Coming soon to a screen near you

Vegas, baby. Ask any self-respecting geek what’s the hottest thing in this town and it isn’t lap-dancers or crapshoots but gadgets and gizmos. Las Vegas is the venue for the gadget squad’s annual get-together, the Consumer Electronics Show. This year’s was the biggest ever: 150,000 specialists from all over the world in town for a week in the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center, with almost 3,000 exhibitors displaying their wares. Televisions, computers, hi-fis, cameras, in-car entertainment systems, robots to make the tea: you name it, if it’s new and shiny, you’ll see it first at CES.

Only Vegas could host a show on this scale. Like the casinos down the Strip, once you’re inside the Convention Center it’s almost impossible to find your way out. I must have walked a good six miles each day without once stepping outside: there’s nowhere to sit, not a bite of nutritional food (unless you count hot dogs and doughnuts) and the toilets are filthy. The old timers at the show are easy to spot: they’re the ones with maps, backpacks and comfortable shoes.

But for a glimpse of what’s coming over the technology horizon it’s worth the slog. If you believe the big announcements, 2008 will see breakthroughs both in television technology and content. Increasing broadband take-up around the world, at ever faster speeds, is unleashing a huge array of video services on the internet, from the clip site YouTube to the iTunes video store. The content may be popular but the experience of watching it on computer is not — least of all for those who’ve invested in big, state-of-the-art televisions. There’s a big prize for the wizards who solve this computer-to-television problem — and they’re all working on it.

These days it’s all about High Definition.