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CES 2012: A ROUND-UP OF THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST

As this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) came to an end, the shiny, light-weight, thin gadgets were packed away and the technology industry took a step back to evaluate which ground-breaking development will really make a difference to consumer’s everyday lives. Although we unfortunately didn't attend this year's CES, at Adjust Your Set we've outlined below the top announcements from the show; from the innovative to the peculiar.

OVERVIEW

Generally the overall theme of CES 2012 was convergence. The convergence between multiple devices within the home, how they communicate with each other and with consumers themselves. We now have access to information across smartphones, tablets, computers and connected TVs and it is the convergence of these platforms, along with appliances from your washing machine to the fridge, that will revolutionise the "connected-home".

SHOPPING

Various technology announced at CES will have an impact on our retail experience and for many brands and technology manufacturers making that experience easier is a priority. From virtual stores and dressing rooms, to communication between our fridges and smartphones.

LG's Smart Refridgerator was one such gadget. The fridge works with the owners smartphone app and displays a list of food items inside, as well as their locations and expiration dates. It also recommends meals you can make with the items in the fridge and offers online shopping directly from the fridge's LCD panel, or smartphone. We're hoping the next development will be a fridge that actually cooks the meals for us!


Of course for marketers this means there could be greater brand loyalty to particular products as the fridge re-orders the same brand once it's been used. It will be interesting to see whether the LCD panel on the fridge will allow brand advertising...

CAR TECHNOLOGY

There were various in-car technologies demoed at CES. Ford for example has a new smartphone app that provides real-time statistics on the driver's vehicle and interactions with social networks. But it's Mercedes Benz DICE that really caught our interest.

Called the Dynamic and Intuitive Control Experience (DICE), it's essentially a combination of three screens; the left dashboard, right dashboard and the windscreen. The left dashboard is the most traditional, displaying car speed and the petrol gauge, the right dashboard has an embedded iPad that is motion sensitive rather than touch sensitive and let's you interact with social media, and the windshield serves as a heads-up display. The windscreen provides augmented reality information, identifying landmarks as you pass them and can be used as an interactive sat-nav. The only thing that's now missing is a car that drives itself, or the DeLorean to take us to the future...


DIGITAL HEALTH

For the health-conscious of us, there were a range of personal health devices that now have connectivity to the internet and can incorporate social media. Some are used as part of a diet and health programme (we'll avoid these), others for fitness (we'll avoid these too), but some can monitor conditions in real-time and provide valuable personalised data.

TELEVISION

Of course the greatest amount of buzz generated at CES was around the TV screen. From the size of them, to dual-screen functionality, from 3D and HD to internet-enabled.

Connected TVs have long been touted as the next ‘big’ thing but has predominantly been the home for catch-up viewing. In last year’s Adjust Your Set and IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) research, marketers voted “watching catch-up TV” as the most frequent activity on connected TVs. But this could be about to change. This year’s CES show allowed the various technology manufacturers to showcase the future of smart TVs. With the latest technology innovation, increase in cloud services and faster internet speeds, audiences have greater freedom in the type of content distributed into their homes and the screens they watch it on.

However, while the technology may have arrived, the content propositions are still in their infancy. Broadcasters will continue to distribute scheduled programmes and catch-up services, but connected TVs will really come into their own when brands develop complimentary content.

THE PECULIAR

While we've read about various technology and gadgets that aim to aid and improve our everyday lives, we have come across some that do seem a little unconventional. From computer games controlled with your eyes to mind-control headsets and uni-cycles. You can read an interesting article about them from The Daily Herald here.

VIEW IT HERE

There has been a great deal of media coverage of this year's CES. The BBC programme Click has produced a great video outlining the key trends which you can view here.

Engadget managed to interview a number of attendees from Nokia's Stephen Elop to Nintendo and Toshiba. You can watch the interviews here.

The Daily Telegraph has produced a video below that looks in detail at the dominance of internet-connected TVs.