“Library in Your Pocket, Knowledge at Your Fingertips”

I am still in Las Vegas, Nevada after attending the International Consumer Electronics Show.  I am stranded here because my flight was cancelled due to the snow storm in the east coast.  Instead of writing my article on the plane as I had planned, I am writing it in my hotel room. 

        

                                               BGM photo taken from Kodak 3D Camera

The topic is obviously the show.  According to the preliminary release of CEA which organized the event, there were 140,000 of us industry professionals who attended and 30,000 were overseas visitors representing 130 countries. I understand that more than 2,700 technology companies were represented either launching, exhibiting, demonstrating and/or seeking potential distributors. Many were also looking for new products or technologies to distribute or resell.

CEOs of some of the big technology companies like Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco and 19 others gave keynote speeches.  There were thousands of tweeters, bloggers, columnists, reporters from mainstream media as well as status updaters from social media.

I could have tweeted, blogged, reported and updated on real time but I decided to utilize my limited time visiting the booths, attending the summits, exchanging views and witnessing the demos by so many young techies.

There were 80 tablets launched during the show. That’s about twice the number of tablets of medication I had to bring for the entire period.  While my tablets target my heart and my brain to prevent an attack or stroke, the new tablets launched at CES were all battling for the hearts and minds of the consumers.

Those on display were mostly Google’s Android-based tablets as manufacturers of new products using the former’s operating system were dominant.  While Windows 7-based tablets were ably represented by Lenovo’s IdeaPad, Microsoft’s presence was more felt in the gaming field with its popular Xbox Kinect and the Windows 7 phone.

These new tablets were obviously developed and launched to compete against the very popular IPAD of Apple which was not in the show formally.  Its presence, however, was felt due to the iPhones and IPADs that many of the attendees were holding while walking around the pavilions.  I also noticed that, in the iLounge Pavilion, many of the international exhibitors were selling Apple accessories. Noticeable there was the sign, “WE’VE GOT YOU (referring to IPAD and IPHONE) COVERED (referring to the cases or covers being sold).”

Based on what  was demonstrated, I believe the Battle of the Tablets will go down to Blackberry’s Playbook,  Motorola’s Xoom which has the Android 3.O (Honeycomb), Windows 7’s IdeaPad by Lenovo and of course, the IPAD 2 of Apple which will also have two cameras.

  

Lenovo's IdeaPad

Blackberry's Playbook

Motorola's Xoom

 They are all good products.  In fact, I would like to have all of them. As I mentioned above, this is really a battle for the hearts and minds of the consuming public. At the CES, the attendees were the industry professionals who would easily understand the features and functionalities of the gadgets. They do not necessarily have the same characteristics as the consuming public. At the CES, the products are demonstrated and their functionalities explained and exhibited by experts and/or digital natives.

The consumers need nurturing, educating and servicing. A daily mini CES for each of the technology companies promoting and distributing the above-mentioned devices are necessary to capture the market. This is where I think Apple and its products have a distinctive advantage. You go to an Apple store and you are always attended to by Apple experts who can diagnose and solve any problem that you encounter with your device. Most importantly, there are Apple stores everywhere.

I do not see a similar case with respect to the other devices. Unless they come up with a similar service-oriented network, the consumers will continue to love and patronize Apple products and technologies.

As a content provider creating electronic libraries for all these mobile devices, I spent some time going around meeting the experts of these gadgets with a uniform query.  Does your smart phone or tablet have an offline search engine? While each one has an online search engine, none seems to have one offline.

Google has a Desktop Search Engine which could search all the contents of a desktop.  Windows PCs also have a search engine that could find anything that is inside the PC or even the external hard drives connected to it. Yet, their smart phones and tablets still do not have such a feature. The common answer was that they will refer my suggestion to management.

“Library in your pocket, knowledge at your finger tips,” we used to describe the eBookMan which is the predecessor of the Amazon Kindle. My company was licensed to manufacture and exclusively distribute it in the Philippines. For lawyers, we put all the Philippine Laws and the Supreme Court decisions in the device through an expanded memory card. We used to the tell the lawyers, law students and others who have them, “You can now take the law into your own hands.”

These new mobile devices are handheld and have become smaller, cheaper and more powerful. As we put contents into them, we would like to be able to search these contents offline and fast, hence my query.

I attended several summits including the Last Gadget Standing, The 10 Best Mobile Apps and the Silver Summit which was for Baby Boomers like me. I participated in choosing the winners in the first two.  I visited several booths and had discussions with some technology executives.  I tested some products which were given to me for free.

I intend to write my impressions about them in subsequent articles.  Many of the devices, technologies and software in the field of health and medicine, transportation, communications and entertainment are now affecting the lives of millions of people and will continue to do so in the future.