CES 2003 Report

By Andy Patrizio

February 3, 2003

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While Comdex is a show viewed with dread by anyone who has to go, the Consumer Electronics Show tends to be one that gets attendees excited, and it's not hard to see why. CES is the biggest toy show for adults. It is to electronics junkies what E3 is to gamers, and some of us who've been to a few have learned not to buy any electronic toys during Christmas.

While Comdex withers on the vine (some suspect last year's show will be its last), CES is stronger than ever. It drew 116,000 attendees, and 2,283 exhibitors filled 1.25 million square feet of the ever-growing Las Vegas Convention Center.

It's easy to get confused now. There's yet another hall, the Central Hall. The main building, called the North Hall, has two main exhibit rooms called the North Hall and South Hall. Then there's the building called South Hall. Creative naming, eh?

For the first time, they were splitting up major markets by the hall, a sign of how large these segments have become. For example, the North Hall in the North Hall (still with me?) was dedicated entirely to car audio; the South Hall in North Hall held all of the major consumer electronics players and the Central Hall was dedicated to wireless devices. South Hall was dedicated to smaller companies with smaller booths.

Once again, the opening keynote was presented by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. He talked up the digital home and wireless computing devices, and you know who expects to have a piece of that action. Gates also bragged on Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) technology, which, theoretically, will give us the kind of wrist watch that only Dick Tracy could dream of. You'll get mail and news delivered right to your wrist.

SPOT-enabled watches will connect to PCs to calibrate themselves and download software. They'll connect to data from unused bands in the FM radio spectrum to grab the latest information, like news, sports scores or stock prices. The FM band is already built around the world and requires much smaller chips than WiFi for the watch.

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