Angus Kidman06 January 2009, 9:01 AM
The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this Wednesday, and APC is on the ground in Las Vegas. Here are five predictions so far...
Numbers will be down
There are 2,700 exhibiting companies at CES 2009, around the same number as in 2008. However, it's no big stretch to predict in the current economic climate that overall attendee numbers aren't going to reach the peak of recent years, with predictions of around 130,000 visitors. The most visible measure is in hotel room availability, which remains fairly solid and surprisingly cheap even in the days running up to the show. The days of any old Strip hotel being able to charge $500 a night just because CES is on have well and truly disappeared.
Steve Ballmer will not do the monkey dance
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has now officially taken over the pre-CES keynote slot from Bill Gates, who bowed out last year. As with Gates, Microsoft is trying to build this up as a major event: media are invited to begin queuing a whole two-and-a-half hours before the speech kicks off.
It's widely assumed that the major focus of Ballmer's presentation on Tuesday evening (Wednesday afternoon Australian time) will be on the release of the first official public beta of Windows 7, which means there's not likely to be too many surprises for dedicated company watchers. The other major rumour is a phone with Zune capabilities, which would be more exciting for Australian users if there was ever any prospect of its getting released outside the US.
Given the presence of Ballmer, the most exciting possibility is that he'll go completely bananas and emulate the infamous "monkey dance" moment. However, CES is not the same as a Microsoft-centric conference, and keynotes are scripted to within an inch of their life. There may well be a joking reference to "monkey boy" in one of the lavishly produced videos that Microsoft typically shows during keynotes, but not much is likely in the field of spontaneous sweat. Regardless, at least Ballmer's showing up, which is more than you can say for a certain Mr Jobs elsewhere in the US this week.
No-one will care much about Palm's new products
Palm is running a press conference on Thursday, but it's already leaked all over the Web that the main purpose of the launch is to show off its new Nova operating system and the associated handhelds that go with it. While Palm still enjoys a lot of goodwill for its pioneering PDA work in the mid-to-late 1990s, it will have to produce something truly spectacular to re-establish its relevance in a world dominated by the iPhone, the BlackBerry and Google Android poised to allow phone makers to create cheap and capable competitors to the two leading smartphones.
Blu-ray will gloat needlessly
The big story of CES 2008 was Toshiba's exit from the HD DVD market just before it kicked off, essentially handing the hi-def market to Blu-ray on a platter. The Blu-ray Disc Association will doubtless take the opportunity to boast about its success since, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that most people still don't give two damns about hi-def content. Look forward to lots of emphasis on growth statistics ("we're up by 30%!") and less discussion of overall market share ("19 out of 20 households couldn't be happier with DVD!")
Celebrities will be in short supply
A dominant feature of CES in recent years has been the appearance of unexpected celebrities: everyone from Justin Timberlake to Robin Williams to Dan Brown has shown up in spruik mode. While there's always the possibility of an unexpected guest showing up during a keynote, CES' official list of celebrities tends to the lame side. Outside of a handful of musicians — Akon, Will.i.am and Stevie Wonder — this is D-list material at its finest. (Dr Oz, anyone? Thought not.)