Five Trends to Lookout for at CES 2013

It has been a great year for technology such as tablets, smartphone’s and ultraportables and, just like every year, new technologies (or those that finally become affordable) are showcased. With CES 2013 set to rear its ugly face on January 8th, it only makes sense to look at some of the big trends that are going to be displayed this year.

802.11ac

You have heard of 802.11a/b/g/n but now we have a new protocol in town, 802.11ac or 5G Wi-Fi. While 802.11n network equipment supported up to 300Mbps of rated bandwidth, 802.11ac supports gigabit speeds. Even though a few routers have already been released from companies like Buffalo, Netgear, and Linksys, devices such as smartphones and tablets have yet to be released supporting this protocol. Chances are that we will see some new networking vendors with routers and adapters for current equipment, and maybe a few devices that support the protocol.

OLED and 4K TV

At CES 2007, Sony introduced an 11-inch OLED TV to cheers and,even with all the hype years later, OLED TVs never took off. Moving forward to 2013, we are not only getting new big screen OLED TVs, ut also, they are getting a resolution bump to 4K. With twice the resolution of a 1080p TVs and the amazing picture that OLEDs create, expect to be amazed.

SOLID STATE DRIVES

Solid-state drives really grew their market in 2012, as prices broke below $1/gigabyte, and spinning disk hard drive shortages spurred more interest in its solid-state counterpart. At CES 2013, we can expect to see high capacity drives in both PCIe and SATA form factors, and maybe some new entrants into the market for both consumer and enterprise markets. Most of all, we can hope for more affordable options.

TABLETS

Just as Ultrabooks were the hot trend of CES 2012, tablets are here for CES 2013. We have already seen tablets get affordable with models like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire, amazing displays like the iPad retina display and quad-core processors. It ‘s hard to image what will be next. Even with all of this, manufacturers have only begun shipping tablets with quad-core processors and Windows 8 has only made its introduction. Expect the lines to continue to blur between laptops, convertibles and tablets.

THE CLOUD

The cloud has no doubt been a big part of 2013, for both consumer and enterprise, and CES agrees by adding a new area for 2012 called cloudbase3. This section will feature a Wall of Apps designed to show off new cloud applications. Other cloud products ready to be displayed include gaming and storage devices.

Stay tuned here and at our sister site, The SSD Review, as teams from both sites will be hitting the pavement hard to bring you ‘Tomorrow’s Technology Today!’