As we bid farewell to the 2011 International CES, we close with some general observations from the ETC reporting team…

Las Vegas was crowded – really crowded. If the national economy is slow to recover, there was little evidence of it in the Nevada desert. CEA estimates that about 140,000 people attended the show (more than last year and on par with pre-recession levels), and the state of the industry is showing strength. CEA’s Gary Shapiro estimates that consumer electronics spending will show a 6% increase for 2010, to $180 billion, and will rise an additional 3% this year, to more than $186 billion.

If we had to sum up this year’s show in 10 words, they would be: smart, connected, apps, 3D, 4G, gestural interfaces, tablets, tablets, and tablets.

The word that appeared around every corner of this year’s show floor was ‘smart’ – from banners and new product lines to marketing slogans and more. There was no escaping it, as it seems manufacturers now recognize the need to simplify consumer control over the dizzying array of available devices and services.

‘Connected’ everything was another star of the show, especially in regards to television and related services: search, discovery, VOD, and way too many apps to fathom. In fact, it was a challenge to spot a TV that wasn’t connected to Hulu, Netflix, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Yahoo! – you get the idea.

CES presented the connected TV as the center for our new multimedia-driven homes. We saw Hubs, Dashboards, Media Links – all designed to address these needs.

This CE connectivity is reliant upon high-speed networks and we heard a lot in terms of 4G and LTE. Verizon, T-Mobile, and others showcased their recently launched networks and collection of tablets and smartphones designed to leverage new speed and efficiency. We found the Motorola Atrix 4G compelling, an Android-based phone featuring NVIDIA’s dual-core Tegra 2 chipset, support for AT&T’s 4G network, and a very interesting laptop dock.

We saw 3D in record abundance – from 3D mobile and 3D gaming to new autostereo displays and a wide selection of prototype and market-ready 3DTVs and laptops.

Sony and Panasonic are sticking with active-shutter, while others – including LG, Toshiba, and Vizio – are touting the benefits of new passive 3D models. Passive displays are being produced at a more reasonable cost and many find passive polarized to be more comfortable. Additionally, the weight of the glasses is an improvement, and they work better over eyeglasses.

For those who believe donning plastic glasses may become the primary obstacle to consumer adoption, a number of autostereo displays were on hand, some that showed real promise and others that were less than impressive.

In terms of gestural interfaces, Microsoft Kinect is already breaking sales records, but the real story here is how gesture technologies will be used beyond video games. PrimeSense showed a system that wirelessly links the PC and TV, enabling access to content from a controller-free 3D system. Imagine what ‘connected’ TV will be like with set-top boxes featuring gesture recognition.

If there was a single breakout star this year, however, it would be tablets.

The Motorola XOOM turned a lot of heads in Vegas. The Android-based device (CNET’s ‘Best of Show’ winner) is one in a growing number of tablets targeting the burgeoning iPad market. Reactions were also positive for the 4G BlackBerry PlayBook which, unlike most of the iPad competitors, does not use Android, but will run on the BlackBerry Tablet OS.

Another tablet not using Android is Samsung’s Sliding PC 7. It runs on Windows, and is a touch-screen device with its own slide-out keyboard. Larger than an iPad but smaller than many Netbooks, it could be the hybrid that many have been hoping for.

We have much more to discuss, especially in regards to cloud-based content hosting and delivery services (i.e. UltraViolet), connected TVs and Blu-ray players with 2D-to-3D conversion capabilities, and more – but we’ll save those thoughts for our post show report which should be available within the next week.

Thanks for reading the blog for this year’s CES coverage. A special thank-you to ETC’s sponsors who make our work possible. Until the next show…

KC Blake, Sarah Blake, George Gerba, Carolyn Giardina, Bryan Gonzalez, Bob Lambert, Michael Lei, Phil Lelyveld, Jack Lerner, Edie Meadows, Nick Nero, Paula Parisi, Adrian Pennington, Rob Scott, David Wertheimer, Joyce Yi

LG presented a new approach to television and board controls with its LG Pen Touch Multi Board, essentially a large widescreen LCD with stylus touch controls.

The LG board is distinct from similar computer-driven boards currently on the market (such as the Smart Board) in that it allows image manipulation via multiple controls and supports more than one user at a time. Imagine using two pressure-sensitive stylus controls to manipulate the screen, similar to how you’d use two fingers on the touchscreen of an iPhone or iPad. This advancement enables multiple simultaneous users, which really opens up new possibilities.

The Pen Touch Multi Board is being promoted for classroom applications, but could also be an interesting resource for kiosks, theme parks, museums, and more. Notes taken during a meeting or presentation, for example, can be saved to a PC to be accessed at a later time.

LG anticipates Q2 availability. (Los Angeles Times has an interesting online video demo.)

Facebook and Twitter had a strong presence at CES … in the form of apps on connected TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top-boxes, and just about any connected device. Samsung even announced that its new connected refrigerator could display your Twitter feed. The popularity of social networks have forced CE manufacturers to include them on their products’ feature specs, irrespective of how appropriate the application truly is. Unfortunately, this knee jerk reaction to include social networks clearly demonstrates the lack of imagination or understanding as to how social networks are really used by people.

Social networks go beyond just being able to see what your friends are saying as you open up the refrigerator. Rather, social networks should be viewed as sources of information that can reveal deep personal connections. Re-imagine the connected refrigerator using social networks to suggest meals that have been successfully cooked by family and friends. Or suggesting new drinks or other edible delights that were just mentioned in a friend’s status update. The key to appropriate usage of social networks is … context. What is the device and how is it being used?

CE companies should realize that the device itself gives the user context and should guide the usage of social networks on the device. True, in the end, CE manufacturers will always pick the lowest hanging fruit first. But as social networks become more ubiquitous, the industry needs to determine what about social networks will help them to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Ultimately it’s not just about adding Facebook, but instead, asking “What can we do using social networks to maximize the appeal/utility of our products for our consumers?”

On Wednesday Cisco introduced its new content management platform Videoscape to address the needs of service providers looking to manage assets across the entire consumer experience. Utilizing Cisco’s expertise in cloud computing, network architecture and client services, Videoscape is an end-to-end solution that ties social networks, advertisers, content providers, unmanaged network/Internet and managed access networks into one cohesive system that allows service providers to seamlessly manage the consumer experience across multiple screens.

Cisco is touting Videoscape as an “open platform” and is working with several major service providers including Telstra, the largest provider of telephone, mobile DSL and cable Internet access in Australia, to enable next-generation video experiences.  This is a massive undertaking that, if successful, could enable a host of new business models and opportunities for content owners.

Cisco has obviously made a concerted effort to incorporate technologies from across its entire organization into the Videoscape platform.  This includes everything from content ingestion utilizing Cisco enabled IP networks, through delivery through cable networks using Cisco set-top boxes.  All of this is wrapped with management tools to track the flow of content, rights and payment.

(Cisco has an interesting online video that illustrates Videoscape.)

AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), the popular app development platform for Internet and mobile devices, has extended its reach to include support for connected television.

Adobe announced that Samsung is supporting AIR across their line of Smart TV’s and it is safe to say that you will see other manufacturers follow suit. With over three million Adobe Flash developers who can use Adobe Creative Suite 5 to author content for AIR for TV, the platform already has a large built-in user base.

AIR 2.5’s cross-platform technology is especially good news for content companies who can re-purpose existing assets to quickly create an app for a movie property that can then be delivered across a spectrum of devices from Internet to mobile to TV.

Home Server Technologies Inc. (HSTi) showcased an innovative new technology called Wireless Media Stick, a simple and affordable product that allows media connectivity between mobile devices, TVs, DVD players and more.

The product addresses this year’s underlying theme of connectivity, but unlike Google TV or Samsung’s Smart Hub products, all of which can run a hefty cost after subscriptions and hardware, the Wireless Media Stick is available for a modest $119.

The unit looks like any USB flash drive. After connecting to a main computer that contains media files, the computer is enabled (all the software is embedded into the product), and the Media Stick can be inserted into any device with a USB playback port — and through a wireless connection users have the ability to access and share photos, videos and music.

What’s especially interesting about the technology is that you can also stream on-the-go; the Wireless Media Stick app is downloadable for smartphones and by taking the Stick to any location you can directly stream data from a mobile device to any TV, computer or stereo that is USB playback compatible.

The reasonably-priced Wireless Media Stick is currently available and should be particularly appealing to high school and college students who are constantly on-the-go and accustomed to easily sharing their media content.

One of the most interesting (and nerdy) things you can find at this year’s show is from a small vendor called Vidtonic. Vidtonic is hopping on the Android bandwagon, but they are approaching it from a very different angle than everyone else.  While Motorola and others go to great pains to protect their hardware from hackers who want to modify the default OS or overclock their processors, Vidtonic aims to sell open source hardware units to this community, allowing them complete freedom to tinker in whatever way they wish.

Although specific kits and pricing aren’t yet nailed down, the general idea is that you’ll be able to buy a motherboard with CPU, memory and onboard audio/video. Inputs and outputs can be customized via add-on cards. Then you’ll be able to download the already freely distributed Google Android OS platform with the Linux drivers necessary for the Vidtonic board directly from them. From that point on, what you do with it is only limited by your time and creativity.

Vidtonic will even provide a higher end SKU which comes with a display and and the electronics mentioned above.

It’s Lego Mindstorm for AV hackers. The ultimate promise here is obvious. Ground zero of the media center STB scene started with a community of Xbox hackers in the early 2000′s who built Xbox Media Center (XBMC) to provide a platform for an all-in-one media box for the living room. While Sony and Logitech are putting tons of investment into Google TV, it’s this ‘crowdsourcing’ approach to feature development that has historically provided the best solutions and the most innovation.

When the SageTV, MythTV and current Android hacking communities get their hands on these units we’ll see a wave of incredibly innovative applications for media hubs.

At CES Sensio announced the launch of a 3D Internet content library for streaming 3D movies to Internet enabled 3DTVs or STBs. The content library currently consists of about 50 films and is available to existing VOD providers.

Sensio has also announced increased efforts at enabling 3D console gaming by providing a software kit to developers that will encode the 3D game output into a number of 3D formats. This is particularly useful for the Xbox 360, which doesn’t natively support any 3D formats for gaming.

Finally, Sensio Autodetect is a licensable technology for TV manufacturers that can detect practically any 3D format and display it on TV with less than one frame of latency, meaning consumers won’t even know they’ve changed 3D formats. (See related story on Autodetect.)

The Orb BR is a Blu-ray Disc that leverages the connectivity of your BD Live enabled Blu-ray player. When you place the Orb BR disc in your Blu-ray player, it uses BD Live to stream content from your PC or Mac directly to your Blu-ray player. The key is that you must have the Orb Caster client software running on your computer.

The client can stream content from sites such as Netflix, Amazon VOD, Pandora, and Hulu, as well as personal content from your music, photo and video collections.

Additionally, you can use Orb’s iPhone remote app to view a list of content and control playback. The advantage to using the Orb BR disc is that there is no need for additional hardware. However, the user must be running the client on their computer when they want to stream content.

The Orb BR disc is due to come out in February and will be priced at $19.99.