Vegas electronics show offers gadgets, software and sex

SAN FRANCISCO - A dozen industries will cram into the annual consumer electronics jamboree in Las Vegas next week to clamour for attention in the crowded digital media market.

With entertainment being cut loose from the living room as never before, the challenge is to offer the products and software that consumers will want as the next badge of cool -- and convenience.

This year will feature a cornucopia of gadgets, ranging from advances in satellite car radios to luminescent fibres that promise to turn clothing into wearable lamps and camera phones that can take nighttime pictures without flashbulbs.

It's not a question of who wins the war for dominance so much as how much territory different industries can grab in the emerging digital landscape that will be on display at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, analysts said.

Meanwhile, a sex industry show sponsored by Adult Video News will take place at the fringes of the Consumer Electronics Show, in a tacit recognition of the role that sex plays in attracting consumers to new technology trends.

With more than 2,500 exhibitors and 130,000 industry participants expected to take part in the main show, companies will show off their latest electronic wizardry in hopes of gaining a bigger chunk of a market that racks up US$122 billion in annual sales.

Big Asian electronics makers, automakers, computer and phone companies and even pornographers will be out in force, seeking to define their role as new technologies blur the lines between industries, and allow for media on the go.

"Every TV set, set-top box, cell phone will have an internet connection," said Tim Bajarin, an industry analyst at Creative Strategies Inc. in Campbell, California.

"If every device is connected to the internet, it requires a different way of thinking about how to create products and how consumers use products."

Audio and visual electronics giants such as Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., better known as Panasonic, as well as Philips and Thomson SA/RCA will aim to defend their grip on the living room as home entertainment hub.

And personal computer and storage makers such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Seagate Technology will seek to show how they can connect the living room to every other room of a networked home.

Unleash entertainment

Meanwhile, operators and equipment makers for mobile phone, satellite radio and television and car electronics, along with countless gadget makers, will demonstrate how to unleash entertainment from the home.

This is all in the name of courting consumers, who now have unprecedented control over how they listen to music, read the news or watch TV. They can take high-definition video or music on the road, to the office or slip it into their pockets wherever they happen to be.

In years past, many analysts had predicted that the PC might overtake the television as the prime way consumers enjoy digital entertainment.

Now most industry observers see the contest as more multifaceted, with no one dominant device.

"The PC has tripped on the carpet going into the living room," said Richard Doherty, research director of Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York.

Curiously, Apple Computer Inc., the consumer electronics industry's biggest pacesetter, will have a minimal presence in Las Vegas. Apple, whose iPod music player changed the way people listen to music and now watch videos, holds its own conference the following week in San Francisco.

Exhibitors at this year's Consumer Electronics Show are likely to introduce dozens of pocket-sized challengers to Apple's video iPod, Doherty added.

This year's hot topic is a replay of the Betamax versus VHS face-off of the 1970s, which ended with VHS becoming the industry standard for videocassette recorders.

The industry is looking to determine which technology -- Blu-ray, HD-DVD, a Chinese variant or some other standard -- will emerge to replace DVDs as the next generation, high-capacity optical media storage disc, Doherty said.

It's in keeping with the Consumer Electronics Show's reputation as the place where breakthroughs are born.

Some of the most significant consumer electronics innovations have debuted at the show since the event first took place in New York in 1967.

The videocassette recorder was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, in 1970, the compact disc player in 1981, high-definition television in 1998, and Microsoft's Xbox gaming console in 2001, according to the show's organizers.

Last year's big debut was IPTV, or internet-delivered television.

Microsoft will showcase Windows Vista, the long-anticipated upgrade of its Windows operating system.

Retailers and technologists can choose from among 20 sessions devoted to "digital Hollywood" to get insight into how to connect everyone in the family to a digital device, no matter where they are in the home.

- REUTERS