The Samsung booth has some really amazing video cameras coming out.  The one that really caught my eye -- the SC-HMX20C.  First, it's quite small. Far smaller than my current camcorder (it weighs less than 1 pound).  Secondly, it uses flash memory for storing video and will accept external flash memory modules.  And third, it records at 1080p. 

One advantage it has that other high-definition cameras do not have is that it records natively at 1920x1080 as opposed to a 4x3 ratio that is than extrapolated to 16x9 resulting in higher quality video.

A feature that video enthusiasts can appreciate is that it supports up to 300 frames per second allowing for very high speed recording. Imagine recording your kid's baseball swing in fluid slow motion.   It includes 8 gigs of flash memory.

The Samsung people tell me that it should be generally available in May 2008.

It took over 2 hours to get to CES today. The size of the show this year seems to, but doesn't necessarily, dwarf previous years.  So I just got to the show and have just finished visiting the Microsoft and LG booths. There's some really cool stuff being shown.

I'll write more about it when I get to the press room er I mean, blogger room. Incidentally, bloggers are definitely not treated at the same level as press (our badges are white, press is read).  Which is ironic since many if not most of the "press" people here work for places that have a trivial readership compared to what Neowin.net or WinCustomize can deliver. 

Of course, I feel dirty being labeled either since I'm a software developer too.

Once upon a time there was a collection of programs called Object Desktop. The most popular of these programs were WindowBlinds, IconPackager and DesktopX.

Millions of people around the world tried these programs and for the most part liked them. But users also often found it difficult to get a consistent look across their desktop since the different programs worked on different parts of the computer.

In time, a number of skinners helped popularize the concept of "Suites". A suite is a collection of skins, themes, and icons that when applied together create a single unified desktop experience.  However, as cool as suites were, it still required users to go out and find the various programs necessary to apply the suite.

Over the past few years, Stardock has worked hard to find ways to simplify the process of applying suites.  This past year, it devised a new product called MyColors.  The theme and the underlying technology would be one in the same. The suite would evolve into being called a MyColors theme. Users would search for MyColors themes instead of the software. MyColors would seamlessly include all the software needed.

Stardock Design

To sell themes to the mass market, Stardock would need to create a lot of themes. In the past, a handful of art houses like Pixtudio, Skins Factory, and SkinPlant had created a handful of themes.  To make the MyColors concept work, hundreds of high quality themes would need to be made. And so Stardock Design was created.

Stardock Design brought in, full-time most of the top talent from the major art shops that were devoted to skinning.  Alexandrie and Treetog now work full time at Stardock Design. So do both MikeB and Hippy. Stardock also brought in ChaNinja as a full time designer (ChaNinja was one of the top msstyles skinners).  Pixel Pirate, Danilo0c, and Essorant also joined up.  And Voo, well known for his icon creations in contract work with the art houses is now full time as well.

Stardock then licensed a number of properties from movie studios, sports teams, car companies, universities, etc.  Already the NBA, NHL, and NCAA teams are made with more coming on-line.

MyColors 2008

This month, Stardock will make available MyColors 2008.

This second-generation version is designed for the mass audience. MyColors 2008 is self-healing -- it automatically repairs itself if one of the components out of date or a problem in a theme is found or a bug in the underlying technology is found.

A number of major OEMs have already signed on to pre-load MyColors in the next year. In the future, users will be able to choose how they want their computers to look like.

Object Desktop 2008

MyColors will be made part of Object Desktop 2008. In this way, Stardock can provide those users premium themes during the course of the year and offer discounts on many others.

Moreover, MyColors allows users two very straight forward choices now:

The user can:

1. Pay $19.95 and have a branded theme with all the software they need for that particular theme. (i.e. they pay for the theme and the software is largely incidental)
   or
2. Get Object Desktop for $49.95 which provides the underlying software and can use the thousands of skins, themes, icons, etc. out there. (they pay for the software and the themes are largely incidental).

Below are some screen shots of what to expect and how it will work.

MyColors Theme Manager in action.

 
Quest MyColors Theme

Boston Celtics MyColors theme

 
Users can see Featured Themes right from MyColors Theme Manager

Great Britain. The United States. Canada. Italy. Belgium.

These are nation states. And their future is unclear. 

Nation states have historically provided 2 key benefits: The ability to pool resources for a common defense and a single market.

Globalization and the slow pacification of the modern states of the world are taking away much of that benefit.

For example, what exactly does Texas get out of being a state in the United States? What about British Columbia in Canada? What benefit to they get out of being part of Canada? What benefit does Scotland derive from being part of Great Britain?

I am not saying that these nation states are going to fall apart any time soon. But in the long-term, the forces keeping these states together is going to keep getting weaker until it's only inertia that doesn't split them apart.

At CES there are companies from all around the world. And the respect people have for intellectual property seems to depend on the culture. 

There's nothing quite like walking the show floor only to see your stuff on some computer's screen without permission.

The above photo doesn't really show it well but Chinese Computer Manufacturer "Lime Computer" was showing their full screen weather application on their PCs. It's cool but it's using Stardock's copyrighted weather images.

These images come from here: https://www.stardock.com/weather. It's a collection of weather icons that are very high quality. And they have a very generous license use. If you have a free program or website, you can use them provided that you display Stardock's copyrighted notice somewhere. For commercial use, a paid license is required typically.

By now you have probably heard that this year is the last year Bill Gates will be giving a keynote. He's going to devote his full time efforts to his foundation. You can see his awesome keynote (parts are hilarious) over at Neowin.net here.

The nice thing about trade shows is that they force companies to pick the things that really matter to show off.  Booth space is always at a premium and so only certain things can make the cut.

Based on what I saw at the Microsoft booth the key initiatives are:

1. Windows Live.
2. Games for Windows
3. Home Server
4. Media Center

Those weren't the only things they showed. But those things certainly got the lion's share of the attention.  For example, Office certainly was front and center and so were Windows Vista. But in terms of actual booth space, the focus was much more on Live.  Office Live Workspace went into beta and looks quite cool. Essentially, it will allow users of Microsoft Office to put their files on-line seamlessly and work more easily with others.

The November update to Live really does show that Microsoft has its act together. That said, if I were emperor of Microsoft I would be integrating Live into the desktop as opposed to trying to battle Google and Yahoo and others on the web.  Where is Windows Live Desktop? I don't want to use web pages for everything.

In terms of Windows Live, Microsoft showed off a new feature called Events. It's part of Live Spaces that is very similar to eVite but is integrated into the other Live services (like calendar and such).

It's a little bit clunky still but shows massive promise. 

Events on Live Spaces

Games for Windows was showing off a number of new games including Space Siege, a new game from Gas Powered Games. It looks pretty cool and is similar to Dungeon Siege in terms of game play. Microsoft also announced that Sins of a Solar Empire would be out in February at retail as part of the Games for Windows section. Picture Homeworld meets Civilization meets Total Annihilation for an idea of what it's like.

Microsoft also gave us a lot of NDA-based news regarding Media Center that I should be able to discuss tomorrow.

No big news on Windows Vista that I could see. No big previews or announcements on what the next version of Windows might have.  Windows Live seems to have a lot of the company's energy right now.

I like toys. I admit it. When I was 15, I would go to the store to buy a Transformer and claim I was buying it for "my little brother" for a gift.

Here at CES, there are lots of toys such as these cool World War II era toy tanks.

I've only had time to barely scratch the surface of what's at CES.  Stay tuned.

Stardock has been showing off MyColors at CES to several of its key partners.

MyColors combines Stardock's core custmization technologies into a single package.  Rather than people buying the software, they simply purchase a theme and the software is part of the package.

Stardock Design has already begun releasing licensed MyColors themes for the NBA, NHL, NCAA, General Motors, and others.  Many more themes are in development.

Later this month, Stardock plans to release MyColors 2.0 which has been designed to be pre-loaded with new computers. It will also come with Object Desktop 2008 so that ODNT users can make use of MyColors themes (free ones will be included for Object Destop users).

MyColors v2

One of the big trends at this year's show is that people want to customize their gadgets and computers to a level unheard of just a few years ago.

One of the things Stardock has been showing off to partners is MyColors 2.0.  With licensed content from the NBA, NHL, NCAA, GM, with more on the way, the library of MyColors themes is growing quickly. Stardock plans to begin making MyColors generally available later this month.

MyColors Theme Manager

MyColors 2.0 is set to be pre-loaded on several major OEM PCs this year (though we are not yet allowed to announce who).  By the end of next year, over 20 million Windows PCs may ship with MyColors pre-installed allowing users to change their overall Windows theme. Starodck is set to launch the new MyColors next week. The first PCs it will be shipped with are expected to show up this April.

Meanwhile, many different companies are showing off everything from cell phone cases, computer cases, adhesives, clip-ons, and more to allow users to give their gadget its own look. Like MyColors, much of their content is licensed from major brands (NFL in this picture above).

  While the HD-DVD group canceled some of their press events due to the defection of Warner Bros to Blu-Ray, HD-DVD has a pretty significant presence.

There seems to be no shortage of HD-DVDs currently available on the show floor as my blurry picture makes clear.

The CEA announced awhile back that over 30% of American households own an HDTV.  With approximately over 60 million HDTV sets sold, the demand for high-definition video is growing.  Thus far, both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have sold pretty abysmally. There are a lot of reasons for this such as people wanting to wait until there's a standard format, they don't necessarily see enough of a visual difference to justify the expense. And there's a lot of obnoxious copy protection involved limiting compatibility (play that new Blu-Ray movie DVD in your new Blu-ray DVD drive on your new Dell and you may find they don't always work).

One of the more interesting sights (literally) has been the 120hz 1080p sets. There really seems to be a visual quality difference based on the refresh rate that is independent of the resolution.