Slimmer, better, faster, stronger (Consumer Electronics Show)

Joe Chow
Contributor
The year is 2011.
For those of us born in the late ’80s or early ’90s reading this should make us feel like we’re living in the future. The biggest promise of the future is, and has always been, better
technology.

Your parents are – deep down – extremely disappointed that we are not making our morning commute via hoverboard. We, however, do have incredibly cool phones. Every new year brings about a line-up of high-tech products that seem, ironically, years ahead of their predecessors.The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held every year on the first week of January, flaunts new shiny technological products that you, the consumer, could (theoretically) be holding in your hand this year.
The CES did not start with a bang as it did in previous years. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, made a keynote speech that felt at least a little bit unimpressive, possibly due to the fact he lacks nerd status like his predecessor Bill Gates. This year’s keynote, however, was a big deal. After sort of wowing the audience with big numbers (eight million Kinect controllers sold and 30 million Xbox Live subscribers), Ballmer gave a verbal preview of the future of Windows operating system (OS).
He could have possibly been talking about Windows 8; however, failing to actually reveal the new OS managed to leave the whole keynote feeling disappointing.
Ballmer did confirm that the future of Windows OS will include the ARM platform. This means that Windows could run, fully featured, on everything from phones to tablets to netbooks. This is a big deal: it could mean Microsoft will discontinue their foray into phones – no Windows Phone 8. Instead, the next generation of Windows Phone, which will probably be shown off at CES 2012, could be running the full version of Windows 8.
Across the board this year’s CES featured incremental upgrades on every platform. Smartphones are thinner and faster. Netbooks are also thinner and faster, and tablets are finally a large presence at CES as they, too, are now thinner and faster.
The Blackberry Playbook, the tablet from RIM, featured a new from-scratch operating system from QNX Software Systems. After the announcement, Blackberry fans realized there might not be a Blackberry 7 (Blackberry 6 being the current Blackberry operating system). This means the Blackberry phones being shown off CES 2012 could be running a unified version of the QNX operating system.
And for the Apple fans out there – yeah, Apple is doing it, too. In his October press conference, Steve Jobs unveiled a developer’s preview of the next OSX operating system for Mac, code-named Lion. It is going to feature a Mac app store similar to the one found on the iPhone and iPad operating system – the iOS. Unlike the majority of presenters at CES, Apple sadly didn’t announce a highly suspected thinner and faster iPhone this year. The unveiling of the iPhone 5’s rumoured features were not confirmed because Apple, the hipsters of the tech world, always sit the CES out, maybe because it’s too mainstream.
They prefer to make announcements on their own time. Maybe, when he feels like it, Jobs will let us know iOS 5 will indeed be a shrunken Lion, perhaps named Cub – just a suggestion.
Consumer technology is at a crossroads.
In 2001, the very first smartphones were announced. In the last 10 years, the power of a computer from 2001 has been stuffed elegantly into the smartphone. If this trend continues, come CES 2021, we will see Ballmer unveiling the newest OS on the thinnest tablet ever – I predict, considering recent examples, that it will probably be a millimetre thick.