Richard Sprague WebLog : CES

No CES for me this year

sprague — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:58:00 GMT

Michael Wolf is right on, at GigaOM, when he questions the long-term importance of CES. I got a lot out of attending in person last year, but I bet I’ll get even more out of it this year by not attending.

There is value in having a shared experience, being someplace in person with other people with your interests. And of course it’s nice to feel and interact with the products instead of just seeing the videos. But the number of face-to-face interactions you have these days is so much smaller than what you can do online, especially now that we have Twitter and a zillion other ways to be social virtually.

This is D-Life

sprague — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:11:57 GMT

Since D-Link's VoiceCenter is an important Microsoft Response Point partner, I had to visit their CES booth and see their new D-Life service. A beta version has been available in Taiwan for over a year, so the news at CES is that they're now ready to sell it in the U.S.

The basic idea is that whenever you buy a D-Life-compatible piece of equipment, you register it on the d-life.com portal web site. As soon as you connect the device to the internet, it knows to "phone home", automatically provisioning itself and making its services available to you without any further setup.

One of the first devices they're announcing is this VOIP/PSTN hybrid phone:

It acts like a normal DECT cordless phone when connected to a PSTN line, but when provisioned by D-Life, it's a full-blown VOIP phone.

They also announced a few other D-Life-compatible devices, including a security camera that uses Powerline to broadcast MPEG video from wherever you like. By connecting through the D-Life portal you can view the video stream anywhere on the internet.

The VOIP services are powered by a Taiwanese startup called Teltel.

Bill Gates' CES Handoff

sprague — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:40:54 GMT

It was fun to be here in person watching Bill's final CES keynote. I won't repeat all the interesting announcements made here (Read M3's blog for the best summary). But look at the way he did a smooth handoff to Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices group:

That guy on the left is Slash, the former Guns 'N Roses guitarist.

Now I'm off to the show floor to see all the latest products in TV, VOIP, and whatever else that looks interesting.