The future of tech on view at Vegas

Many of the products on display at CES, from Internet-connected cellphones that slip into shirt pockets to flat-panel HDTVs that can’t fit into the average home, remain far from mass-market relevance, but some will eventually make that leap.

This year’s CES, however, didn’t offer any clear guidance on what the must-have gizmo of 2008 might be. There was no high-profile launch that captivated everybody’s attention in the way that the first high-definition sets did in 1998 or the Xbox did in 2001. This year, CES was more about incremental upgrades than one big breakthrough.

The picture for TVs instead was one of the slow, steady improvements that tend to show up in hardware once it moves past the early-adopter market. For example, most manufacturers had at least some LCD or projection TVs that used LED or laser backlights instead of the usual fluorescent lamps, a change that’s supposed to yield better color and contrast and longer life.

The more interesting change in video may be coming outside the TV—aside from the ongoing fiasco of a format war between two incompatible hi-def video disc formats. For example, Verizon Wireless demonstrated a couple of phones that can tune into its own TV broadcasts—not blurry content streamed over its data service, but higher-quality video broadcast on a separate signal.

Adding new functions to a device that somebody’s already planning to buy is a long and honoured tradition in the business. Witness the global positioning system receivers that now double as XM satellite-radio players or Bluetooth hands-free kits.

Powercast, of Pennsylvania, had an exhibit tucked away in a Philips exhibit hall of its technology, which can beam electrical power to devices three feet away. To recharge over the air, a device needs a tiny circuit board that should only cost a few dollars. The eCoupled system developed by Fulton Innovation of Michigan, is more plugless than wireless. It flows power into any compatible device touching a charging surface—a phone left on a car’s armrest, a smart phone dropped on a cradle, a kitchen appliance on the counter. The company says the first eCoupled-compatible products should arrive in 2007.

–Rob Pegoraro