If you want to know what’s hot in the tech world, the place to find out is the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES for short, in Las Vegas.

Many manufacturers use the event to launch new products, even though many of those products will not reach the marketplace until late 2012. Each year there can be said to be a focus product, from the rash of 3D television sets in 2009 to the wave of Android tablets in 2011. This year, it seemed less clear before the show what the hot ticket items would be.

One of the biggest announcements this year was an indication that OLED technology may well be ready for the bigtime, as LG launched a 55-inch OLED TV that is only 4mm thick and weighs a mere 16 pounds. Add to that much faster refresh rates than LCD screens as well as much better energy efficiency and it would seem we have a winning formula.

The drawback? Price of course. Although prices had not been finalised, rumour had it that a 55-inch OLED would set you back some $8,000.

Many televisions also offered smart TV options like greater internet integration, as well as enhanced controls including gesture and voice, in attempts to ‘future proof’ the technology.

On the more affordable side of the scale, the show also featured a proliferation of ultrabooks, a category of ultra lightweight yet powerful laptop PCs that take aim at Apple’s MacBook Air, which launched the category a couple of years ago. Although light on weight, these ultrabooks are heavy on features and aim to put some lustre back into a PC market that has taken a serious hit due to the popularity of tablet computers like the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

These ultrabooks aim to bridge the gap between the portability of tablets and the capability of laptops.

So should you rush out and buy one? Well, maybe not just yet, as the category is likely to be much improved by the launch of Windows 8 later this year, as it is geared towards making the most of touch sensitive screens, something the current version does not fully do.

So unless you are keen to upgrade (again) later this year, waiting for devices designed for and launched with Windows 8 might be a good investment. Or you could just go for the computer that started the trend, the well-proven and very popular Macbook Air.


iPhone 4S local launch

One of the companies that is famously absent from CES is Apple. However, locally there has been some good news for Apple fans recently with LIME launching the iPhone 4S in Cayman in January. The new phone retains the same design as the iPhone 4, but features a far more powerful dual-core processor as well as an upgraded 8 megapixel camera.

However, the biggest news is on the software side, where Apple has launched iMessage, a direct challenger to Blackberry’s BBM. Even bigger news is SIRI, a digital assistant that recognises natural speech and can act on instructions by utilising many of the built in apps on the iPhone.

Although SIRI is theoretically still in beta testing, the product has the potential to revolutionise how we use electronics. Although iMessage is available to any Apple devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) that can be updated to iOS5, SIRI will at least for the time being remain exclusive to the iPhone 4S.

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