internet.

"The Internet reacts to our requests rather than anticipating them," he told the conference at the Venetian Hotel and Casino.

In the future, he predicts Internet services will be more proactive, predictive and context aware.

"The Internet is going to come to us," he more

TV comes to life with gesture technology

The natural human interface has been a huge theme at this year's CES.

Bill Gates talked up the Surface Computer and voice recognition in the car, Paul Otellini talked up the gesture-based interface of Nintendo Wii, and there were plenty of new ideas around interfaces exhibited on the trade show floor.

Natural human interfaces, ones that involve human movement, for example, tend to be incredibly engaging. It's rarely more noticeable than at CES--the crowds nearly always gather around those exhibits that provide some kind of interactivity. One of the most popular has been the WAVEscape advertising platform, developed more

Panasonic wows with giant 150-inch plasma

One of the most dazzling exhibits at this year's CES conference is Panasonic's ridiculously large 150-inch "Lifescreen" plasma.

The endless quest to produce the biggest and best televisions continues to astound, even if there's barely any practical applications for them.

The Lifescreen, which measures 8 feet by 12 feet and has a resolution of 4K by 2K (four times the resolution of 1080p high definition), might look great on the trade show floor but one would wonder where else it could fit.

Panasonic see a market for it - released by the end of 2008, the Japanese more

Gates gets rock star treatment for final CES keynote

Bill Gates would never have guessed way back when he dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that he might wind up his career with the status of a rock star.

But that was precisely the atmosphere in Las Vegas tonight as he both opened this year's CES conference and closed a final chapter of his career.

Thousands of journalists and technologists queued for some four hours in snake-like lines that wound around several floors of the Venetian Hotel and Casino to hear him give his tenth and final CES keynote.

In just under six months, Gates more