LAS VEGAS -- Television as you've never known it -- super-thin sets, Internet programs streamed to your big screen and 3-D viewing -- dominates the new wave of entertainment technology at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show here.
The four-day extravaganza, which opened Thursday and is expected to draw some 130,000 members of the electronics trade, put television at center stage as companies like Panasonic, Sony and LG introduced sets an inch thick or less, and Samsung unveiled a back-lit LCD model just 7mm thin, or a bit more than a quarter of an inch. Its slim profile is achieved by using tiny diodes to illuminate the screen.
The top television makers also signaled what could be historic change in the way we get our TV programming. In recent months, add-on boxes such as Wii, Playstation 3 and Netflix players have made it possible to stream movies and TV episodes from the Internet to standard television sets. But this year, television manufacturers are showing sets with built-in Internet "bridges."
These new sets will let you purchase HD movies and TV episodes from sources such as Amazon or Netflix for instant viewing. And Yahoo has developed interactive software "widgets" to display across the bottom of the TV screen -- like the football stats and news tickers you currently see, but for personalized shopping, weather and looking at your Facebook and Flickr pages. It's not hard to envision the Internet becoming a serious rival to cable and satellite providers.
Prices for many new products will be set later.
The next step for television isn't up, as Panasonic put it, but in -- into the action with that old novelty of the cinema, 3-D.
3-D for HDTV is "not a gimmick. It's ready for prime-time," film director James Cameron said in a taped pitch from the set of his forthcoming movie, "Avatar." The fantasy film is coming to cinemas in December, and it's being shot in 3DHD for eventual home viewing with special glasses. Panasonic is setting up a Hollywood facility to spread its 3-D know-how.
Among other hot buttons at this year's exposition:
• Palm, the honored granddaddy in handheld devices, unveiled its answer to iPhone with a smart new phone of its own, the Palm Pre. It has a touchscreen, a curvy QWERTY keyboard that slides out, and a new operating system called Palm Web OS for elegant switching among calendar, e-mail and video.
• Netbooks, the basic notebook computers for people who mostly just need Web access, are going stylish. Sony's knockout Vaio P, narrow and lightweight, fits in purse or jacket pocket. Coming in February, in black, red, green or white, at $900.
• The "cute" winner: Minoru's cherry-red 3D Webcam , which looks like a cousin of Wall-E sitting atop your computer. Five pairs of 3-D glasses are included to hand out to friends viewing the images you send. Expected to be available shortly at $90.
Watch TV on PC - 12,000 TV Channels and Movies
No comments:
Post a Comment