CEATEC 2008 – A Peek at the Future
We spent most of last week out at Makuhari Messe running around the CEATEC tradeshow with clients visiting from overseas. While we were considerably distracted, catering to their specific focus, it was certainly interesting – as always – to get a glimpse of the mobile future. Of course while most of the usual players were on-site with their wares and the media was swarming to get the inside skinny, btw: plenty of great material from Tech-On Here, two of the most obvious trends we noticed was a definite move towards green technology along with next-generation networks and handsets.
This concept model – the Voyage – from KDDI was a prefect example of innovation aimed at solving one of the major challenges, never enough juice, increasingly faced by mobile users. There was not much in the way of details on that unit when we asked at the time however based on past experience with AU Designs it would be reasonable to expect something like this hitting the street a few years from now and we’ll be digging for more intell. on this one! Meanwhile, some of the other concepts on display especially the Ply device with it’s built-in projector and their Trio design – hint: watch the video demos launched via ‘prototype’ icons on lower nav. bar – were also attracting the crowds.
Also located within the KDDI booth was UQ Communications, the companies upcoming WiMax play. It seems they will roll-out commercial services, which depending on the price bundle could be somewhat “disruptive”, sometime early next year. While the initial offering will only run with a USB or PCI card they were also showing off some impressive devices, notably the WiMax-enabled Nokia 810 tablet, which should become available here sometime later in 2009.
Overall the annual event had plenty to see, something for everyone and the so-called tech-pert panel awarded honors for some of the brightest future stars. We had a great time with our guests, special thanks to CIAJ for hosting a fantastic International Reception at the New Otani on the 30th, and we are gearing up now to plunge right back in for the Tokyo Game Show later this week.. Whew!