Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Tuesday 8 January 2008, 3:41 PM
CES Las Vegas Software Selection – Slim Pickings?
What is it about events in Las Vegas? Every vendor out there loves ‘em. Nicotine stained casinos, eternally long lines of wasted buffet food, long connecting corridors between never-ending meeting room locations. Give me Florida, London or anywhere on the Continent anytime. Still, size matters and Vegas has size in spades -- and money talks I guess.
Anyway, there’s plenty of news out there on the web for those who did or didn’t attend CES Las Vegas this week. But it’s hard for a software application development journalist to dig into many of these announcements as CES is, for the most part, rather more about showcasing products in their final form rather than explaining how they work.
For example, emanating from the partners of the Microsoft Auto platform PR engine room, Fiat unveiled an EcoDrive concept that enables drivers to minimise their impact on the environment by collecting data through a Blue&Me infotainment (if you will) USB gate and allows them to measure and compare their CO2 emissions via a web-based software solution. For this show that’s about as much as you can expect to learn – for more on how Blue&Me is a modular, updateable, voice-driven system typical of the type of work that is putting ever more technology into next-gen cars, you’ll have to do your own homework.
The Gibson Robot Guitar received a “Best of Show” honour on Sunday. All I could find out about this was that it is one of the most, “Trend setting, exciting and promising products of the year.” I’m sorry I asked.
Of more substance was news that Yahoo outlined a new mobile ecosystem strategy designed to allow developers and publishers new options to develop applications that can be planted on Yahoo pages and accessed on many different mobile handsets (as opposed to the software ‘stack’ approach behind Google Android or the customised device approach that Apple has opted for). The company’s Yahoo! Go 3.0 mobile home page is currently in Beta and early previews of its Mobile Developer Platform have put more meat on the bones for Jerry Yang’s vision to realign Yahoo’s position on the web.
So will CES continue to reside in Las Vegas (or as I once heard a flight attendant refer to it – “Lost Wages”) in all perpetuity? The Las Vegas Sun reports that exhibitors are becoming embittered over the rising cost of show attendance and all its associated costs. Will we see CES 2009 in Orlando with a special software engineering stream? Don’t push it.
PreviousComments on this post
Hi, and thanks for a good summary of the CES for those of who couldn't attend (or were too wise to attend...). One announcement that I have read about from there was "Skype on the PSP". And heard about. And heard about. It's pretty obvious that since their "High Quality Video" feature flopped, Skype is looking for something else to hype. But every time I read about it, and stop to think about it, I come up with the same two questions - first, do PSP users really need/want Skype, and how practical will it be for them to use anyway; second, considering that "Customer Support" (such as it is) is already Skype's biggest problem without a doubt, is adding some unknown and potentially large number of inexperienced users any kind of good idea? Anyway, my point here is, did you perhaps get a chance to see a PSP with Skype, or talk to anyone from Sony or Skype about it?
Nice one J.A.
I like your line of reasoning here. Skype on the PSP - who needs it? Well, I’m a keen gamer and precisely the reason I like to zap into hyperspace is to avoid talking to real people. I know MMOGs with real interactivity can be fun and all, but I don’t want “humans” in my game experience. Let alone have the chance to phone up fellow gamers and have a chat to them. As to their customer support issues, you clearly have a point, but it’s not one I know much about I’m afraid.
It’s a bit like Steve Jobs saying he would never put radio on the iPOD because he believes nobody needs it or wants it. I live with my iPOD 30G video that I bought some time ago now and I would “LOVE” it to have been pre-installed with radio so I can listen to XFM (or the USA’s excellent DC101 when I am stateside) and the occasional slice of late night Geoff Lloyd.
I believe that the add on iPOD radio remote currently ships for US$50 – oh well.
It is, as you point out, hype. It’s more features (and in some cases less) for the sake of it sometimes isn’t it?
Did I actually see Skype on the PSP demoed and/or talk to Sony about it you ask? I tell you what J.A. I wrote that blog from the dinner table here in Baltimore.
Thanks for the additional info and opinions. Reading what you said about not wanting real people in your game experience, I thought about just the opposite of what we had been discussing. You're sitting quietly, enjoying a game on your PSP, and someone calls you? Not what you are expecting or looking for, I would guess. Then an even better image came to mind. You're sitting at the dinner table in Baltimore, and have to excuse yourself because your PSP is ringing? I can't help but smile when I think about it.
True innovation from Fiat with that Blue&me! how enthusiastic do they expect their average driver to be?
They could have spent that money on fuel efficiency, alternative fuel research etc..
