CES 2010 Recap: The 5 Biggest Trends

1. Ford Sync, Audi MMI, Kia Uvo: Best in Show
Ford rocked forward with a new version of Sync (photo top) with Bluetooth, USB music connector, voice input, three ways to access the Internet from every seat in the car (laptop aircard, cellphone data stream, WiFi in your garage or rest area), and rocker switches on the steering wheel using the same layout as the game pad or cellphone rocker you already know how to use. Audi, tucked away in the nVidia booth, showed its next-generation MMI, or multimedia interface (photo above) with an iDrive-like control wheel and an Alps touchpad so you can enter text one character at a time, such for a destination; sometimes two or three characters are all you need for a unique destination name (A-L-B in New Mexico would take you to Albuquerque). Audi's MMI display uses an nVidia chipset to keep the screen updated intantly. Microsoft with its Windows Automotive area showed Ford Sync cars and others using similar technologies such as Fiat's Blue & Me, the precursor to Sync. And Kia showecase Uvo (pronounced YOO-voe, as in "your voice"), fruit of the Hyundai-Kia-Microsoft partnership. This was the newest, hottest, most clearly useful technology of CES.

2. 3D TV: Triumph of Vendor Hope Over User Reality?
Everybody showed off 3D TV, where two slightly overlaid, slightly out of-register images take on three dimensions when you don a pair of special goggles. But will 3D be must-see TV? If you saw Need for Speed in 3D (also in that nVidia booth), you know it's a winner for gaming on PC monitors and maybe on big TVs. I've been around a couple racetracks and, seeing them in 3D, it's almost like being there minus the smell of overheated brakes. 3D also works for porn, which I didn't see being demonstrated at CES, and it wasn't for lack of investigation on my part. 3D probably works for specialty videos and spectacular movies (Avatar). But for mainstream TV? We have a dozen friends over to watch the Super Bowl; there, 3D glasses would get in the way of what's more a social than TV-watching event. Plus, BYO would have to include 3D goggles, not just beer, if company came over. On the other hand, if 3D comes as a no-extra-cost feature of higher-end TVs, and mostly the TV is used for traditional programs, it's something worth having. HDTV was a big thing; 3D isn't quite in that league.

3. eBooks Approach Critical Mass
eBooks are coming. Lower prices will help. There will be enough material soon, especially as Amazon sells book-plus-eBook combos. The problem remains: Users want color, especially for school textbooks. They also want long battery life, which means monochrome systems, and they'd like screens to update faster. This is almost ready for prime time.

4. Overabundance of iPod / iPhone cases
You couldn't walk more than two booths in the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall without running into a purveyor of cases for Apple iPods and iPhones: hardshell, softshell; plastic, silicone, neoprene; solid color, silkscreen, dye sublimation. There must be 10 times as much iPod case production capacity as there will ever be demand. There was similar optimism and excess, just not wretched excess, among makers of sub-$50 Bluetooth earpieces, booster batteries for cellphones and iPods, and universal transformers. Half the vendors will be gone in a year, or selling something else.

5. Long Decline of Aftermarket Car Audio Continues
Automakers build in more and more electronics. There are very few cars left with easily replaced DIN and Double-DIN radios. Order a new car with premium audio and the speakers and amps are pretty good, too. All of which meant: fewer car AV booths, smaller AV booths, and fewer booth babes. The species isn't extinct, though.