Las Vegas is a curiously old-fashioned place; a city that pursues pastimes long since frowned upon elsewhere; where the drinks are long and the waitresses’ skirts short. It’s a place where smokers, gamblers and drinkers can do what they please among the fake gondoliers and faux Eiffel Towers along the Strip.
But for one week Sin City is transformed into the most cutting- edge venue on the planet. More microchips and semi-conductors can be found within a three-mile radius than even in Silicon Valley.
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in full swing this weekend, is a chance for the Japanese, Korean, Israeli and American gadget-makers to show off the products they hope will end up on retailers’ shelves over the next year or two. And among 2,400 companies exhibiting there a fair number of British firms revolutionising the industry, too.
Remember something called the video cassette? That was first launched at CES in 1970. Those impossibly shiny compact discs? Unveiled here in 1981. So if you want to know what will end up in our pockets and in the living room, Vegas in the first full week of January is the place to be.
Tablets, netbooks, hybrid laptops, ebooks, 3D televisions, panoramic video cameras, tweeting cars, high- definition streaming, femtocells, networked data storage, breath-controlled nanotechnology were only some of the innovations that made an appearance this year. It’s technology that is not just difficult to comprehend but sometimes hard to pronounce.
There is no guarantee that all of it will take off. More than 500 of the 2,700 exhibitors last year are no longer around. The recession has been hard on both technology companies and Vegas – which has one of the highest bankruptcy rates in America. But survivors have flourished by inventing devices that many of us cannot live without.
More and more people are using technology on a daily basis, thanks to the profound effect mobile phones have had over the past decade. Numbering 76 million, there are more mobile phones in the country than people. And most of them have greater memory and stronger processing power than you could find in a home computer 10 years ago.
Kat Hannaford, contributing editor to Gizmodo, the gadget website, is a long-time attendee of CES. “The last couple of years have been amazing,” she says. “A far wider range of people are using technology each and every day, in a way they never did before – in their car, in their kitchen, and, of course, with their phones.”
The iPhone, with its ability to run apps, has encouraged thousands of software developers to create widgets that allow users to shop, play games, check the weather and communicate with each other.
One of the big hits at this year’s CES was the LED 9000 television unveiled by Samsung, which puts apps on a 55-inch screen television, rather than the three-inch screen of a phone. Years after the telly was written off as a relic, it has become the main piece of technology families gather around every day in a way they have not done since the 1970s.
That’s not just because of shows such as The X-Factor that have helped different generations enjoy programmes together, but because of the sets themselves. Television was under threat from the power of the laptop. The portable computer, hooked up to the internet, was becoming the main entertainment hub – a place to view photos, surf the net and catch up on programmes with services such as the BBC iPlayer.
But television sets will, by the end of this year, offer all these extras. Models from LG and Panasonic even allow you to make telephone calls over the internet, using the television as a giant video conferencing device. Others will come pre-loaded with YouTube and the BBC iPlayer. The television has wrested control back from the computer.
John Kempner, a senior buyer at John Lewis, is also at the show, being wowed by the televisions. “What we are realising is that people can use televisions as a focal point for the family. It is becoming a communications centre not just a set you use to watch television programmes,” he said.
And he confirmed that by next Christmas, John Lewis – alongside the likes of Currys and Argos – will be offering 3D sets. At first, they will come with a hefty price tag of at least £2,500 or so. But the stuff of science fiction will become part of many families’ everyday lives within a matter of months, once Sky starts broadcasting football and documentaries in 3D.
For every sceptic who refuses to don the necessary 3D dark glasses, such as Kat Hannaford, who believes the sets “are no more than a passing fad”, there are at least two believers.
Michael Brook, editor of T3 gadget magazine, said: “Even if consumers don’t really want it, there has been so much investment poured into 3D, not just from the manufacturers, but also from the broadcasters, such as ESPN in the States and Sky in Britain. Too much money has been bet on 3D for it to fail.
“Give it another year and the price will fall to £2,000 and then lower. That’s when they will take off.”
And if the sofa, in front of the telly, is the heart of family life in Britain, the upholstered driver’s seats of a car is where many Americans feel most at home. Not surprising, then, that manufacturers in the US have started developing cars that are connected to the internet, so you can tweet while on the road.
Ford, who is pioneering in-car entertainment with access to the internet via a Wi-Fi card that slots into the dashboard, insists drivers won’t use the technology to send messages to the Twitter site while waiting at a red light. “But while you are driving to Grandma’s house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles,” said Mark Fields, of Ford.
Cars, televisions, and even electronic books, are now hooked up to the internet. It’s a disturbing thought for some. But for Brook it is a sign of how far the hi-tech industry has come.
Ebooks outsold paperbacks on Amazon over Christmas, suggesting there is an insatiable demand for gadgets that make life simpler.
“There seems to be less technology for technology’s sake. And that has to be a good thing. Just five years ago electrical products were being designed by engineers for engineers. Apple changed all of that and encouraged everyone else to put the consumer first.
“Gadgets are just easier to use.”
