This year's CES was, quite frankly, boring. Nothing truly groundbreaking was announced or demoed, in my opinion. Having said that, here's my personal list for the best of CES 2010:
Tegra 2/Android Tablets
I'm very interested in a lower-power 1080p chipset. Tablets are kinda cool, too. Android has what it takes to run these well. The combination could mean cheap, portable and highly useful touchscreen interfaces/front ends in every room and car. This is what I always hoped we'd see.
Boxee
The Boxee Box definely looks cool. Love the Windows version. In time, it maybe the perfect media streamer. All content on one box with a nice remote and UI. Sweet.
Android 2.1
Of all the open source OSes, I'm most optimistic about Android. It seems to have the right combination of services, UI, and supoort. Phones will get it first, but the real proving ground for Android is the x86 port of it. If people start using it on laptops, look out MS and Apple.
Netgear Push2TV
If I can send my PC's video wirelessly and reliably to my TV, that's a game-changer. Let's see the hardware first, though.
Windows 7 Mediaroom Support
If I can get my FiOS content on a Windows PC with no extra hardware, that, too is a game-changer. We'll see if it actually happens.
In closing, I'd just like to say, "Fuck 3D!" I do not now, nor will I ever care about watching a movie or TV show in 3D. There is nearly 100 years of 2D footage, the vast majority of which looks like shit on current hardware. Industry, stop trying to make me buy a completely new hardware iteration, when the current 2D devices are FAR from perfect. I want cheap, thin, light, bright 2D 1080p displays with NO MOTION ISSUES!!!! Make this happen, then we'll talk about next-gen hardware.
