I’m just back from four days in Las Vegas, which is usually about three too many for me. From all accounts, attendance and spirits were up at this year’s CES, with 3D chatter dominating the halls and booths of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The story is 3DTV…Again

3DTV clearly dominated as a theme. Nobody can question whether or not is real—according to my colleagues David Mercer and Peter King, it’s not a terribly expensive nor complex “feature” to embed in a television. Rather, its adoption will depend on two factors: the availability of content, and the willingness of customers to invest in hardware…again. Didn’t we just all buy HDTV sets?

CES: Consumer Experience Show?

Cisco Chairman John Chambers hosted a small (by CES standards, anyway) cocktail party for press and industry analysts Thursday night in the swanky Chairman’s Suite in the Venetian. He suggested that the role of CES has been changing, moving away from solely a device-centric show, and more to one of an overall customer experience--similar to the way Cisco is broadening its focus

Pay TV’s Future

I sat in on a rather interesting panel discussion of the future of Pay TV as a model, including Jim Denney , VP of Product Marketing at TiVo. The basic conclusion from the session was that, despite what some like to say, pay television as a model is not going away any time soon. Rather, the model is likely going to change. We’re already starting to see examples of pay tv operators embracing (or at least addressing) the issue.

One interesting point that was raised in the session: early on, there was much talk of voice ultimately becoming a free application. While one could argue that its role in the bundle has declined greatly, the pay-model has not disappeared completely.

Nor is it likely to happen in television.