The big newsmakers at CES 2010 were 3D TVs and 3D Blu-Ray players, e-book readers, tablet PCs and Internet-enabled automotive accessories (like being able to Tweet from your new Ford).
And then there were all the new toys. Toshiba's Cell TV line can turn 2D content into 3D (how well remains to be seen). Other manufacturers showed off TVs with built-in WiFI, and desktop and notebook computers with multi-touch touchpads and screens. Neato Robotics and Evolution Robotics even brought competition for iRobot's Roomba!
Lego previewed its upcoming Universe multiplayer online game (with bins of figure parts for attendees to bring home samples to their kids). Sanyo showed its pedal-assisting Synergetic Hybrid Bicycle — life's no longer uphill both ways!
Brand new accessories are coming along to make all your electronics more manageable. ClickFree, CMS and ReBit brought their newest portable automatic backup products for your desktop and notebook hard drive. Iomega showed their new v.Clone software (based on VMware), which can copy an image of your PC's hard drive onto an hard drive — and run it on another PC.
And there were solar chargers from pocket-sized to notebook-powering tarpaulins, a fuel cell or two, lots of apps and accessories for your iPhone, stylish notebook and netbook cases, a squeezable gaming controller, phones and cameras and videocams that work underwater...something for just about anybody and everybody, for work or for play, at every budget level.
As always, there were some just plain startling things at this year's show. For example, Easy Energy, Inc.'s YoGen Handheld Charger (MSRP $39.95, scheduled to be available in the first quarter of 2010) is a hand-powered mobile-device charger, run by repeatedly pulling the ripcord string, not unlike pulling the starter cord for a very, very small lawnmower.
Daniel Dern (www.dern.com) is a freelance technology/business writer based in the Boston area.
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