At CES, from VoIP to video into HDTV

A few years ago at CES, VoIP rated its own pavilion and conference track. This time around, with the exception of Skype's flurry of VoIP announcements, most of the shiny new hardware was appearing with video phones. Vidtel founder Scott Wharton looks more brilliant by the minute.

You've got your LG "Dick Tracy" style wrist phone, iriver's new desktop device, Skype reminding people it released a videophone built by Asus back in the fall, and Creative Labs dedicating a nice, large chunk of real estate to showing off its year-old inPerson video conferencing device. Add on discussions of people wanting to leverage the webcams in their $350-500 Netbooks and hot talk of next year's widescreen TV incorporating a video camera and audio-in capabilities - maybe via Bluetooth, maybe adopting the Lenovo approach and cramming a phone into the remote.

At first glance, it might seem odd that TV manufacturers would want to throw in a video camera into their products, but most of them are already putting in network connections and enough processing capability to run Yahoo Widgets.  Everyone is looking for the next big advantage, and turning the living room TV set into a full-blown two-way communications device rather than just a glorified web browser is the next wave of differentiation/added value.

People have been talking about smart TVs for years, and there are already TV sets with some phone service capabilities, including the ability to get caller ID through the TV.  The capabilities being rolled into TV sets by manufacturers over the next two years literally move the TV out of "boob tube" status and into a category of smart network devices that could force fundamental changes in the way both service providers and equipment manufacturers look at home networking.

- Doug