Entertainment gets spotlight at CES

By May Wong

updated 7:44 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2007

SAN JOSE, California - Entertainment is going extreme as content providers, distributors and electronics makers race to keep pace in a world in which digital media becomes accessible anytime, anywhere.

The frenzy will be more evident than ever next week in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show, a showcase of the latest products seeking to secure a spot in today's digital age.

Information technology companies like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. will battle traditional electronics companies such as Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. over ways to link or directly bring Internet- and computer-based media to the television. (MSNBC.com is a Microsoft-NBC Universal joint venture.)

Technology startups like Pulse-LINK Inc. and Tzero Technologies Inc. will tout their chipsets as powerful engines to wirelessly move audio or high-definition video across different devices around the home. IBM Corp. will return after a 10-year hiatus to tout its microprocessors and software products that drive game consoles, cell phones and even karaoke machines.

Cellular carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. will likely talk about how they plan to use their pipelines to deliver video and engage subscribers in social-networking hangouts, while traditional media companies like the Walt Disney Co. and CBS Corp. are expected to discuss ways to extend their shows beyond the TV or PC.

"It's the new CE — not consumer electronics," said Jan-Luc Blakborn, HP's director of digital entertainment. "We like to think of it as connected entertainment."

When it comes to CES, what happens in Las Vegas is not meant to stay there.

First held in 1967 with 200 television and radio manufacturers hawking their wares, CES is now the world's largest annual consumer technology extravaganza with some 2,700 exhibitors sprawled out over 1.7 million square feet of space.

That's roughly 30 football fields brimming with thousands of gizmos seeking to get into the hands of consumers with the help of spectating hordes of media, gadget gurus and merchants.

Internet-enabled refrigerators, flat-panel televisions that take up entire walls, and other whiz-bang electronics will undoubtedly be in the crowded mix of the weird, tacky, or cool-but-too-expensive items on display.

But CES is no longer just about gadgets or the number of bells and whistles crammed into them.

It is about the kind of content the gizmos can hold or deliver. It's about the underlying partnerships and services. It is about the ease with which the technology works. It is about what really turns a consumer on.

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