LIVEdigitally

Long long ago (last year), in an office far, far away (San Mateo), Blake Krikorian (Sling Media CEO) had a vision wherein Slingbox owners could easily share clips from favorite TV shows with each other. We knew it was a good idea, but didn’t want to push to far forward due to industry relations, copyright issues, bandwidth issues, etc. Looks like they’ve come a long way in the few months since I left, and a lot of these issues got worked out, which is very exciting. They announced two major new things at CES 2007: SlingCatcher and Clip+Sling.

SlingCatcher coverage is fairly pervasive, and I’ll hold off on adding any commentary of my own until we get closer to product launch. Watch this video or read about it at Zatz Not Funny, Engadget, Crave UK, MobilitySite, or ShinyShiny.

For Clip+Sling I was able to attend Les Moonves’ keynote during CES, and recorded a video of the whole demonstration:

It was great to watch Blake up there, especially as Chad Hurley had been on stage as well. YouTube is definitely great for user-generated content, like the videos we all make with our cameras these days. It’s a real pain for most users, however, when it comes to TV content. Most consumers have no idea how to record video to their PC, or even worse how to edit down to the clips they want. I think Clip+Sling with a centrally hosted server launched in conjunction with CBS and other networks could be extremely disruptive in the online video space. I’m looking forward to the launch later this year.

More Clip+Sling coverage: Engadget, Laptop magazine, PVRWire, SlingCommunity, and Zatz Not Funny.

Disclosure: I am a former Sling Media employee and have some stock. In fact, I just found a couple of videos of me doing Slingbox demos with the nice people at BuyTV (and the Slingbox Pro too)

Also, I video’d the CBS “media” presentation during the keynote.

If you’ve ever browsed my photos, you’ll notice tons of underexposed shots, or pictures where there just isn’t enough light to work with the digital camera. For cell phone users, this problem is even worse. While wandering the Sands Expo at CES 2007 I stumbled upon CameraBright. The company makes a few attachments for digital cameras that give you more light, especially for shooting video (would’ve been great when I was recording the Pussycat Dolls at the MSFT party – video coming online this week). At CES they were also showing one that works with your cell phone (called PhoneBright), and we got a little demo of it in action…

They gave me a unit to try out, so I’ll get a full report in shortly (read: in February).

More coverage at I4U (including their video too).

warning: this post and video are heavily laden with sarcasm and are not intended for those with a lacking sense of humor (not that ours is necessarily that great either)

Jeremy and I were cruising around the nether regions of CES and next to the Chinese circuit board companies and Roomba knock-offs, we came across the HD-FVD booth. Talk about a dark-horse. If HD-DVD is to VHS, as Blu-Ray is to Beta, then what the heck is HD-FVD. Their library is pretty, pretty, pretty impressive. They had titles ranging from “caterpillar on leaf” to … wait for it … “ladybug on leaf.” Check out this video taken in the booth where Jeremy and I had a little fun.

Not convinced? Read the specs…

See that? There at the bottom of the chart. The huge differentiator. Price: Low.

More on the “Ross Perot of HDTV standards”: The Inquirer and The Gizmo Blog.

One CES trend was obvious: digital picture frames. Saw em everywhere. Gonna be huge. More on another day.

Another trend was a little more complex: short video game chairs with built-in rumble packs, speakers, subwoofers, drink holders, rocking bases, and tush-warmers. Hm, wait, no, no. There weren’t tush-warmers. But I saw these goofy seats from a variety of companies across the show floor, and I have to say: I don’t get it. Relative to a couch, these bizarre chairs seem less comfortable and less convenient to game in. Am I just too old for this stuff?

More game chair coverage from CES: GameDailyXL, Kotaku, QJ.net, BornRich, TechZO, and DigitalStraightTalk.

One of the biggest trends in gaming over the past year or so is to add physicality to the gaming experience. Some companies, such as XaviX, aim to actually have fitness-oriented video games. Then there’s the immensely successful Wii, with a motion-enabled controller that’s winning the hearts (and breaking the arms) of kids across America. During CES 2007 (in the Sands Expo) we met up with Ana Soriano from Qmotions who showed their approach to adding the physical interaction to the other consoles. Here’s a little video of their technology in action:

More on QMotions: Forbes, Matt Sarrel’s blog, and IGN.

CES has 140,000 geeks from around the world and even with all of these people around you can get kind of lonely. I ran into Darth Vader on the last day and all I wanted was a little hug. No such luck.

I felt the CBS keynote at CES 2007 was one of the more interesting ones last week. It showed a company that is faced with the most daunting challenge: to transform itself in a time of massive change. TV networks and companies have so much competition on the horizon it must be frightening to be at the helm. Attacks come from every side. So to see Les Moonves (who I actually got the chance to meet and speak with at Sling Media’s booth during CES 2006) address the question of “what is media?” and have so many different, compelling answers was a pleasure. Although I could have done without the embarrasingly bad Second Life Star Trek montage. Talk about a selling point against user-generated content!

This video was shown just before Les took the stage.

More coverage of the keynote: Shiny Red Button, Core77, GigaOm (and subsite NewTeeVee), and WebProNews.