Every year I am just fascinated at how great the hardware has become and at the same time how retarded is the software used to run it ... that's of course ignoring that we have been bored to tears by 3D for the past 4 years at CES and now 4K is the new 3D. Yawn ! But for instance, smart tvs still don't have an input technology that can objectively rival and replace the 60-year-old remote control effectively, gesture and voice controls still are pretty far from the Star Trek experience, graphical user interfaces are slow, clunky and complicated. Software DNA is still firmly anchored in Silicon Valley and content creation is mainly US-based. It would be great to see some software creativity and content ecosystem coordination into this great hardware ... I'm just sayin'

Lastly, just because it's Friday and it is hilarious, here is the 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 Engadget Editors Wrap-Up (just update the numbers to n+1).

And a very relevant article that I really like from the adults at Wired:

CES 2013: Land of the Dongle, Year of the Little Guy
By Mat Honan 01.11.13 6:30 AM
[Reproduced from Wired]

LAS VEGAS — The reaction to CES 2013 has been, for the most part, a resigned collective shrug. There were curved OLED TVs and 4K TVs and connected refrigerators and smart washing machines and a lot of stuff to look at but nothing to really see.

It’s too often like that here. CES is an onslaught, an event that could only happen in Vegas. It’s a cacophony of noise, too much to make sense of. There are 150,000 people here, a small city squeezed into 1.9 million square feet. Voices compete with other voices. TVs blare at other TVs. Everything is growling and howling. It’s really hard to stand out.

That’s why so much of the talk this year has been about who isn’t here. Apple isn’t here, even if it is by proxy. Amazon isn’t here. Neither are Google or Microsoft. Those who are here have utterly failed to amaze us. It seems like this is the year of the dongle. That’s CES 2013 in nutshell: the land of the dongle. And while that’s disappointing to some people, especially gadget reporters, it’s good news for the vast majority of vendors, because this was the year the little guys stood toe-to-toe with the big guys. Well, almost.

People like to write about why CES matters or why it doesn’t matter (guilty). But the thing is, CES does matter, for one simple reason: It is a cavern of money. The cost of securing floor space and building a booth and flying people to Las Vegas and putting them up in a hotel and feeding them and schmoozing journalists and analysts and buyers is immense. You’re looking at $150,000, minimum, for anyone but the smallest vendors. But it’s an expense companies gladly make, a gamble they hope will pay off with a big business deal or three.

Hello 2013 CES @ Vegas Nevada. Day Two: Yes it is this time of the year when we discover bigger better sharper better TVs, the latest and greatest connected car technology and a preview of mobile world congress in February. I am going to pass on the hilarious nvidia press conference sunday night, say that I am totally impressed by samsung's revisit of their smart hub (I can't wait for the evolution kit) and the insanely great F8000, the french smart fork is an awesome start but I'd love to see surface sensors that tell me that I am eating too much sugar or fat, and that's assuming that I am not actually using my hands to eat my burger ... And, dear Huawei, do I have to change all my jeans to fit that new giganormous phone of yours in them ?

A small thing actually did catch my attention. A few years back I did post on augmented reality, which is still majorly experimental while having so much potential. I think that we are going somewhere very cool with the Telebrahma platform, it could be insanely great to actually discover an new hidden world while watching a television program - I am precisely thinking live sports and hoping out loud that ESPN will think about it for college football and NFL games (hint, hint ...)

Point this app at your TV screen and it overlays all kinds of augmented-reality goodies

January 8, 2013 7:50 AM
By Dean Takahashi
(Reproduced from VentureBeat)

An Intel-funded startup wants to bring augmented reality to your television screen. Telibrahm‘s Point uses image recognition technology to turn your smartphone into a tool for a “second screen experience.”
Using the Point app, you point your smartphone at an image on the TV screen, and it starts an interactive sequence. If you point it at a product in a video, movie, commercial, or TV show, the Point technology recognizes what’s in the image and gives you a visual overlay that further describes the product or helps you figure out how to buy it. The technology can recognize moving images as well as still ones and will work with 3D games.