2012 CES - What's the deal?

What’s the big deal about the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show?

If you make, market, sell, service or write about consumer electronics; you’ll probably be in Las Vegas this week with close to 150,000 of your closest friends. The consumer electronics show is so huge that it fills the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Venetian Convention Center. Other manufacturers display their products in a dozen or more additional hotels and conference venues, each hoping to grab some of this year’s spotlight.

Over 140,000 attendees have signed up and are coming from over 140 countries to see, buy and sell technology to a world that can’t wait for the next biggest, smallest, fastest or lightest device. Did you know that the average U.S. household has 24 consumer electronics devices in their home, representing a $190 billion dollar market each year?

The Consumer Electronics Show is the largest convention in the United States each year and the world’s largest consumer technology show with over 2,700 exhibitors, covering 1.7 million square feet of show floor (that’s 35 football fields.) Over 4,500 journalists and broadcasters will be here to bring you the stories as they break. With almost two journalists for every vendor, there should be no lack of stories hitting the wire this week. (It’s also why local motels that usually go for $69 per night can command $249 per night during the show.)

But what else makes this the granddaddy of all conventions?  Simply put, if you have a breakthrough innovation, this is where it’s usually introduced. Just look at the record of products that have debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show since its inception in 1967.

·         1970   The VCR

·         1981   Camcorder and the CD player

·         1990   Digital audio technology

·         1994   Digital satellite systems

·         1996   The DVD

·         1998   High definition television

·         2000   Satellite radio

·         2001   Microsoft Xbox and plasma TV’s

·         2003   Blu-Ray DVD

·         2004   HD radio

·         2005   IPTV

·         2009   3D HDTV

·         2010   Tablets, netbooks and Android devices

·         2011   Android Honeycomb, connected TV and smart appliances

Will this year see another ground-breaking technology innovation? Stay tuned and subscribe to this column for plenty of updates during the coming week.