- January 6th, 2007, 12:21 am
#50666
The Consumer Electronics Show gets underway next week in Las Vegas, as it always does at this time of year. For those who don't know, this is when we gadget and tech nuts usually find out what the year has in store for us. I'll try to hit the important announcements thus far and update the thread as more are announced. I'm starting this thread now because a few big announcements have already hit the wire. Here we go...
1. LG's Hybrid HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player - This will, by far, be the biggest product to launch at CES '07. Players in the industry have been predicting the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war to last at least five years. Most agreed that the casualties in this war would be consumer's wallets. LG swoops in to the rescue! By releasing this hybrid player, LG has effectively launched the beginning of the end of the format war. Consumers will no longer have to make a choice for which HD disc format they want to use when watching Ernest Saves Easter in HD on the 55" LCD they picked up at Christmas.
2. Hitachi's 1TB SATA II Hard Drive - Hitachi becomes the first company to break the 1 Terabyte barrier in ATA hard drives. It was only a matter of time, and now the wait is over. You'll be able to store more music, movies, photos and homework (riiiight) than you know what to do with. In fact, this will be the first consumer drive that will be capable of storing the entire Library of Congress uncompressed on a single drive. One suggestion for what you might do with it: Buy two so you can back up all of the data!
3. Microsoft Windows: Home Server - As technology marches forward, home users are increasingly finding themselves in need of server functionality such as a file server, dns server or even a personal email server. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is too expensive and has too many features home users will never touch. Microsoft is (smartly) looking to fill in this gap. If you've got an old PC laying around, this might be a great use for it.
Those are the biggest three to hit pre-show. One can only imagine what will actually be launched next week. Of course, MacWorld is also the same week. Many industry folks are expecting Apple's announcements to completely overshadow anything that happens at CES. The rumors are flying so hot and heavy on Steve Jobs' keynote speech, that at this point, no one really knows what Apple will actually release and what they won't.
1. LG's Hybrid HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Player - This will, by far, be the biggest product to launch at CES '07. Players in the industry have been predicting the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war to last at least five years. Most agreed that the casualties in this war would be consumer's wallets. LG swoops in to the rescue! By releasing this hybrid player, LG has effectively launched the beginning of the end of the format war. Consumers will no longer have to make a choice for which HD disc format they want to use when watching Ernest Saves Easter in HD on the 55" LCD they picked up at Christmas.
2. Hitachi's 1TB SATA II Hard Drive - Hitachi becomes the first company to break the 1 Terabyte barrier in ATA hard drives. It was only a matter of time, and now the wait is over. You'll be able to store more music, movies, photos and homework (riiiight) than you know what to do with. In fact, this will be the first consumer drive that will be capable of storing the entire Library of Congress uncompressed on a single drive. One suggestion for what you might do with it: Buy two so you can back up all of the data!
3. Microsoft Windows: Home Server - As technology marches forward, home users are increasingly finding themselves in need of server functionality such as a file server, dns server or even a personal email server. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is too expensive and has too many features home users will never touch. Microsoft is (smartly) looking to fill in this gap. If you've got an old PC laying around, this might be a great use for it.
Those are the biggest three to hit pre-show. One can only imagine what will actually be launched next week. Of course, MacWorld is also the same week. Many industry folks are expecting Apple's announcements to completely overshadow anything that happens at CES. The rumors are flying so hot and heavy on Steve Jobs' keynote speech, that at this point, no one really knows what Apple will actually release and what they won't.
Last edited by El Scorcho on January 8th, 2007, 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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