consumer electronics

How you can benefit from the return of old-school antennas and free over-the-air TV.

The Consumer Technology Association said on the show’s closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. That’s less than a quarter of the more than 170,000 the CTA said were there for its 2020 convention.

CES 2022 just became one day shorter. The Consumer Technology Association announced Friday that CES will now close on Jan. 7 as a safety measure amid concerns about spiking COVID-19 infection rates. While the CTA is touting that 2,200 exhibitors are still confirmed to attend in person, major exhibitors like Microsoft, Google, AMD and Intel have either canceled or modified their in-person CES plans.

Hisense debuted its first Roku-powered 8K smart TV on the shelves (virtual and otherwise) of Best Buy and Amazon earlier this month. And already, we’re seeing a trend re-emerge that defined the 4K smart TV era — smart TV’s made by Chinese manufacturers, enabled with the Roku OS, undercutting more expensive Korean rivals.

In a surprise move, Samsung Electronics replaced the heads of its three major business units and merged the company’s mobile and consumer electronics businesses into a single unit.

It all comes down to having power over what Americans watch and how.

The announcement comes after Delta-leery sponsors pulled out of NAB’s live Vegas trade show next month, and SCTE walked October’s Cable-Tec Expo back to virtual.

Broadcaster spots from the Pearl TV consortium promoting the ATSC 3.0 advanced broadcast TV transmission standard have drawn consumer interest, according to a Magid survey, including over better sound, which has become a major differentiator. The study found that a majority of respondents (60%) said they were “likely“ to purchase a TV set with NextGen TV technology within the next year after seeing the Pearl TV spots promoting NextGen TV.

The electronics show will convene the tech industry both in-person and digitally on Jan. 5-8, 2022, with 1.000 companies on tap to exhibit.

Set-top maker Amino says it’s seeing wait times for semiconductor orders expand by as much as six months.

Consumer tech spending on hardware and related services during the holiday season (October-December) is projected to reach $135 billion in revenue in the U.S. — a 10% increase from last year — according to a new study released today by the Consumer Technology Association. Smartphones topped the list of expected tech purchases, followed by laptops, video game consoles (Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are coming this season), TVs and wearable devices.

Next year’s CES, the world’s biggest consumer-technology trade show, has been pushed back a few days in January 2021, the Consumer Technology Association announced. CTA also announced Verizon chairman/CEO Hans Vestberg as the kickoff keynoter for the online-only event. Originally, CES 2021 was scheduled to run Jan. 6-9, 2021, in the trade show and conference’s first-ever virtual format, after the CTA canceled the in-person in Las Vegas because of the COVID pandemic. The new dates for CES 2021 will be Monday, Jan. 11, to Thursday, Jan. 14.

The annual consumer electronics bazaar offered an important stage for fledgling NextGen TV this week, while also allowing varied glimpses at 5G, anticipatory technology and acres of beautiful new screens including the Samsung Sero that shifts from a horizontal to vertical perspective.

The 10-year slog taking a new generation of digital television broadcasting from a mere concept to a complete system capable of delivering IP-based video and other services to receivers in the U.S. homes is ending as 20 NextGen TV receivers are debuting this week at CES — effectively closing the loop in the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem that long concerned broadcasters and fueled naysayers.