Ces 2014

Yet more smart-TVs and home theater systems, but much less emphasis on 3D glasses this year. That's what I reckon.

 

Can we say s5?

 

It'll get its own Unpacked event I imagine.
Only thing I'm really interested in is seeing what Pebble announces. New hardware, software, app store?

 

Unfortunately that site isn't loading, it's trying to connect to CloudFlare, which I think is United States only. Just getting blank pages. Can someone post what it says please.

 

You can't get to The Verge?
Partial transcript from Legere, Pres. of T-Mo:

Spoiler

 

I thought 2013 was supposed to be the year of "No glasses 3D"?

Anyway, I'm guessing there'll be a lot of 4K and maybe some curved screens there this year.

Maybe more from Ubuntu/Firefox OS?

 

Thanks.

That sounds like bickering between US carriers. Verge uses CluudFlare for their content delivery. Which I think doesn't work unless you're in the US, like Hulu.

 

What I would like to see at CES large 42inch or perhaps 60inch AMOLED TVs for a reasonable cost. Sony showed a 13inch one two years ago for something stupid like $1500. And I'm talking proper AMOLED, not LCD with LED backlight, which is the current technology.

 

Am I missing something here? Why would one want a curved screen on a TV set? They spent almost 80 years probably trying to get rid of the CRT, and now we have flat screens. Manufactuers did finally get to doing a flat screen CRT, but of course LCD and plasma took that over.

TBH 3D is dead, except in the cinema. If they can get a 3D TV to work without glasses and has wide viewing angle that will be interesting. Also we need to some 3D content to watch at home, besides the demonstration stuff.

 

LG announced their curved TV and I kinda assumed it was the next big thing...

Also I thought 3D became more of an actual fad when 3D TVs were found to be really expensive, and well, crap (IIRC some have their 3D going into the screen, rather than out of it, which IMO sounds like crap)

 

I agree that 3D is dead. At least in most British living rooms (and even more so in Japan) I doubt there's any real benefit to 4k, but the manufacturers have to try to persuade you to buy new kit somehow I guess.

Curved TV? Since only 1 person can sit at the focus of the curve it seems obvious to me that they aren't mass market. I'm guessing it will quietly fade out as yet another expensive gimmick in a year or so - but may get a "best in ces" in passing (a lot of duds have had those)

 

3DTV is dead in the US as well. Who wants to have to wear glasses to watch their TV, especially the expensive shutter ones? 4K TV is for the "look what I got" technophiles. Both of these also have a total lack of programming to watch.

I will like to see more and better portable electronics. I want to see devices with stellar battery life, not just a couple days with average light use. I know smartphones use way more power, but I would enjoy what my digital non smartphones were getting on a charge. Seeing a S5 would be nice, making the S4 less expensive.

 

I wouldn't say 3D is dead, you can't buy a high-end tv without it. As for 4K content, it's the old chicken and egg thing, though Sony is making some of their blu-ray discs 4K compatible and the price of the sets is coming down. I haven't watched any myself, so can't say how much of an improvement it is. The biggest problem I see with 4K is with streaming, as the files will be huge.

 

Oh yeh, many TVs are 3D capable, but the glasses might be optional extra. And also finding anything 3D to watch, that isn't demonstration material, like nature and sports clips and things.

HD had the chicken and egg thing when it was first introduced IMO, but eventually HD TVs became widely available, as did content, i.e. broadcast, downloads and Blu-ray. But as you say, 4K downloads are huge. Even colour TV was a chicken and egg thing from what I can remember. Our neighbour had a colour TV at great expense, in the late '60s UK, but most programmes were still in black and white.

Isn't Sony doing a 4K home theatre system? - which is basically a local server with hard drives. I also heard that shipping a hard drive overnight via Fedex has more bandwidth than most people's internet connection, i.e. it's quicker...LOL! That was on Leo Laporte's TWiT podcast.

Amazon drones delivering hard drives to people's houses! 4K content delivery sorted.

 

It's definitely CloudFlare, was on another site that uses CloudFlare, and I had to do a CAPTCHA before I could view any content.

I would post a screen-shot but image uploads to AF seem to be broken at the moment. But it had this message...

"virus-scan" "infected devices" ? I'm using a Mac. ...and I'm on a personal home connection, not a "misconfigured network". ...and that is NOT my IP address....I checked.. "221.118.51.6" is in Japan with a .jp ISP. ...very likely their network that's misconfigured

Some of CloudFlare's clients have a United States only policy, well no Japan or China at least, and they're actively enforcing it?

IMO things on the internet and the cloud can really suck when they don't work right or geo-restricted. I wonder if anything at CES will be promoting the cloud? e.g. Google. ..or heaven forbid CloudFlare.

 

http://m.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/ces-2014-what-to-expect-from-the-show-1193036

 

Padfone in the US. About time.

 

I actually really like the padfone concept (never actually tried it out, but I'd like to)

 

Same, since it allows you to have a phone and a mobile data tablet in one device with awesome battery life since the tablet attachment has a second battery. I wonder if they'll allow a keyboard dock like they did with previous versions only available in Asia.

 

The only thing I wondered about that - what happens if you get a call? Can you just pull the phone out?