Dear Friends,

There are snow squalls today, bringing smiles to the skiers faces, but it’s on the heels of a January thaw that brought temps up near 50F. It was funny that it was colder in Las Vegas when I was there last week than it was in Vermont.

The Consumer Electronics Show was huge, as usual, with exhibits in the Convention Center, in the parking lot of the convention center, and at the Venetian Hotel. With over 3,000 exhibitors and 150,000 attendees, it was a huge show. I was somewhat disappointed with the show in terms of innovative new products, though. There were a lot of companies showing products to work with Apple products — so many that the iLounge section had to expand from the North Hall into the Hilton next door.

Without Apple and Microsoft in attendance, the big players were Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Intel. TVs were everywhere; TVs that connected to the internet, OLED TVs with paper-thin displays, Ultra High-Def TVs (such as the huge 110-inch — over 9 feet! — UHD TV), and various combinations of those technologies like the curved OLED TV. While the images from the 9 foot TV were spectacular, you really had to get close to the TV to actually see the impact of all those additional pixels.

While I expected more 3D printers to be shown, there were only a handful. I did sit through a demonstration from one Chinese company offering a 3D printer for $900 (far less than most 3D printers), and it did the job, but was very slow. There was one company, Sculpteo, that offered a cloud service for 3D printing; all you needed to do was upload the files to their server and they’d send you the finished 3D item.

Hapy and I talked on the plane about whether mega-shows like this are on their last legs. I think I agree with him that they have become less meaningful in terms of sourcing products, since much of the product information can be easily found on the internet. On the other hand, these shows provide an opportunity for those in the industry to network and get their hands on the products of tomorrow.