Slashdot Asks: What would you like to see at CES?

This year's Consumer Electronics Show has nearly arrived. Later today, I'll be hurtling (or perhaps just slogging) across the West Texas desert, bound for Vegas. CES is far too big an event to see very much of, no matter what: the endless aisles (highways!) of cheap laptop bags and e-cigarettes alone take up an incredible amount of floor space, but the good stuff takes up at least as much. The categories represented aren't necessarily new, but the trends vary each time: remote-controlled helicopters, from Parrot and others, have been been getting more capable for a few years running, along with 3D televisions, action cameras, ever-bigger displays, toys for kids, toys for adults, and the newest/slimmest/priciest/cheapest laptops and handhelds. Last year I had a chance to get close-up video views at Ubuntu TV and the successfully crowdfunded TouchFire keyboard, as well as interviews with John Ryan of Pixel Qi and Raspberry Pi instigator Eben Upton. I'll be on the lookout for some of my usual obsessions (open source in consumer products, bright LED-based projectors, interesting input devices), but what would you like to see up-close from this year's crop of exhibitors (sorry, it's a long list), and why?

personal health electronics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd really like to visit the Basis booth and check out the Basis band (watch/health monitor). It looks like a solid product and I'd like to try one out before I buy. Their initial stock went so fast that if you blinked you missed the opportunity.

The next app that FB is going to clone & knock

[Supp0rtLinux]

Half the items shown at CES will be vaporware. Most of the rest will come to market too late to be of any value. The only thing worth seeing are the good ideas that some new or small company has come up with that Zuckerberg, Apple, or some other company can clone or otherwise knock-off and then present as their own (as FB likes to do) or as some new thing no one has ever thought of before (Apple I'm looking at you). I just hope it doesn't scroll or have rounded corners.

The future

[Anonymous Coward]

When COMDEX was in full swing I'd go to peruse the small tables on the perimeter of the floor. When you see several small guys offering the same thing there's a good chance it will be a big thing in a year or two. I remember one year, after seeing 4-5 card tables with signs saying "We want to be your ISP" I had to ask them what an ISP was. That was a look into the future.

A few years ago at CES in the Taiwan chip area several vendors were offering single chip GPS modules. That pretty accurately indicated that GPS would proliferate in a few years.

So I say forgo the big show booths, don't waste an hour for a free T shirt (calculate the REAL cost of that!), spend time poking the edges then figure out ways to incorporate those into your future plans.