•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

San Francisco. Tablet computers are leading a host of “smart” gadgets in the Nevada desert this week at a Consumer Electronics Show spotlighting slick new devices on the horizon.

CES attendance in Las Vegas should top the 126,000 figure from the annual event last January and the roster of exhibitors has climbed from 2,000 to 2,700.

Internet software will fuse with televisions, cars and even household appliances at CES, where an army of tablets will be unleashed to challenge Apple’s popular iPads.

“Certainly the No. 1 trend will be tablets,” said Stephen Baker, an NPD Group analyst. “I think every smartphone and personal computer company will either have one on their show floor; be showing them behind closed doors; or announcing things.”

CES organizers say up to 80 tablets could debut at the event.

Apple sold more than eight million iPads since the California company introduced the tablets in April, and year-end sales could surpass 10 million.

Tablets being unveiled at CES were not expected to pose a threat to the iPad, a second-generation version of which is likely to be announced this year.

Android and Windows “won’t be right” for tablets for at least a year, giving iPad time to secure its throne against tablets based on the operating software from Google and Microsoft, respectively.

“We are going to be up to our armpits in crappy tablets, and I do mean crappy,” said Rob Enderle, who is an independent Silicon Valley analyst.

Apple has become a defining force at CES despite the fact that it shuns the gathering.

“Right now, in the consumer electronics space, Apple is the shining star that everyone and their brother are chasing,” Enderle said. “CES is increasingly becoming an Apple show even though Apple is not there.”

A sold-out “iLounge” spanning 4,645 square meters will be crammed with accessories and software for iPads, iPhones and iPods, including kits for installing the iPad in your car.

“There is a whole Apple empire,” CES spokeswoman Tara Dunion said of the iLounge portion of a show floor space spanning a total of 150,000 square meters.

An “On the Go” section of the expo will also be a wi-fi hotspot for tablets, smartphones and e-readers.

Internet connectivity will be an overriding theme at CES, with dumb gadgets from television sets to appliances being made “smart” with software that cuts energy consumption or shares information using the Web.

For the first time, home appliance colossus General Electric will be among CES exhibitors.

“It’s Internet everything,” Dunion said. “The Internet will be in all products from cameras to smart appliances and cars.”

3D TVs that were stars at last year’s CES will return, but this time with an emphasis on partnerships with film and television studios providing content intended to make such screens worth buying.

“In a connected world, hardware doesn’t do much good without content,” Baker said.

“More and more we’ll see and hear about how the hardware and the content work together.”

TV makers will play up flat-screens that let people access the Internet without set-top boxes, according to analysts.

“Pretty much everything in the next year or two will sell with a connectivity option,” Baker said of TV hardware.

Microsoft is expected to provide the first look at Windows 7 media software for Internet televisions that is “better than what Apple and Google brought to market,” according to Enderle.

A keynote presentation on Wednesday by Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer could include a glimpse at the successor to the Windows 7 operating system released in 2009.

“There is enough smoke around this particular fire that it is likely we will see our first glimpse of Windows 8 at the show,” Enderle said.

 

Agence France-Presse