Highlights from 2014 CES

It's been a while since I've had an opportunity to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This year, I forced myself out of the office and walked the conference floor to see the latest and greatest in consumer electronics and technology. What a show! I've listed a number of highlights below to share my thoughts and opinions on what's coming for the future and a couple of personal favorites.

3D Printing

I saw at least a dozen companies exhibiting their 3D technology at the show. From big, high-end physical setups to cloud-based services to brands that desire to put a 3D printer on everyone's desk. Although the appearance of printed objects is less than appealing due to limited materials, it is amazing what these printers can produce. My favorite can seen by this video of a band playing instruments created from a 3D Printer. Notice the intricacies of the drum set. Very cool. Once more materials can be applied to these machines, they will explode. We should see enormous growth in this industry over the next decade.

Digital Health

Digital health products were everywhere...I couldn't keep count of the large number of exhibitors in this category. The majority of these products consisted of wearable devices that measure vitals and quantify your overall health. Many of these products are tied into apps for your tablet and/or smart phone allowing people to monitor their health and activities with little effort. This is a hot category and has big growth potential.

Music Products

Of course, music is near and dear to my heart. Rhythm Interactive got its start in the music industry. This year at CES, music was a big, big deal. A large number of audio accessory suppliers were exhibiting with only a few standouts. One of which is AudioFly who had a great booth and solid marketing support thanks to our strategic partner, Blue C Advertising . Gibson Guitars displayed their awesomeness with a tent filled with products and performances. But a couple of cool things that were my personal favorites were the gTar and the iRig .

The gTar is labeled a "Smart Guitar" in that it allows you to attach your iPhone and use an app to learn songs. The app displays what frets and strings to press and the fretboard on the guitar itself lights up. Very cool. See the picture to get a look. The iRig is a great device from iK Multimedia that allows you to connect your guitar to your iPad and use an awesome app to jam your favorite tunes. The setup can be complimented with a studio-quality monitor and pedal board. It seriously rocks. Check out the video below. A random guy next to me asked me to jam a song with him using the iRig setup. So after a minute of reviewing the chord progression, we busted out "House of the Rising Sun". I'm going to have to get myself this setup.

I'd like to also mention that our client Celestron - a leading designer, manufacturer and importer of high-quality optical products including computerized and non-computerized telescopes and related accessories, binoculars, spotting scopes and microscopes - had a great presence at CES. We are working on their new website currently which is night and day as compared to their current site.

Of course there was so much more at CES including beautiful TVs, connected cars, appliances and more. But these were my standouts. Technology is really driving our world today and it was completely apparent at CES. I'll be looking forward to next year.