CES Opens With a 3-D, Celebrity-Packed Bang

The action-packed opening of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) today in Las Vegas featured so much exciting stuff and unannounced, high-profile guests that attendees may have forgotten – at least for a moment – about how our economy is expected to result in flat growth for the consumer electronics industry in the year ahead.

“I wish I could tell you I’m recession-proof,” said CES keynote speaker Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of consumer electronics and content giant Sony Corp. (SNE) in his remarks opening the show. “Nevertheless, Gary [Shapiro, the president and CEO of CEA] thought I could offer something uplifting.”

And he certainly did.

First, the personalities. At various points in a presentation that ran about two hours, Stringer welcomed onto the stage actor Tom Hanks, Disney/Pixar executive/director John Lasseter, Oprah pal Dr. Mehmet Oz, baseball great Reggie Jackson, DreamWorks Animation exec Jeffrey Katzenberg, and singer Usher, who performed.

Howard used his time onstage to promote and demonstrate Blu-ray and the 3-D capabilities it enables.

“Never before have I been so excited about a technology for our customers as Blu-Ray discs,” said Lasseter, who mentioned that a feature of Blu-Ray can access the Internet to enhance users’ viewing experience.

For example, he said, the Blu-ray version of the remastered version of Sleeping Beauty Disney will be reissuing uses the feature to get the particular user’s time and weather from the Internet and uses that information to provide the appropriate setting in the opening Sleeping Beauty castle scene for that user. (If the user is watching the movie during autumn, for example, the castle will be among trees with falling leaves.)

“The future of Blu-ray doesn’t stop here,” added Lasseter. “Finally, in the future, we will be able to have 3-D in the home through Blu-ray.”

Later in the presentation, Stringer introduced a short film, based on the popular movie Cars, for the audience to watch in 3-D. But even more impressive was a 3-D football clip that made viewers feel they were on the field during an actual game. In fact, Sony Electronics and Fox Sports will beam live the FedEx Bowl Championship Series national championship football game between the University of Florida and University of Oklahoma to 80 theaters in 3-D tonight.

And on March 27 DreamWorks will release its first 3-D feature, Monsters vs. Aliens. “3-D represents the opportunity to re-energize” audiences to come to movie theaters, said Katzenberg, whom Stringer referred to as “the John the Baptist of 3-D.”

The one telecom-specific angle to the overall presentation related to a new Wi-Fi-enabled Sony CyberShot camera Stringer showed off, saying it has cut a deal with AT&T Inc. (T), which will allow customers to use its Wi-Fi service for free to access the Sony sight with these cameras.

Stringer added that Sony has set the goal of wirelessly enabling 90 percent of all its products by 2011.

Beyond the 3-D stuff, the two most interesting products Stringer highlighted included what he referred to as a bedside clock and a small, bendy video device.

The clock thing actually comes in the form of a digital picture frame, which Sony developed with Internet media player company Chumby. It can present information on weather, news, stocks and a host of other information, available through a touch screen. Stringer said it’s based on an open platform, so developers can create additional applications for the device. Stringer showed the device with a picture of Big Ben on the screen, being used as an alarm. “It can let you wake to Big Ben,” said Stringer, joking, “the clock.”

The bendy thing, based on the OLEC TV technology Sony announced at last year’s CES, was running a video of Beyonce, but Stringer said something about how this technology – which seemed to be positioned as more of a concept product – is magazine-like.

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