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Consumer Electronics Show 2002 Report
An anonymous reader writes "I've noticed that Target PC posted their
report on this year's Consumer Eletronics Show in Las Vegas. Looks like 2002 will be the year of wireless networking and recordable DVD. In the same article
they cover Samsung's upcoming portable
computer based on the StrongARM 206MHz processor that will be available in 2Q." Many wireless products (including 802.11a), huge LCD displays, and more -- I hope people who were at the show can comment on the things missed in this report, or in The Washington Posts's report.
The last five years have all been the year of wireless networking. How about a surprise?
The year of realising that wireless networking is at best a niche market.
or maybe
The year of realising that most people want their old broadband connection back, more than any low speed network.
Or have these businesses already forgotten the dot com problem of basing your business model on niche markets: there is no room for expansion.
At least someone out there has an impressive marketing budget to spend in this year we're all expecting doom and gloom...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Um, upwards of $1300 for DVD recording ability is not "comsumer" electronics.
This may yet be the year of wireless gadgets and DVD burners - but standards are a problem. Until things converge, or someone is boldly declared the winner (DVD-R, DVD+RW or whatever the bloody acronymns are) I'm not sure I'd want to invest in a piece of soon-to-be obsolete equipment. DVD players took ages to take off (years longer than predicted) because of differing DVD disc standards. The same thing could happen with burners.
RE: Wireless. 3G is still ages away and given that GPRS is only a temporary fixup, I'm not sure how great this year will be.
Nevertheless, bring on the gadgets.
Until wearable displays are implanted in the retina and can read your thoughts for their input, I doubt they will be anything more than a small niche market for hardcore geeks and professional mechanics/engineers. Most normal people ("consumers") would prefer using a small handheld box than walking around looking like a borg. Wires and eyeglass-mounted projectors and arm-mounted keyboards just aren't very stylish. I'm not surprised there were far more handheld PDAs than wearables at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Some of these "fantastic new products" are rather pointless, and I fail to see any market large enough to recoup any costs of developing/launching such a product.
For instance - who needs or even WANTS to watch movies on their pocket PC? Great - I can see a highly compressed movie(3 Stooges? WTF?) full of artifacts(or is that the crappy LCD display) ANd you can seel it to me on an IBM Microdrive? Even better - 'cause I really wanna pay $400 for Ishtar(those meetings can be soooooo boring) How on earth do they think that this is going to be a money maker?
I'm convinced that more and more "tech" companies are fronts for money-laundering("Seriously - we thought the online Greeting Card industry was set to reach $300Bil. by 2003", "Everyone will want to listen to crappy tunes on their cell phone! AND they will pay dearly for it!")
In light of last week's statements by Philips that copy-protected cd's are not really cd's, I wonder if this cause the RIAA to begin pushing DVD music formats. We won't really mind region-encoded, can't-play-on-your-computer, enhanced-for-your-pleasure music DVDs (for $30 each), will we?
I just can't see the RIAA/MPAA sitting idly by as we start burning DVD's full of music rather than piddly CD's.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Let's face it, the majority of consumer electronics never really take off, and manufacturers know this. In many cases (Commodore Amiga) it's because there IS no market for the product at present. Calling something a 'solution' immediately makes management think that 'well, if there's a solution, there MUST be a problem!'. And the buying spree commences...
Of course, the honest route of 'our goods are useless and can't sell themselves solely on their own merit' went the way of the Dodo several decades ago. LCD monitors are some of the worst offenders here: sure, some people need every available square inch of desk space. But guess what? Most offices do not. That extra space just ends up turning into a mess of unorganized filing space. So what does every 'modern' secretary have on his/her 3x5(ish) desk? A nice new LCD monitor, to save that precious square foot or so of space! All because we've become convinced that monitors are somehow 'space-wasting'. I guess that explains the slow adoption of PC hardware over the past 20 years
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.