CES 2013 – Technology Affecting Media

It’s CES 2013 time (as per usual,without the big guns: Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook). Nonetheless, the consumer electronics gadget show hosted in Las Vegas is the industry’s biggest trade show where companies excitedly advertise their latest innovations. Journalists are always quick to point out that many of the products on display will ultimately dwindle, with very few actually becoming successful (Ultrabooks & 3D TVs spring to mind). At conventions like these though, I still enjoy keeping an eye on gadgets that could have the potential to change the way we go about our daily lives and importantly, how we consume media (if you’re into literal consumption you should check out this HapticFork on display at CES).

Here are four gadgets that have caught my eye so far:

Lenovo’s “Table Tablet”

We’re already inundated with smartphones and tablets – to the extent where I won’t go very long outside without seeing someone frantically tapping away at their screens (most possibly damaging their long term neck posture by doing so). But what about a table-top computer? Yes, not quite revolutionary, but as tablets become pervasive, the larger – but thinner – form factor devices such as these will change the types of apps we’ll be seeing and using.

Plair Streams HDMI via Wifi

A small device attached to an HDMI port will allow video streaming via Wifi. While this is not necessarily revolutionary, Plair are being commended for the software bundled with it which makes the experience easy. Overall, technology like this supports multiple devices and cloud computing, which continues to grow in popularity.

Brookstone Speaker Pillow

A pillow with speakers? Really? Why not? I did talk about consuming media – and this is definitely one way of changing that. Easy access to audio can only be a good thing in terms of listening to any type of audio format, and who enjoys wearing headphones in bed anyway?

PaperTab

Speaking of form factor, potentially one of the more exciting products on display is the PaperTab. Produced by Intel, Plastic Logic and Queen’s University Canada, the flexible paper-thin tablet is already touted as having the ability to revolutionise computing. If a product like this comes onto the market it could very well change the way we work.