TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Ford’s Alan Mulally Talks Technology
Copyright Technology Report , use with credit.

The CES Innovation Power Panel  happens at 9am on January 11 in the Las Vegas Hilton Theater.    The panel will feature three top American CEOs who will discuss the roles that innovation has played in the success of their respective companies.

At the 2009 CES Mulally impressed the crowd with Ford’s technology and forward looking corporate world view.    I asked him then if Ford would be “needing bailout money” and he answered that he didn’t think so.    Impressively, Ford never did take any bailout money.    In fact some sources suggest that Mulally recently had pressure from no less than the President Obama to pull an advertisement that mentioned how the other car makers took bailout money.    The format was  the Ford “press conference” where a Ford buyer mentions he did not want to buy a “bailout” money car.     Here’s more on that issue:   http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/27/ford-yanks-bailout-ad-amidst-controversy-w-video/

Biographies of the Innovation Panel CEOs at CES 2012 from CES Website.

Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation, has been with Xerox since 1980. She began her career with the company as a mechanical engineering summer intern before working her way up to lead various organizations including Xerox’s global research as well as product development, marketing and delivery. She was named CEO in July 2009 and has since been instrumental in driving the acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services, which has transformed Xerox into the world’s leading enterprise for business process and document management. Burns has been recognized for her leadership by both Fortune and Forbes magazine’s “Most Powerful Women” lists.  Also, under Ursula’s watch Xerox has been named to Bloomberg Businessweek’s ”The World’s 25 Most Inventive Companies.”

Lowell McAdam was named president and CEO of Verizon Communications in August 2011, having previously served as the company’s president and COO. He also held key executive positions at Verizon Wireless since its inception in 2000, and built the company into the industry’s leading wireless provider, with the nation’s largest, most reliable wireless voice and 4G broadband data network. Additionally, he has served as vice president of international operations for AirTouch Communications. McAdam currently serves as chairman of the Verizon Wireless Board of Representatives, and on the board of directors of Verizon Communications.

Alan Mulally, president and CEO of Ford Motor Company, joined Ford in 2006, after serving as executive vice president of The Boeing Company and president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He is known for his innovative and focused industry leadership, while working to transform Ford into a lean, global enterprise. He has served as a past president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and is a former president of its Foundation. Mulally was named Chief Executive Magazine’s “CEO of the Year” in 2011, “Businessperson of the Year” by the readers of Fortune Magazine in 2010, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009 and “Person of the Year” in 2006 by Aviation Week magazine.

We were sorry to miss CES 2011 which wrapped up today. Encouraging was the high attendance of 140,000. I think this was not a record but it was close, and higher attendance than during the economic doldrums of the past few years. I consider technology to be a high quality and leading economic indicator – if Tech is doing well then the future is looking brighter for the global economy. Unlike some “regional specific” industries, Technology is critical in the developed world where the global economy is in many ways “directed” but also critical in the developing world where much of the production activity takes place and an increasing amount of innovation and services as well.

—– CES 2011 Post Show Press Release ——-

2011 INTERNATIONAL CES WOWS WORLD WITH INNOVATION AND OPTIMISM

Record-breaking 30,000 Overseas Visitors Experience World’s Largest Consumer Technology Tradeshow

January 9, 2011, Las Vegas – More than 2,700 technology companies across global industries dazzled attendees at the 2011 International CES®, with the ground-breaking event energizing the technology world. The 2011 CES set several new records, including 30,000 international attendees and 22 top CEOs participating in keynotes. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the 2011 CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, concluded today in Las Vegas.

“The 2011 International CES was a phenomenal worldwide event that spanned global industries including technology, automotive and entertainment markets,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. “This global technology gathering featured more innovation, more news, more social media buzz and more international attendance than any other show in CES history.”

Preliminary attendance figures indicate more than 140,000 industry professionals attended the 2011 International CES. More than 30,000 attendees came from outside the United States, with the show attracting more than 80 international delegations. CEA conducts an independent audit of attendance at the International CES and final verified figures will be available in the spring.

Major technology trends emerged from the CES show floor including the launch of more than 80 tablets, wireless 4G LTE, connected TV technologies, smart appliances – featured for the first time in show history – and electric vehicles. Ford’s Alan Mulally unveiled the company’s first electric car at the 2011 International CES with its Ford Focus Electric.

The 2011 CES brought top CEOs to the CES stage including Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg, Audi’s Rupert Stadler, Samsung’s Boo-Keun Yoon, Ford’s Alan Mulally, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Cisco’s John Chambers, Xerox’s Ursula Burns and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt. These executives were joined onstage by leaders spanning various industries including Comcast’s Brian Roberts, Time Warner Cable’s Glenn Britt, Dreamworks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg and Hulu’s Jason Kilar. The 2011 International CES conference program consisted of 250 sessions featuring 900 speakers.

As the relationship between technology and the content community grows in significance, the 2011 CES featured a new program, Entertainment Matters, designed for the Hollywood community. As part of the program, the 2011 CES featured the first-ever Entertainment Matters keynote panel with leaders from Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Akamai Technologies, Interpublic Group and WPP.

The 2011 International CES featured government leaders from the U.S. and around the world including United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, along with Commissioners Meredith Attwell Baker, Mignon Clyburn and Robert M. McDowell.

The 2011 CES created phenomenal buzz in the social media world with more than 158,000 CES-related tweets since Monday, January 3, and more than 11,000 page views on CEA’s Digital Dialogue blog.

For more news on the 2011 International CES, visit CESweb.org. The International CES will return to Las Vegas next January 10-13, 2012.

About CEA:
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $186 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also sponsors and manages the International CES – The Global Stage for Innovation. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services. Find CEA online at CE.org.

UPCOMING EVENTS

CEA Economic Retreat
March 1-4, 2011, Snowmass Village, CO
CES on the Hill/Digital Patriots Dinner
May 10-11, 2011, Washington, DC
CEA Line Shows
June 2011, New York, NY
CEO Summit and Board Retreat
October 1-3, 2011, Stresa, Lake Maggiore, Italy
CEA Industry Forum
October 2011
CES New York Press Preview featuring CES Unveiled @ NY
November 2011, New York, NY

Contacts: Tara Dunion e-mail: tdunion@CE.org
www.CE.org

Sarah Myers smyers@CE.org
www.CESweb.org

Maximum PC has an update on one of the stars of last year’s Consumer Electronics Show – the Lenovo U1 hybrid that offered a combination notebook and tablet computer in one slick shell.    Like many who handled this last year at CES we were really impressed, but the planned release in June never materialized and rumors were that Lenova had discontinued the project – perhaps due to price pressure from the Apple iPad which released at far lower cost than most analysts anticipated.

However it now appears that Lenovo’s amazing U1 has been resurrected and will release in China next year.   We’ll hope to have more about this during our CES 2011 coverage coming soon.

The world’s premier consumer electronics event – CES 2011 – is still 99 days away, but the keynote lineup already reflects the influence of this huge technology showcase, attended by legions of professionals working in the technology arena.

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft will Keynote the “Preshow” on Wednesday, followed by CES’ CEO Gary Shapiro, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, and Samsung President Boo-Keun Yoon.

CES Keynotes often release some of the tech industry’s most important news, especially as it relates to upcoming innovations in consumer electronics, automotive technology, and the rapidly expanding field of green technologies and high tech appliances.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011
6:30 p.m. Las Vegas Hilton, Hilton Center

Steve Ballmer
Microsoft CEO

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer will deliver a preshow keynote address at the 2011 International CES.

“As leader of one of the world’s most innovative technology companies, a keynote address from Steve Ballmer is the perfect way to kick off the 2011 International CES,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. “Microsoft’s entrepreneurial spirit and drive have been major forces behind the success of the company and its impact on the global consumer technology industry. We look forward to hearing Steve’s strategic vision for the future of Microsoft and our industry.”

Steve Ballmer will kick off the 2011 International CES with a preshow keynote address at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 5, in the Las Vegas Hilton Center. In previous years, Microsoft has used the CES keynote stage to launch major products including Xbox, Windows Vista and its Sync technology partnership with Ford.

The full lineup of 2011 CES keynote addresses will be announced in the coming months.

Thursday, January 6, 2011
8:30 a.m., Las Vegas Hilton, Hilton Center

CEA President and CEO, Gary Shapiro and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg

Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Verizon, has led Verizon since its inception in 2000 following the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. He has transformed the company into a premier global network company by building a nationwide wireless network, deploying high-speed fiber broadband direct to homes, and expanding its global Internet backbone network around the world. Verizon’s leadership in network innovation has earned the company numerous awards, including Fortune’s 2010 “World’s Most Admired Companies” list at No.1 in the telecommunications sector.

“Ivan is a terrific leader who has positioned Verizon as a top global provider of communications, information and entertainment across a wide variety of platforms,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. “Verizon embraces innovation and its vast broadband networks touch all facets of the technology ecosystem. We are pleased to welcome Ivan to the CES stage for his debut keynote and look forward to hearing the vision for Verizon’s next generation of products and services.”

Seidenberg will deliver his CES keynote address following a State of the CE Industry keynote address delivered by Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA.

Thursday, January 6, 2011
4:30 p.m., Las Vegas Hilton, Hilton Center

Boo-Keun Yoon
Samsung President and General Manager of Visual Display Business

As President of Samsung’s Visual Display Business, Boo-Keun Yoon oversees all activities surrounding a broad portfolio of devices, including TVs, monitors, Blu-ray players and other connected consumer digital products. Under his leadership, the division has maintained its No.1 status in terms of global market share for TVs, monitors and Blu-ray players. In addition, he has successfully led several efforts to commercialize market-leading innovations such as Samsung’s LED TV in 2009 and, most recently, the company’s total 3D entertainment solution – a full product suite consisting of TVs, Blu-ray home theater systems and glasses that make it possible for consumers to enjoy 3D content in the comfort of their homes.

Below is a quick summary of the most recent update from Yahoo regarding the Bing (Microsoft Search) / Yahoo advertising alliance, an attempt by both companies to stem the tide of Google’s search dominance.   Yahoo’s history of bad search decisions makes me a bit worried that they may try to compromise Bing’s (pretty good) search quality in favor of paid listings, further eroding the credibility gap between Google and Yahoo/Bing search.

Ironically Google search is probably more vulnerable than ever to the advent of a new, great search engine  thanks to Google’s current tendency to   1.  Elevate old and well SEOd (Search Optimized) websites above newer, better ones   2. Avoid proper policing big players like Ebay / Amazon who often appear high in paid and sometimes even organic rankings despite no/thin content about the query.  3. Maintain unreasonably high per click charges on many terms, effectively favoring the big money / big box  advertisers over small businesses.   4.  Not use enough social media feedback to help rank sites (they use some and I’d guess are slowly integrating this, but nobody has made the breakthrough that will come from clever “crowdsourcing” about websites.        5. THROUGH 10.      LACK OF TRANSPARENCY!       Google remains very opaque when it comes to website rankings, and Yahoo in their infinite lack of cleverness 3 years back missed a golden opportunity to come to the rescue of advertisers, webmasters, and most importantly users by creating a more level field with a lot more information about how rankings work combined with public identification of site owners, webmasters, and spammers/ abusers.    Creating this type of transparency would solve many of the problems that currently plague the search game, most importantly the problems that come from webmasters trying to please Google rather than create new, innovative sites.    Best single example is the fiasco of Google’s insistence on “Nofollow” links, which have seriously distorted the entire search landscape to favor cleverly optimized / costly sites over new mom and pop operations.

You see this often  in the travel space where large, thin sites outrank rich, local sites that are newer and don’t have the link base of the older sites.     With Google as pretty much the only search in town, new links will flow mostly as a function of  the rank of the website, so we have a circular system where the “rich get richer”.     [for the record this aspect of the algorith benefits me in the case of some of my very old websites, so this is not a "sour grapes" rant as much as a critique of the approach].

However I’m not holding my breath on Bing Yahoo taking up much of Google’s market share.    As we’ve noted before Google remains an excellent tool, and it took hold of people’s search consciousness at the time they were developing their online habits, so even a superior search would have trouble hurting Google’s dominance, and to Google’s credit I think they continue to approach things more from a quality side than a revenue one.

From Yahoo:

Assuming our testing continues to yield high quality results, we anticipate that our organic search results will be powered by Bing beginning in the August/September [2010] timeframe.

This appears to be a good sign that they will not compromise organic quality in favor of elevating paid listings, a move that would probably lead to significant loss of their current (low) market share.

From Yahoo:

This on the other hand seems a little more alarming, suggesting that people may want to pony up to maintain their ranks after the Bing transition.      Over the coming weeks there will be a lot of Bing quality testing by other SEO centric websites and we’ll try to summarize that in a later post.      We’ll also be blogging the upcoming SES San Francisco (Formerly SES San Jose) search conference – the most influential search gathering  in the world, and have more on the Bing Yahoo changes.

———–  Full Text of Yahoo’s Note ———-

Dear Advertiser,

As we continue to work closely with Microsoft to implement our search alliance, we wanted to provide you with an update on our progress, as well as call out some important, upcoming milestones to help ensure you are prepared for the changes to come.

Transition with Quality
Our goal remains providing a quality transition experience for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, while protecting the holiday season. We’ve continued to make good progress against this goal, and we regularly evaluate our progress. However, please remember that, as we continue to go through our series of checkpoints, if we conclude that it would improve the overall experience, we may choose to defer the transition to 2011.

Organic Search Transition
To date, we’ve focused most of our communications to you on the paid search transition to adCenter. However, another key aspect of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is the transition of Yahoo! organic search results (those found on the main body of the page). Assuming our testing continues to yield high quality results, we anticipate that our organic search results will be powered by Bing beginning in the August/September timeframe.

If organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website, you’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change:

For more specifics on the organic search transition, please refer to the Self-service Advertiser FAQs on the Yahoo! Transition Center.

Organic and Paid Search Testing
To help us deliver on our goal of transition with quality, we are conducting the necessary tests to ensure that all of the many complex, logistical pieces are in place. While there’s nothing you need to do to prepare for testing, please keep in mind the following:

Editorial Guidelines
Yahoo! and Microsoft have created joint editorial guidelines that will begin taking effect for both Yahoo! and Microsoft paid search advertisers in early August. We encourage you to review these now, so that you understand any potential impact to your ads or keywords. Notable changes include new guidelines for gambling and contests, and disallowed content. For a detailed overview of the editorial policy changes that will soon take effect, please read the New Editorial Guidelines article.

We are committed to making this transition as seamless and beneficial for you as possible. We appreciate your business, and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.

Sincerely,
Your Partners at Yahoo!

Disclaimer:   Joe has Yahoo Stock.   Not that he’s happy about that fact.  Nope, not happy at all.

Lenovo Hybrid vs Apple iPad

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

One of Lenovo’s product team demos the Lenovo U1 at CES 2010. This was among the most impressive of the show’s innovations and offers users the benefits of a full computer along with a removable touchpad which is a full blown computer as well.  The system uses two separate processors and my understanding is that each unit can act independently, so you could hook up a separate monitor to the keyed portion.

The hybrid is not yet available and will appear after Apple’s much celebrated iPAD and other tablet innovations, so it’s not clear how the coming tablet wars will shake out.

Apple has a remarkable record of bringing beautiful and innovative product to the market, having them copied and offered at lower cost, and still winning the war for the hearts and minds of users.    However Apple already cut the price on the iPAD and on Apple eBooks in an effort to knock the Amazon Kindle out of the competition for the tablet/ebook market so their margins are likely very thin.    If Lenovo’s production costs are much lower (they likely are), they may find this market more profitable than Apple and thus be able to expand more quickly.

All this is very speculative until we see how consumers react to the new products as well as the many other tablets in the pipeline.  At this point it appears likely that Lenovo will be Apple’s key competitor – and only if they are lucky and the product works as well as advertised at CES –  in the 2010 tablet market.

Note: Aria Resort, Vdara Hotel, and Crystals were sponsors of Technology Report’s 2010 CES Coverage.  We appreciated that these remarkable properties – which rank among the world’s most technically advanced hotels and retail center – helped us bring you our live CES 2010 coverage.

During CES Las Vegas  Technology Report joined a small group of fellow CES bloggers for a backstage tour of Cirque du Soleil’s KA theater at the MGM Grand.

Cirque’s media and technical staff are as extraordinary as their performers and we were joined by KA’s Technical Director Erik Walstad, Cirque’s  Social Media Manager Jessica Berlin, and Cirque Publicist Jeff Lovari.

This remarkable show – one of seven permanent Cirque productions in Las Vegas – is the most technically advanced production in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps the world (I could find no other shows that compare).

KA has several extraordinary and unique technologies, but the most imposing and amazing were the massive moving stages that lift, move, tilt, and spin during the performance, providing everything from an empty abyss when the stages are lowered to a sandy beach (using thousands of pounds of tiny pieces of cork as the sand!) to a massive sheer cliff when one is rotated 90 degrees and flipped into a vertical position, with several performers perched precariously on the edge of the deck.

As we toured the massive “basement” of the KA theater, many stories below the seating area, Walstad explained that the production required a massive retrofit of the existing building, with special support structures required to anchor the gigantic gantry crane that moves the huge deck with extraordinary precision and agility using hydraulics that use vegetable oil as an environmentally friendly alternative to more toxic oils.

Two decks appear and disappear during the performance:

The Sand Cliff Deck weighs in at about *40 tons* and measures 25×50 feet with a six-foot depth.   It is supported and controlled by an inverted gantry crane attached to four 75-foot long hydraulic cylinders running along massive support columns.   Together the crane and deck weigh in at about *175 tons*!    The crane is powered using five pumps and about 3500 gallons of vegetable oil.

ASUS at CES

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

There are more different types, sizes, and brands of computers at CES than you can shake a stick at, though Apple is always conspicuously absent. In fact the Apple Tablet somewhat overshadowed much of the innovations of the Las Vegas show because clearly the Apple Tablet is going to be the “one to beat”, especially given the lack of any clearly “superb” tablet offering at CES.

Although I have not done enough research to generalize much about the best new PCs I think it’s clear that the mainsteam trend is towards smaller laptops and netbooks with robust features. Costs are going down – features that would have been unheard of at any cost 5 years ago are now standard on even a modest PC. Battery life is impressive and getting better – one of the ASUS PCs shown here had a battery that lasted something like 10 hours.

ASUS also has a new interesting line of *very large* laptops with high quality speakers built into the sides of the chassis to the left and right of the screen. Although heavy, these will offer huge power and a “desktop” feel for your mobile computing. Still, I think weight is the key factor driving down PC size and predict it’ll be the netbooks that dominate the market for the next few years.

CES South Hall

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

It’s hard to describe the size of CES becuase it’s really, really big. This is a photo of *part* of the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. There’s also a North Hall and Central Hall, the Hilton Venue and the Sands Venetian Convention Center (though that venue was a lot smaller than last year.

Still, the early numbers suggest attendance was up this year even as total exhibit space appeared to be somewhat smaller and the “party food” metric suggested that folks may have been scaling back somewhat despite the fact that this is generally considered the largest and most influenctial technology conference of the year (there is some dispute about that I understand as some conferenences have more attendees, though I think CES remains the largest in terms of exhibit square footage.

ZigBee Energy Control

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Monitoring and controlling energy use has become a major theme in technology and several CES vendors had devices, chips, and standards that worked to monitor and control energy use for appliances.

A question I’m working to answer with more research is whether the best approach for this type of home energy control are the solutions proposed by some of the high end exhibitors at CES – Control4 and Zigbee , or the very simple yet elegant “smart socket” approach taken by USA / Beijing’s “i-Sockets.com” where very inexpensive sockets communicate with the home PC and allow control of things plugged into these sockets via the PC and even remotely over the internet.

Another inexpensive “smart socket” approach is from Picowatt, featured as a CNET CES top pick

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