2004 International Consumer Electronics Show Coverage

I did get the chance to get my hands on another new camera from Sony, the DSC-F828. While the DSC-T1 is a tiny device that begs you to carry it in your pocket, the DSC-F828 asks you to reaffirm your commitment to digital photography. The F828 sits somewhere between a point-and-click digital and a full blown digital SLR in size, but is intended to make it easy for you to take pictures like a pro.

CES has it all - head-mounted virtual displays, disposable cell phones and a cool smoke detector designed to help small children escape a burning house (instead of scaring them with a loud noise) rounded out our first day on the show floor of CES.

The Epson LivingStation

We managed to get a picture of the Epson Livingstation 57" rear projection/photo printer. With an MSRP of US$3999 it's my pick for the "most ridiculous expensive thing at CES". Apparently I'm nearly the only member of the press that thinks this thing is a bad idea - C-Net, the New York Times, and a few other heavyweights are reporting on it as a serious product. I just can't seem to look at the thing without asking which slot the toast comes out? Time will tell. Place your bets ladies and gentlemen!!!!

More news from Sony...

In addition to the new digital cameras we wrote about yesterday, Sony is releasing a few interesting products and a new service this week. Let's start with the service, basically the "Connect" service is a late attempt to try to cash in on the digital music distribution market that Apple broke open with the iTunes music store. By our count there's currently competition from Apple, Dell, Walmart, Microsoft, RealNetworks, and Napster in this space, so most consumer that have interest in downloading music to portable players have probably settled with an existing service and Sony is going to have a hard time convincing them to switch.

As the only company in the market that actually owns a music label you'd think that they would have a competitive advantage, but their music industry ties actually hurt them and the company has decided to distribute music in their proprietary ATRACS format, which will only work with Sony hardware, and which puts protection of the media industry's intellectual property as a priority over "fair use" for the consumer.

Something tells us that they won't be wonderfully successful with this venture, but only time will tell if the magic Sony brand will shine here or whether this will become yet another business school case study on how not to do things.

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