3 Technologies from CES Will 2011 be the Year of the Connected Home?

CES was a great experience! The energy of the show felt entirely upbeat and positive, full of optimism for this New Year and the new technologies that will literally dominate our lives.

With such an abundance of amazing technological innovation happening all around us, I find it hard to believe that anyone can not be absolutely thrilled about the direction we are moving! So with that, I’d like to present a few of the technologies that I feel are going to be major influencers around our homes this year.

Windows Media Center and Windows Embedded

There was a ton of activity and buzz around what Microsoft has been doing with Windows Media Center in conjunction with Windows Embedded. Windows Embedded makes a lot of sense, especially when you take into account that Windows Embedded Standard 7 now incorporatesWindows Media Center into the mix. What this allows for is the ability for developers to build “a variety of smart, connected, and service-oriented advanced commercial or consumer devices.”

Gesture Technology (i.e. Xbox 360 Kinect)

Gesture Technology (also known as Natural Interaction because there are no controllers being held like the Wii and now PS3 have) could turn out to have a very big presence this year with all of the excitement around its potential uses, and most importantly, loads of development happening behind the scenes. We are talking about not just interacting with your TV, but also with your PC, and even eventually things around the home (like lighting) by using just your hand movements and voice. Trust me, this thing even out-does the clapper!

While this technology is very new, many people are recognizing the capabilities that lie outside of the gaming industry and touch upon the connected home and beyond. It’s going to be thrilling watching this ground-breaking new field grow!

The Connected Home

One thing is for sure: the idea of the “Connected Home” is still very real to a lot of people and more importantly, to a lot of manufacturers. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg, in my opinion, of where these new technologies can take our home entertainment experience. There are far too many fresh technologies coming out of CES that are geared toward creating or enhancing the Connected Home...

So while the Connected Home has been a topic of discussion for many years, there has also been innovation accompanying it along this journey. New technologies of today replace the new technologies of years past-innovation is always a forward motion path. Like all technology that sticks around for awhile, there comes a time that it will hit critical mass. You can see this trend in any technology we take for granted today, from the telephone to the TV to the cell phone. They are all examples of technologies that took years to catch on, but then suddenly, reached a point where everyone wanted it in their home.
This truly can be the Year of the Connected Home, but it will take a major push from people with louder voices than me to help people understand its meaning and benefits.

--- Content submitted from Home Toys ---