The 2008 CES trade show is coming to Las Vegas next week. Display Daily readers are unlikely to be ignorant of this as it is the largest technology trade show of any type and the highlight of the consumer electronics year. Since I’m registered as Press, perhaps I’m more aware of it than ordinary visitors. E-mail addresses of all press registrants are given to all exhibitors, and they all seem to take advantage of it to ask me to visit their booth and see their latest technology. Invitations have come from the largest of the mainstream CE manufacturers to the smallest of startups.

Matt Brennesholtz
Insight Media Analyst

To put it mildly, I won’t be the only one there. According to the CEA, there are registered attendees from 140 countries worldwide and they expect total attendance to top 140,000. The 2,700 exhibitors are enough to fill 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space. The first exhibits open 9:00AM Monday and the last closes at 4:00PM Thursday. All of the exhibits are eye-catching as exhibitors vie for the attention of the attendees, but some are more eye-catching than others. Before the exhibits open, there will be a multitude of press conferences and other events.

Of course, I can’t visit all these booths, press conferences and special events. I can’t even visit all the ones I have a particular interest in. Not to worry - Insight Media will have 11 analysts at CES with the intention of covering all aspects of display and consumer electronics developments. If it is at CES, hopefully one of us will see it. Tuesday night all 11 of us are scheduled to get together for dinner and discuss the show. One of the topics will be a discussion of products, demos or technologies worthy of our Best Buzz awards. These awards reflect what we, and others at CES, were talking most about. Of course, the final Best Buzz decision can’t be made until the last of us drag ourselves away from the last both with our eyes, brains, notepads and cameras full of the latest technology.

Insight Media will pay special attention to emerging technologies - demos and discussions more often shown behind the closed doors of hotel suites than out in public on the trade show floor. One thing I want to see is pico-projectors. So far, I have 13 appointments in suites, hotel lobbies or booths to talk about pico- and pocket-projectors. All this will go into the updated pico-projector report to be issued as soon after CES as possible.

One of the reasons so many of us are going to CES is the reports Insight Media has in progress where we must be up on the latest in technology and markets. These reports include an updated LED Projection report, with companion market segment reports covering both LED and Lasers in various projection markets. One of these market segments will be the updated pico-projector report I am working on. We also have an update to the 2006 Low-Cost Projector report in the works, a report on e-paper technology and applications and a report on 3D television for consumer applications. The 2008 LCD backlight unit report is practically finished, but if we see something important on BLUs at CES, it isn’t too late to add it in.

Display Daily will come from CES each day next week, with up-to-the-minute comments on some aspect of CES from one of the Insight Media analysts. Of course, five 1 page DD’s can’t hope to cover a fraction of what’s there. Mobile Display Report in mid-January and the February issue of Large Display Report will contain extensive coverage of what we saw.

It is going to be an interesting but exhausting week. Leave New York before dawn Sunday morning, return Thursday night (Friday morning, actually) after Midnight. If it wasn’t for the neat stuff I expect to see, plus the Booth Babes, I would not be looking forward to it at all.

Reply to the author