1/05/06

New products galore, or at least the promises of new products, are rolling out in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) event this week. Yes, the hype flows freely, but some of these products will actually prove useful. See the top story in the list on the right for some official news coverage.

Many people feel CES killed Comdex, the computer-focused show that also used to overwhelm Las Vegas every year. That’s a shame, because too much of CES covers “concept electronics” that never make it to reality, like those tantalizingly cool cars at auto shows that never hit the streets. And what does hit the streets tends more toward consumer geegaws I can’t afford, so I avoid the show. But since Comdex is no more, many technology vendors head out to CES and brave the crowded casinos, er, crowded convention center, so the news must be covered.

Of course, new products in the consumer space overlap quite well into the home office, small office, and small business markets. We’ll see plenty of new products from the usual suspects in small biz networking, for instance. An area that never quite took off, HomePlug, runs Ethernet over home and office electrical wiring. They have new players in the market, and a new version that promises to run faster and jump higher.

Keep those cards and letters coming,

James