Windows Driver Kit (WDK) Documentation Blog : CES 2009

Live from 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - Day 3

wdkblog — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:32:00 GMT

For me, CES has been like going to a mall to check out the latest technology where Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco and Fry's are all next to each other, but an order of magnitude larger. Speaking with the exhibitors and listening to their pitches enabled me to quickly learn about the new technologies. It was especially nice to be able to ask detailed technical questions to the staffers and get intelligible answers in return.

Looking over my previous posts, I notice that I have focused heavily on display technology. That is because I believe more pixels are always better. The current high-end tech is 1080p, a display signal that outputs a 1920x1080 image, more commonly known as "full" HD. I saw first-hand "ultra" HD, which doubles those dimensions to 3840x2160. This is important because as the displays get physically larger the pixels that comprise them do too. A 1920x1080 image at larger than 5 feet on the diagonal starts to show its limitations. The larger, ultra HD displays were basically like looking out a window and seeing the world with the fidelity of your own 20/20 eyes!
One last comment about display technologies: I had the chance to see and interact with a laser projector that I had read about 6-12 months ago. The device is about the size of a cell-phone and projects very crisp, bright, and saturated images on any surface. I am seriously considering purchasing one when they become generally available in the 2nd half of the year.

On a device driver note, I passed by Phoenix Technology's booth. I wondered what those folks were doing these days because all I remember them for was their BIOS and POST screens on many a computer I assembled and sold back in the day. They informed me about an annual subscription-based product that rolls out all appropriate drivers to a system. Importantly, they claim to have the largest database of drivers in the world. Whereas Microsoft provides signed drivers for download on Windows Update, Phoenix's DriverAgent supposedly allows downloads of any and every kind of driver, signing not required. This struck a chord with me because it is something I think Microsoft should provide for Windows automatically. Their client-server model is certainly functional, but I think Microsoft could top that with some kind of distributed model where, when one driver inside a network finally gets updated, it can be pushed out to all other Windows installations on a special RSS feed. It was neat to see a product of the idea itself. But enough with such ideas I've last thought about more than a year ago.

CES is drawing to a close now and it is easy to navigate the boulevards without there being so much traffic like yesterday. Some booths were simple affairs seemingly staffed by one person who was doing everything. A couple of them offered neat products. One was a flat cable, instead of typical round, wired cable. It makes running wires between certain types of equipment (speakers, in particular) nice because it could be done under the floor, instead of around the base boards.

I've enjoyed my time here at CES, as well as my first trip ever to Las Vegas. Now that I am comfortable getting around the convention center, and between the hotels, I hope to return some day in the not too distant future.

— Kevin Shirley, [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer, January 11, 2009

Live from 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - Day 2

wdkblog — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:43:00 GMT

I was expecting something a “little bigger" than the previous conferences I had attended; various WinHECs and E3. But CES is big, really big. So big in fact that I was only able to hit about the first third of it my first day. When I finally thought I had seen most everything in the 1st and 2nd levels of the South Hall, I proceeded (by golf cart which should have clued me in) to the Central Hall, which is where companies like Sony, Samsung and Microsoft have their booths. There, the exhibition booths were even larger and more elaborate. I experienced a Homer Simpson "D'Oh" moment thinking to myself "I wasted all my time in the South Hall when all the good stuff was in the Central Hall." By that time, 5 pm had ticked by and the exhibitors where closing down. I'd have to wait until tomorrow to really canvas the Central Hall.

However, just checking out all the products in the South Hall, one thing was becoming clear to me. All the various products reflected a push to be able to see and access anything that you care about from anywhere you happen to be. Looking at your rear-view mirror--wouldn't it be nice to have email notifications appear there? Or, how about being in your shower and controlling your playlist from there? All those digital portrait frames that companies envision us having all over our houses display customized news content from your RSS feed.

As I later learned from the quote-bites of Steve Ballmer's keynote, this year is about interfacing Windows with the various display devices popping up in every corner of our life. It was hard to walk from one booth to another where this new reality wasn't being demonstrated.

And how you access what you want was also interesting. With so many different protocols and formats available it was interesting to see products that converted between them. There were products to convert, extend, and split your audio/video signals to any conceivable alternate format (or just about). Control your home's security through your cell phone or TV remote control. Stream your family videos stored on your Windows Home Server wirelessly (or via CAT5, or via component, composite, VGA, DVI, HDMI) to your portable media player, digital portrait frames, computer monitors, or televisions. Download your latest digital music and playlists to your automobile so you can listen to something new on your way to work. Or, why need to do it ahead of time? Instead, configure your automotive PC to keep your playlists in sync wirelessly, while you're driving to work.

At the end of the day, my legs were sore from so much walking and I had a bag so full of product flash that it was causing me to walk in circles. I hope to go through it after I return.

— Kevin Shirley, [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer, January 10, 2009

Live from 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - Day 1

wdkblog — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:56:00 GMT

24 hours has been enough time for me to orient myself to the labyrinth of exhibitions. I have spent most of the day in the Central Hall examining some of the latest technology for 2009 and (no surprise here) some of it is really, really cool!

I was most impressed by the various 3D display solutions. While most required the use of some kind of prop (for example special polarized glasses), one that I saw did not. LG demo'd a 640x480 3D TV sans the needs for anything other than to be about 4m away from the demo unit and voila! instant 3D. Closer inspection revealed the use of some kind of lenticular lens to achieve the effect. For those of you who are not familiar with such a lens, it isn't really anything special (surprise). You've seen them already, probably on a "special collector's edition" baseball card where depending on how you angle the card it "plays" an short series of 3-7 images. I didn't find the technology to work perfectly for me, but it worked close enough.

As for those display technologies requiring the special glasses (which I've experienced before) the sense of depth was even more pronounced than the LG TV. I was able to put the glasses comfortably on over my prescription glasses and after 2-3 seconds my eyes were able to adjust. One of the things I noticed about the displays requiring the glasses was the fact that I had to work my eyes like in real life. The image is, of course, no longer flat, so if you treat it like a TV image the 3D doesn't work as well as it could. Instead, I really had to look at the part of the image I was interested in, including refocusing my eyes to perceive something at a different depth. On one hand, the technology is really cool because of the effect of depth it enables. I watched an animated film with bright, saturated colors and was impressed. I watched another clip of a U2 concert (btw, this was all in 1080p High-def) and I felt like I was really seeing the act up close--an effect that would be very hard to beat unless you paid for front row tickets!

Both Intel and Microsoft had front and center booths at the entrance to the Central Hall. Intel was demoing a variety of form factors based on its different CPUs, Atom, Centrino Duo, Core 2 Quad, and i7. The Atom processor corresponded to lightweight, internet enabled devices. They call them Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). Centrino corresponded to WiMAX enabled internet connectivity. For example, in your car, which communicates to the cloud, and to all other such equiped vehicles. Interestingly, there were some advertising and safety angles to all that interconnectedness, including the ability to let you know of great restaurant deals at the next exit, or if you were getting too close to the car in front of you.

At the Intel booth I did have a minor opportunity to help a customer (the firm that Intel contracted to assemble their exhibition) diagnose what they thought may be a driver issue. Basically, on one of the their setups they use a capacitance-based touch screen to achieve a "Minority Report" style interface and every once-in-a-while the input from the interface would randomly get dropped. Specifically, they were routing the input data through a serial-to-USB dongle because they were out of serial ports with everything else happening. I suggested that the input driver could be functioning just fine, but that the rest of the stack was having communications issues because of the USB-bridge, or that they could try routing the serial information through COM1 (instead of COM8!), or that they could try to find a reference OHCI (or EHCI) USB stack to replace the Microsoft one, or that they could try purchasing a PCI card that provided additional ports instead of the USB dongle method. Finally, we discussed the possibility that static electricity could be causing the issues at which point I suggested they put a grounding pad under the display/interface or private test with a wool pad to cause extreme static interference and discharge. I don't know if any of that helped, but at least I was able to provide them with a couple of angles to track down a "driver-related" problem.

Microsoft had a lot of things to check out, but what interested me the most were the latest Windows Mobile phones. Two stood out, both by High Tech Computing (HTC). The first provided the ability to output a video signal to any display device that accepted composite video input (the yellow RCA-style connector for the curious), which effectively means your cell phone could now be a portable video warehouse, or a PowerPoint player in a pinch. The other cell phone provided an 800x480 touch screen--which is off the charts of everything else I'm aware of. It's still on a 3" diagonal screen, but the fidelity of the resolution is incredible. You could pretty much watch crisp/clear DVDs on that thing. Too bad it does not provide the ability to output to TV.

Speaking of cell phones and display interfacing, LG also demonstrated a pico-sized DLP projector unit that was smaller than most cell phones. Sometime around 2010 they expect to have a consumer model. It was neat to have such a small pocket projector.

Of course, there were huge Plasma and LCD displays. Panasonic demo'd a 150" Plasma display that appeared to be about the size of a typical car parking spot. Sharp demo'd a 108" LCD display that was crisp and beautiful too.

I got to see a 15" OLED display, which was crisp, bright, and incredibly thin!

As I meandered through the booths, a common theme was environmental friendliness; from being carbon and water neutral, to lead, mercury, and arsenic free, to increased efficiency for reduced power consumption.

I have made a list of about a dozen additional things I've heard of, but still need to see in person. I'm glad there are two more days to go.

— Kevin Shirley, [MSFT], WDK Programming Writer, January 9, 2009