The Tech World's Week of Buzz
Gadget Makers Hit Annual Shows, Seeking Hot-Product Status

By Yuki Noguchi and Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 8, 2007

Today marks the beginning of Tech Week, the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas and San Francisco for two trade shows that will feature the gadgets that could capture the world's attention for the next 12 months.

The International Consumer Electronics Show, celebrating its 40th year, is a vast showcase of everything tech that's bringing an estimated 140,000 people to the Nevada desert. By contrast, Macworld is a smaller-scale show that attracts about 40,000 people, mostly Apple-related vendors and Apple aficionados, to San Francisco.

The two shows, as much as they are different in magnitude, are important to the technology industry. Apple -- with its popular iPod, fast-growing online iTunes Store and Mac computer line -- continues to grab the attention of mainstream consumers around the globe, while the must-attend mind-set surrounding CES continues to prove what a powerful industrial force consumer technology has become.

In San Francisco, the annual keynote speech, which will be delivered by chief executive Steve Jobs tomorrow, traditionally has been the launching pad for Apple's coveted new products, the iPod Shuffle, video-capable iPod models and the Mac Mini among them. And the routine is usually the same: The company tries to keep its announcements secret until Jobs -- who takes to the stage in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, sans belt -- unveils them.

This year Jobs will almost certainly reveal the shipping version of a wireless device he introduced in September that will link a home computer with the living room TV, allowing people to watch shows and movies downloaded from iTunes on the TV's big screen.

There's also buzz that a new iPod cellphone could steal the spotlight. And Mac enthusiasts are expecting a new version of the popular iLife software suite, which includes the iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand programs.

Unlike Macworld, CES generally doesn't have a single focus so much as many ongoing themes.

Last night at a pre-show kickoff, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates delivered his annual, standing-room-only state-of-the-industry speech.

His focus this year: ways to link computers and the other hardware people use to play music and movies -- and not just handheld devices. For instance, Gates demonstrated a new technology called Sync, to be built into a dozen Ford vehicles this year, that would sync things like music, address books and cellphone ring tones with the car stereo.

"Our ambition is to give you connected experiences 24 hours a day," he told a crowd of about 3,500 in a ballroom at the Venetian hotel last night. "In thinking about that, one of the areas demands special work, and that is in the car."

Unlike Macworld, which tends to showcase products immediately available for purchase, CES is more about what's on the horizon -- or not. Some products revealed by Gates at CES in years past -- such as a "Dick Tracy"-like smart watch in 2004 -- never became must-have gadgets. Still, CES offers a chance to take in all the hype and circumstance firms have to offer, and it functions like a debutante ball for some of the newest, most clever devices. What happens at the show often sets expectations of what's to come that year.

"It's the annual event where anyone who's anyone in technology comes to get a glimpse of the future," said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Arlington-based Consumer Electronics Association, which sponsors the event. The show keeps growing in size and importance because now representatives from all the big players in the cable, telecommunications, entertainment and financial industries come to check out what's happening.

As technology has evolved -- with faster Internet speeds, larger hard-drive capacities and smarter computer chips -- the lineup of big players at the show has shifted.

Last year, Google made its debut at the show and created a lot of buzz when co-founder Larry Page landed a keynote speech and unveiled its online video store. Google's video offerings turned out to be somewhat of a flop, but online video itself became the icon of the technology frontier for 2006.

This year, video remains a key player at CES -- this time with Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS, delivering a keynote speech that is likely to address the network's push to use the Web for delivery of its programming.

Shapiro notes that not everything that's showcased at CES will find a space on the shelves of big electronics stores or win the hearts of fickle consumers. But the show has become a testing ground for what people seem interested in and is increasingly a place where business deals are struck.

It's no coincidence that over at the nearby Sands Convention Center, the adult video industry is holding its annual show the same week. Hollywood and Silicon Valley will be interested in what adult film producer Vivid Entertainment is doing with upcoming releases on two competing formats for high-definition DVD, called Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

"The adult industry's reputation for a long time has been that we're guys who get the technology out there and are willing to take chances," said Vivid founder and co-chairman Steven Hirsch. "It just makes sense that the adult entertainment industry people would be there, as well."

Historically, the adult industry has been a testing ground of technology, from 8mm films and VCRs to streaming video and clips for a mobile phone. In all those cases, mainstream studios have followed in adoption of the technologies.

Paramount Pictures, for example, last week launched a movie site exclusively for cellphones, and a month earlier, MTV Networks started a mobile-entertainment unit to sell videos over wireless phones.

It's tough for anyone to pinpoint a central theme of CES, but Shapiro, who will address attendees this morning, said he will focus on the freedom of consumers to consume digital media on their own terms.

"Innovation is focused on essentially one thing, which is shifting content in time and place," he said.

But as much as the companies have fine-tuned their products and services for the CES crowd, there's also the challenge of standing out among thousands of firms.

Some hang oversize ads on the sides of buildings; others opt for a mobile billboard cruising up and down Las Vegas Boulevard. For several years, District-based XM Satellite Radio has been inflating a towering boombox that's impossible to miss just outside the convention center entrance.

"There is a countless number of trade shows, but there is nothing, utterly nothing, like the Consumer Electronics Show," said XM spokesman David Butler. "Just the sheer number of people put it into a category by itself. It's the ultimate opportunity to meet with all the major players under one roof."

Staff writer Mike Musgrove contributed to this report.