Happy New Year -- Time to prepare for CES!

It's the first week of January, so it is now time to look forward to CES, where I'll be for the next few days. Blackfriars will be looking at the show for how companies are marketing their products, but as a former technology analyst, I'll also be looking for cool new toys. Some things I expect to be hot this year include:

• Ever bigger flat screen TVs. The transition to flat panel displays has begun, and there is no indication it will stop any time soon. While some are predicting a $1,000 flat panel TV by 2006, I don't expect that to happen. Instead, we'll see more pixels and larger panels while leaving prices in the $2,000 to $10,000 range. And don't forget the whole migration to digital and HDTV which should drive product introductions as well.


• Ever smarter digital music players.The iPod revolution is in full swing, and I expect a host of new music products to complement the iPod ecosystem and compete with it as well. But I also expect more smart playback systems that observe your music preferences and choose music that you like just as Bose's uMusic does.


• Tons of digital imaging products.The hottest products after iPods this Christmas were digital cameras and printers, and every company in that space will be showing next-generation models.


• A format war for the next generation of DVDs. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray/DVD will fight it out for the hot Christmas products of 2006. Expect to see the two consortia supporting those formats to conduct a war of licensing for the next couple of years.


• Lots of wireless audio products. Everyone hates wiring their house just to have music, but it takes a lot more than an 802.11b wireless ethernet link to make wireless audio plug and play. I expect to see a host of home theatre systems and media servers to sport wireless speaker links for both in-room and whole home audio.

I'm sure there will be surprise products as well, so check back over the next few days. I'll be bringing my own current favorite electronics toy -- my Canon EOS 300D digital SLR camera -- so expect to see pictures of the best toys I see.