The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opening aired yesterday on the Tubes and I caught the live stream of Microsoft’s Keynote. The CES is a huge 3-day Trade Fair held In Las Vegas for consumer electronics’ manufacturers to show off their ‘next-generation’ trinkets. Usually it’s all about new services, new gadgets and new technologies that are coming into production during the oncoming year. For example, Nintendo showed off its NES in 1985 at CES and VCR, CD and DVD-player technologies have all been introduced at CES in the past. [image via Major Nelson]
This year I was especially looking forward to CES, since there have been numerous rumors on the (uh) Internets that MS would be revealing a new HD-DVD Xbox 360. Unfortunately as I was 47 minutes into the Keynote, I became apparent that this was not the case. But they did show off some other cool stuff, for example their ‘Surface’ computer — a tabletop that works entirely by multi-touch technology. It looks great and is a really interesting concept; the downside is its size, which is roughly about the size of a refrigerator. Shame.
During the upcoming days, other companies will be showing off their knick knacks and hopefully they’ll have something cool to exhibit. Also CeBIT, the European equivalent to CES is on in March in Hannover, Germany. That’s one to look forward to, there’s always something neat there. In the meanwhile, here’s the Microsoft CES Keynote.
[Update] Oh yeah, the MWSF 2008 is also up in about a week, which is always great news for Apple users. Ars Technica has a funny MWSF Bingo PDF for your enjoyment; print it out and watch the Keynote.