CES Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Otis Regrets... or not

Product wrapup from CES 2011

A product I didn’t expect to like, but impressed me, is the $449 neo-I from Optoma. it’s an iPod dock that has a sweet sound system and a picoprojector that projects a reasonable size image (say 3×5 feet) on a wall). They demo’ed it in a mocked up college dorm (beer bong not included) which looks like a great user case.

The product most likely to go nowhere: the Atrix suite from Motorola. In a year where everybody is selling a unified device in a do-it-all tablet, Motorola wants you to buy a component set that includes a phone that hooks into a dock that turns into a PC with a wireless keyboard that turns into a content input device for your HD TV. They call this a “PC in a phone” but it’s really an internet device with a few specialized apps; the demonstrated benefit was being able to show your vacation videos wherever you go. Nobody is going to want to buy and organize all these pieces of equipment. And to make it worse, their wireless partner is AT&T, master of dropped signals and a no-show at CES.

Under the radar technology that was getting the most attention: Hand gesture input for televisions. Like the Xbox Kinect, the Asus TV with PrimeSense has a microcam pointed at the viewer that reads your hand gestures so you can, for example, change channels by waving your arm up and down. A lot more elegant than yet another remote, even if it has a motion sensor like the Wii.

User interface design at CES 2011

There’s always a nice buffet at the ShowStoppers press event at CES. This year it included a beautiful arugula salad with orange slices. Trouble was, the long strands of arugula fell off the tiny plates they gave us. So by the end of the evening the kitchen was chopping the arugula into pieces that didn’t fall off the plates. User interface problem, solved.

It is not so easy for a consumer electronics company to change direction with its user interface, and I think that a lot of worthy products never get a foothold in the market because of poor or simply unfamiliar choices about the way the consumer interacts with them. This is allegedly the “Year of the Tablet” at CES, and indeed it is with hundreds of models on display. Tablets don’t have keyboards, so you have to design a way for consumers to manipulate the on-screen icons that is intuitive.

Most copied the iPad model with a grid of apps icons that you can select by touch. BlackBerry’s new PlayBook did something different and I liked it. There is a horizontal band of icons actual running applications [thanks to Peter Hansen, below, for this correction] across the middle and a dock of smaller favorite icons at the bottom. It’s a cleaner interface with much less on the screen. You can flick the band to left or right to expose more icons. When you want to activate an icon enlarge an application’s window you tap it and it fills the screen, but you can get back to a desktop by “rolling in” the edge from any of the four inner edges of the bezel. After a minute I was using it with ease. I wish RIM success with this device, although I’m a little nervous that they have not announced a battery life.

Apps menu on LG TV — Apps menu on Samsung TV

Less successful are the TV Apps I saw from Samsung and LG; I’m sure they are available from other brands as well. High-end “smart” TVs have a menu screen that looks like an overgrown iPad with big icons for sports programming, partner channels, and their own version of apps, mostly games and kid activities. The whole idea seems like a non-starter to me. How many people fiddle around with their TV menu instead of going right to the menu of the TiVo or set top box they’re familiar with? And tabbing among the icons with a handheld remote was awkward and reminded me how much more intuitive a touchscreen is.

A giant electronics company can absorb a mistake, but the same may not be true of Anti Sleep Pilot, a device that mounts on your dashboard and monitors the driver’s performance and alerts you if it’s time to take a break. This is a very serious subject and a worthy thing to do but I wondered how they went about deciding how exactly to alert you and nobody at the booth could inform me.

The demo video shows a melancholy Dane who looks like he’s quite willing to cooperate but I wondered how it would be sold to Americans who are distracted to begin with. Here’s where the user interface makes a real difference. I’m told the warning sign, after you fail a certain number of tests, is a “chime”. Did they test that vs a buzzer or siren? I hope so. This is a product that truly will live or die by its interface. I watched it at ShowStoppers while munching my arugula.

GadgetTrak scribes best press release of CES 2011

GadgetTrak is a service that, if your smartphone or laptop is stolen, will snap a picture of the perp using the webcam and identify their location within a few yards, then forward the information so you can turn it over to law enforcement.

They could have told me about this with a standard press release that begins, say, “GadetTrak expands innovative protection service at CES 2011” but instead they sent this one which starts “Don’t Come to Vegas without Bringing Protection”. Smart and relevant double entendre. Then, they deliver the product pitch in a personal context a blogger can appreciate: a reporter had his backpack stolen, and all the products he was going to review were lost forever… something that would not have happened if they were registered with GadgetTrak.

And finally, an offer: journalists can get a free month of GadgetTrack protection during the show, so they can try the product for themselves. This is followed at the end of the press release by contact information, web address for the presskit and so on…. all material that I know is going to be in there so no reason to lead with it.

Contrast this with a journeyman effort such as this which came from Westinghouse, but might have been sent by any of 500 TV brands here: “Westinghouse Debuts New LED And LCD HDTV Lineups At CES 2011: Super-Thin, Energy-Efficient Westinghouse Lineup Flagshipped By 60” LED And LCD Models.”

See the problem? With competition like this, GadgetTrak wins the “flack of the year” award with a first-round pin. And they demonstrate why you always need to sell your reader on the benefit of paying attention to your message… whether it’s a press release, a direct mail letter or a job application.

What’s cooking at CES 2011?

On the plane heading to CES in Las Vegas, I decided to think about innovations I’d LIKE to see prior to reading my sheaf of press releases to find out what I actually am GOING to see. This year I’m not looking for any dramatic product category breakthroughs. Instead I’m on the prowl for stuff that makes our life easier, especially when it comes to food and eating related tasks.

The iGrill Bluetooth thermometer mentioned yesterday is a good place to start. It’s pretty intuitive how it works without knowing much more than the name. You can be sitting in front of the game indoors and still monitor the temperature of your meat (or perhaps the internal temperature of the grilling chamber) and when it’s done, get up and waddle out into the sunlight to collect your perfectly smoked brisket.

At $99, the iGrill seems a bit pricey for a one-trick pony. It would be nice if, after reading the temperature, it can do something for you… like turn off the heat (if it’s a gas grill) or dump a fresh supply of wood or charcoal on the fire. And hey, how about a really smart convection oven that can show you temperature and airflow in your oven in a heat map diagram on your iPad and you can move your finger around to adjust things? Or, a device that releases an even supply of steam inside the oven to produce a perfect loaf of crusty bread? That doesn’t need to be electronic, probably, just a fancy teapot with tricky vents and valves. I’m digressing a bit…

Lots of devices are integrated systems these days…. think of your dishwasher, or clothes washer, and the multiple functions that happen at the touch of a button. These things are controlled electronically, so theoretically it does not seem to me complicated or expensive to add a software interface that lets you monitor and modify what’s going on. Then add the Bluetooth connection and software on the computing device, and you’re in business, right?

Every year there are a number of platform areas at CES…. a number of vendors following a common standard such as X-10 or Zigbee. The booths often seem kind of sad and underfunded and it’s hard to see them starting a revolution. Meanwhile some of the big vendors, often Panasonic, will develop a technology on their own and if it takes off then others adopt it. Such is the inefficient platform development system in conumser electronics.

I’d also like to see a solution that lets you retrofit a remote control, software based interface to legacy gadgets… like Slingbox, but for my bread machine. I have been fiddling with one of these devices and it shows promise. So, what if I want to set it from the road to turn on and have a hot fresh loaf waiting when I come home? Slingbox’s secret is that it uses infrared technology,… a communications channel between the home entertainment system and a remote that is already there. The only interface to the bread machine is your finger. But, you’re saying, I could do all the programming and have some kind of delayed device to give power to the machine. That might work on some models but not mine; you have to unplug then plug it back in to input cycle instructions.

I am eager to see if some smarter soul has figured out some of these things for me…..

Blogger preview: CES 2011

Tomorrow I head west for this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The word is that LAS is packed, hard to get a taxi or a hotel room just like in the glory days. I’ll be attending press events on Thursday and Friday night, visiting a couple of clients, and trolling the floor for new and noteworthy things to write about.

In last year’s preview post (inexplicably titled “On my way to CES 2009”) I talked a little about my philosophy of working this show. I also predicted that 3D TV would be a non-starter… you read it here, and many other places, first. This year is supposedly “the year of the tablet” which also happened in 2003; I am more interested in things you can do with the tablet, such as iGrill, the world’s first bluetooth cooking thermometer you can monitor from your iPad.

My task on the plane is to scan some 300 press release emails and see if there is anything promising enough to follow up. Tip to flacks: like most people who will be writing about the show, I’ve been filtering my CES emails into a special folder. So if you don’t say “CES” in the subject line, you’re not visible to us.

Wearing my consumer hat, I am going to find what the ^% is happening with the content side of streaming video. Was excited to get an HD Roku for Christmas. Not so excited to discover that Netflix has just 20,000 streaming titles available, NOT including anything by the Coens, or Dumb and Dumber, or the Southland series from TNT. I’ve read that the studios seriously underestimated the appeal of streaming and delivered their content to Netflix at a bargain price, but if they’re going to just pull it back then we don’t have a seamless entertainment experience, do we?

Stay tuned…

Bing Photosynth demo at CES (video)

Bing is the Mac OS of the search world. (Yep, that’s ironic.) It only has a small market share, but those users have become so loyal that it has to be considered in any search marketing plan. Succeeding against all odds when other search engines were becoming an afterthought, Bing did it the same way as Google: an innovative software algorithm.

Now, Bing is taking on another Google property with its enhanced Streetside which was introduced at CES 1010. This is like Google Maps combined with Google’s directory features, but with more information and better organized. If you’re looking at a restaurant, for example, you can see ratings from a variety of sources and an aggregate quality score.

Yet what is most cool is the Photosynth feature, which allows multiple users to contribute their own visuals of a landmark which are then stitched together to enable a 3D view that can be much more information-rich than Google’s Streetview. For a heavily documented site, like the Rome Coliseum in the example, you can zoom in on a detail and do a virtual walkaround.

I shot a video with a demo of Streetside by a Microsoft boother. The really cool stuff, demoing Photosynth, is toward the end.

Dude, it’s CES, where’s your product?

foneGEAR non-booth at CES 2010 — foneGEAR's non-booth. Some teaser signage on those mirrored walls would have helped.

Can you create buzz at CES without showing any product? A couple of companies tried exactly that. First up is a company called foneGEAR. They decided sometime before the show to completely revamp their product line and positioning so, rather than show their current product, they elected to turn their large and expensive booth into a giant “coming soon” sign. The curious were funneled down a mirrored passageway where a single booth rep swiped their card and gave them a key code to unlock a product preview on their website. Booth traffic was pretty light… it might have been a good idea to put a few teaser messages on those long blank walls.

The case of PowerMat is more interesting. Their booth was jammed on Friday and I couldn’t get a demo because they were tied up with Good Morning America. All this with no product on display, just a loop of TV commercials in which hipsters place their iPhones and other portable devices on a pad and it goes bzz! and starts charging. Wireless charging, that’s cool!

But since I didn’t get the demo I read up in the press kit, and discovered PowerMat’s secret: you can’t just fling the device down, it has to be in a special inductive power sleeve that’s not obvious in the commercials. And early users and reviewers have lots of complaints like: it’s hard to get the sleeve on and off; it’s too bulky; it interferes with the compass in the GPS.

PowerMat booth at CES 2010 — All hat, no cattle? PowerMat booth at CES.

I returned Saturday and asked a booth staffer why they aren’t exhibiting product. (Meanwhile, traditional media guys are circling waiting for their demos like hungry sharks, sensing they’re really onto something. After all, everybody knows the pain of plugging in to charge your phone. Oh, to be free!) He said they did have product out the first thing on Thursday and there was such a mad scramble for it they put it away.

Now, this isn’t a stealth product. You can buy it at Amazon and Best Buy. I’ll take him at face value, even though creating mystery around a buggy product rather than showing seems like a pretty cool marketing strategy. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain..

“Don’t tase me, dad!”

Yesterday at CES I got a demo of a soon-to-be-released product aimed at parents concerned about their kids. There are two modules. Mobile Protector is a phone app they receive along with their first mobile phone. It allows the parents to control what numbers they dial and receive, whether or not they can text and under what restrictions. If they like, the parents can serve as a switchboard: incoming calls come to them and they can answer, decline or forward to their kid’s phone.

When the child reaches driving age, a vehicle mounted console called Driver Protector is added. Parents will now know where the young driver is at all times and they can set up a “Geofence” to be sure the kids are staying within an approved area. If the kid strays, or texts while driving, the phone can shut down automatically. They can tell if the kid is driving too fast, and if they are in an accident there is an alert triggered by sudden deceleration or the deployment of an air bag.

Taser demo at ces — Mobile Protector demo at CES. Afterward, a woman from the audience allowed herself to be tased for our amusement.

The interesting thing is that these products have been developed and will be released by Taser. Yeah, that Taser. I asked the booth guy how this fit with the weaponry and he said Taser’s motto is “protect life”—as in, using our product will help you protect the things in life that matter; as in, if you mess up we’ll tase you but hopefully not kill you.

I see this cutting two ways in the marketplace depending on how it’s marketed and received. Best case is that kids think it’s cool: mom and dad have given me my own Taser, sorta, to keep me safe. Worst case is they think it’s an onerous form of parental subjugation. Let’s see how it plays out.

New rules of PR at CES 2010

This year I pre-registered as a blogger at CES, and as a result I’ve received hundreds of press announcements via email over the past couple of months. Coincidentally, I was reading the just-released new edition of David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR
on the plane coming out. Scott’s premise is that the internet has changed public relations because, instead of hawking their message to the media, businesses can now promote themselves by speaking to the public directly—via blogs, content on their own website, posts and responses on networking sites and viral media.

I did an evaluation of the PR emails I’d received with this in mind. The pitches that grabbed me were the ones that were written like news stories and tied to a course of action I could take at CES to find out more and bring it to my own readership. Find out why Apple is up but Sony dropped seven spots in the Greenpeace rating of green manufacturers. Team up with Dr Dre, Lady Gaga and Monster to fight AIDS in Africa. See how Natralock ends “wrap rage” with the end of hard-to-open clamshell packages.

The interesting thing is, many of these are the kind of made-up stories or manufactured events that used to be easy to make fun of: a marketer whipping up fake news because they couldn’t find a legitimate product benefit. Now I’m reading them as a recipient of information, not a conduit, and they become relevant. I’m eager to blog about it and add my own spin, and then the flack’s work is well rewarded.

By comparison, landing side by side in the inbox, traditional press releases just didn’t cut it. (“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: La Cie announces new server for business.”) And some of the senders show a lack of finesse in using email as a medium. No-nos in my book include emaiing the press release as an attachment rather than including it in the body of the email (with this sea of info, why would I take an extra step to read your release?); addressing me as your bud because, you know, it’s email (e.g. starting with “hope all is well” or “hope you had a good holiday”); and sending a graphics-heavy announcement without ALT tags which is basically illegible unless I download the visuals (I’m looking at you, Vizio).

Scott’s theory is that there is a huge sea of traditional flacks who are trying to hang on or just don’t get it, and I guess this would be evidence. Meanwhile, I’ve got a couple of upcoming posts in the hopper, based on those pre-show emails I received.

CES 2010: it has a pulse

Just finished my first day at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. The aisles are packed, at times so much so you can’t get through. But there are no exhibits in the huge Sands center this year, several of the areas in the back of the South Hall are blocked off, and one of the ballrooms usually used for the Hilton International pavilions is dark. In the main hall, OEM no-names share the prime spots with the likes of LG and Panasonic. My guess is that exhibitors panicked and stayed away while significantly more attendees are here than last year, signaling their intent to lift us out of our gloom.

According to show sponsor CEA, consumer electronics sales were off 7.8% in 2009 yet with higher volume led by bargain hunters. Sales for 2010 are projected to be up “slightly” from this terrible level. So it was interesting to see what attracted the most attention at the show.

Most popular trend that is going nowhere: 3D TV. Everybody is standing in lines to get into the theater rooms and see it but my prediction is, this is like the hot girl you’re never going to bring home to meet mom. Once the 3D glasses get stepped on or lost in the couch cushions, the party is over. (One vendor, TCL, shows a Fresnel lens type 3D where the picture is slightly different as you sift your vision, and doesn’t require glasses, but it doesn’t really have the drama of the polarized glasses kind.)

Bad news for the 3D TV folks: virtually no traffic in the zone promoting mobile TV, a technology that is designed to provide high quality reception in a moving vehicle. If you don’t want your kids to watch live TV in the car, my prediction is you won’t want to watch 3D at home either. There’s a limit to how much fun you can have.

Entourage Edge e-reader — Entourage Edge gives you the best of both worlds. It’s an e-reader AND a tablet computer.

Attracting a lot of crowds: e-readers. Diverse interpretations and executions of what Kindle left out, many with added value content such as newspaper subscriptions, complete with graphics, delivered along with your e-books. There was prediction Apple would show its new tablet at the show, but I haven’t seen it. (SF pundits mention Moscone Center is mysteriously unbooked for several days in late January, suggesting an Apple stealth event coming then.)

I saw several specific technologies of interest. Will report on some of these tomorrow.