Notes From a Senior Editor: CES Last-Day Roundup

By James Turner
Seniro Editor

Traditionally (if something I’m doing for a second
year can be considered to have a tradition), the last day of my
show reporting is devoted to the strange and the silly at CES.
However, given that all of the space yesterday went to OLPC
coverage, I’m going to have to mix in some actual products in
today’s coverage. I spent a lot of Tuesday running around the
Central Hall looking at big screens, DVRs, camcorders, and the
like. I also went to the Lunch at the Pierros press event, which
has been a gold mine for interesting Linux stuff in the past.

Hard Times Have Forced Vendors to Live In a
Makeshift Tent City

Last year, it was work, if not all that hard, to find
Linux at the show. This year, devices with Linux in them
practically fell into my lap. This is because most of the new
streaming media and IPTV boxes run embedded Linux. And because of
that, most of the new UMPC and PC platforms (and even some PDA and
phone-size platforms) explicitly support or have been tested with
Linux. I’m not going to try to individually describe every STB (Set
Top Box) I saw at the show, but I’ll try to call out some of the
more interesting ones.

Hauppauge is moving into HD tuners in a big way. The
first one to have Linux drivers is likely to be the WinTV-HVR 950,
a USB-based over-the-air tuner out now. They are busily working on
Linux drivers, and hope to have them out in the spring. Hauppauge
recently took the step of hiring a UK-based driver guru who had
done the Linux drivers for previous Hauppauge products, which
should allow them to make more of their products available.

Hauppauge’s HD Tuner, Available Soon For
Linux

There were not one, but two different Linux cell
phones on display at the show. Trolltech was showing their “Green”
phone, while OpenMoko was showing theirs. Both have promised to get
me units to play with in the spring or sooner, so expect a report
in the near future.

Trolltech

OpenMoko

Finally, it’s time for the weird and wacky. Booth
babes, the female eye candy intended to draw traffic to booths, is
harder and harder to find. Partially, that’s because less and less
of the attendees are male. Still overwhelmingly male, but less and
less. Still, you do occasionally run into someone going for the
retro marketing strategy. No sign of any Booth Beefcake…

Lose Weight While Attracting Booth
Traffic!

It can be easy to forget, in the face of all the high
tech multimedia gear for sale at CES, that consumer electronics
includes products that are much less high tech.

No Linux, Thankfully, Inside These
Dolls…

Case Mods and other PC modifications are going more
mainstream, as people want to personalize what can be a major
purchase. There were plenty of products at the show this year to
help you out.

One final note before heading out the door for the
final day of show floor wandering. The biggest news at CES
yesterday actually occurred 571 miles to the west, with Apple’s
announcement of the iPhone. It was literally all that anyone in the
press room could talk about all afternoon. It’s a tribute to
Apple’s image that they can steal the spotlight from the largest
electronics show in the world.

Members of the Press Look Lustily at iPhones,
Wishing They Were at MacWorld

Well, that’s it for another year of Linux fun and
frolic at CES. For a change, my feet are actually in good shape,
and I saw a lot to indicate that Linux continues to be a strong
player in the consumer electronics industry. We may still be
fighting for the desktop, but we own the set-top.

No Matter How Bad Your Lot in Life, at Least
You’re Not This Guy.