The polls are in and the verdict for the ’07 CES show was unexciting. Mind you it was not due to a lack of presence or turn out (down only 7% from last year) but rather a lack of fresh ideas. It was best described as an auto show the year after the new models are released. What was a groundbreaking design last year is just the same old car this year with cooler wheels. The most pronounced changes were in flat panel displays. As always the screen sizes have gotten marginally bigger than the year before but more notably is the size that’s getting smaller. Yes for the first time  we are seeing the depth of flat panels getting slimmer. Am I the only one that finds it ludicrous that we’ve manage to shrink the depth of an average TV down from 24” inches deep to just 4” and all we can ask is “why does it have to be so darn thick, can’t you make it smaller”. The show was primarily and extravaganza for manufacturers to make a halfhearted attempt at getting the public excited over this year’s new products by changing the power LED from green to blue giving it a high gloss finish compared to last years matte finish.

Panasonic was crowned the new "king of the hill" with the introduction of a 120" plasma! Texas Instruments on the other hand is debuting some extremely cool concepts. You and your wife don’t want to watch the same program on TV. No problem, TI is experimenting with Dual View technology allowing you to view two entirely different programs on the same screen simultaneously. And we ain’t talking PIP folks! TI also stepped up to the plate with the first displays utilizing 240hz refresh rate, you can see the plasma advocates palms start to sweat! So who knows maybe everyone else was saving their engineering breakthroughs for ’08, only time will tell, until then kudos to TI for pushing the envelope in an otherwise mundane year.

Texas Instruments: www.ti.com

by Jason Levert