Audio Video News

<I>Bigger, better, more.</I> That's the future as envisioned by technological giants Zenith Electronics Corporation and Royal Philips Electronics, which kicked off this year's edition of the world's largest trade show with huge flatscreen television sets and plans to make technological interconnectivity deeper and more seamless than it has ever been for the average citizen.

On Thursday, the first <I>official</I> day of CES, attendees were treated to another day of warm, dry weather&mdash;and a mind-boggling array of new home theater products.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the <I>Stereophile Guide to Home Theater</I> hosted a ceremony and breakfast for the 2003 Editors' Choice award winners. The winners are pictured below with Editor Thomas J. Norton.

One of the main reasons why dealers and press types come to the Consumer Electronics Show every year is to see first hand the just-released and soon-to-be-released electronic gadgets and home entertainment gear. But, if you've got "connections", the best thing about CES - other than free dinners and drinks - is the chance to get an up close and personal look at technology that's still in the development stage. These "revealing" meetings generally take place in an unassuming hotel room off the beaten path, are bereft of any glowing press releases, and require a secret handshake (or sometimes a signed non-disclosure agreement) to gain access. HP, for example, showed us some things that we could tell you about, but we'd lose the ability to use our knee caps if we did. (I'm just kidding about the knee caps, but we did swear ourselves to secrecy until they're ready to let the electronic cat out of the bag.)

CES doesn't officially open until Thursday, January 6, but for the horde of assembled press, it begins on January 5. While workers swarm over the Las Vegas Nevada convention center in what appears to be a hopeless attempt to have everything ready by Thursday's official opening, wall-to-wall press conferences are being held. Tolerated as a necessary chore by the scribes, the press conferences nevertheless serve a useful purpose for manufacturers, giving them a captive audience to do with as they will. This year the festivities were more efficiently organized than usual, the only shortcoming being the lack of sufficient pauses between events.

Maybe the economy is really taking off. Or maybe it's simply that the cancellation of the big fall compute show, COMDEX, has sent all the computer types scurrying off to CES, but this year the show seems incredibly crowded. The isles were blocked, the press room didn't have a seat to spare (in contrast to the press room at CEDIA, where you could play catch most afternoons without bothering anyone), and the traffic and parking made LA&mdash;at least on a slow day&mdash;look like Barstow.

What year is it? Did George Orwell's prediction just get delayed? Seems like Sony is playing Big Brother. Sony Playstation 3 users just got an email from Sony stating that the terms of service have changed. First noticeable change. Main...