As the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show draws to a close, it's time to look forward to the year in tech. Here are 12 things from the show that caught our collective eye.
I saw a lot of Ultrabooks at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, but Vizio's Thin + Light laptops stood out. Being in Vizio's quiet press room with no distractions probably helped, but I think there are a few better reasons why these svelte laptops — which Vizio isn't calling Ultrabooks — have me more excited than most others.
If 3D TV isn’t as popular as TV manufacturers presumably hope it might be, it’s in part because of the hassle of dealing with 3D glasses. And part of the hassle has been their proprietary nature: Major TV makers have sold specs that worked only with their own sets, which meant that you had to buy ones from your set’s manufacturer, and couldn’t switch TV brands without buying new glasses.
Apple just did something unprecedented: It released the names of all 150+ of its suppliers after several news stories — including a damning report from Chicago Public Radio's This American Life — painted an unflattering picture of how the company's suppliers treat their workers.
As MySpace signals its return to relevance with a new WebTV service (just weeks after unveiling a Facebook-integrated music player), the social networking site's former owner — Rupert Murdoch — admits News Corp. "screwed up" with the site.
Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chief sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), cares very much about holding copyright violators accountable for their actions — except, apparently, when it comes to himself.
With all the concern and conversation surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) these days, you're forgiven if you forgot about Carrier IQ and the possibility that your cellphone contains hidden keystroke-tracking software monitoring every click. Washington lawmakers have forgotten nothing — in fact they're pushing for an official investigation into the matter.
Bodymetrics lets you try on clothes without actually trying on clothes by leveraging the technology behind Microsoft's $150 Kinect camera to create a precise 3D model of your body that mimics your movements as an on-screen avatar. When a particular item of clothing has been mapped in the same way, you're able to see exactly how it would look on you in real life.
Note to Apple: If there's any way you can avoid shuttering one of your flagship stores on the very day you launch a new iPhone, well, good luck with that when the store's in Beijing, your customers broke its glass door in a prior year scuffle and this year's iPhone-hungry contingent came armed with eggs.
Microsoft's taking its annual video game victory lap, this time celebrating Xbox 360 sales for 2011, during which the 360 outsold both the PlayStation 3 and Wii (tied for second place) by over 2.7 million units.
When you attend the Consumer Electronics Show, you're going to get asked one question more than any other: "Seen anything cool?" I usually fumble a bit and then come up with a few products. But if anyone had asked me at this year's show if I'd seen anything weird, I wouldn't have had to search for an answer. I saw Autom.
At its CES booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center's North Hall, SecurityMan has been showing some products that don't work. I don't mean that as a criticism. Along with its security products, it had a whole wall of dummy cameras--budget-priced fakes designed to make intruders think that you're carefully monitoring your property when you aren't.
