As you know Your Calgary IT Source recently attended the Consumer Electronics Show held this past week. The event showcases all consumer electronic products, many of which are available today and some of which will become available in the coming year and as always a few that will never see production.

Our focus for attending the show was to identify new and innovative products that will be of potential near term value for our customers.

This update is intended to give a brief introduction to some of the products with near term business impacts; each of which we will expand upon in the coming weeks.

USB 3.0

There were a number of products announced certified to the new USB 3.0 standard including motherboards from ASUS and GigaByte and disk drives. USB 3.0 is a new communications standard that operates at a maximum speed of 4.8 Gb/s which is 10 times the maximum speed of USB 2.0 which we use today. While these maximum speeds are likely not achievable on a continuous basis, a fraction of 4.8 Gb/s is still significantly faster than a fraction of 480 Mb/s. USB 3.0 devices are also backwards compatible with USB 2.0, of course operating at the lower speed. Look for a number of new USB 3.0 products to hit the market on a regular basis.

Pico Projectors

A term coined for a new breed of laser and LED based tiny projectors. These projectors fall into the size range of 5” x 3” x .75” thick. Generally speaking these devices are good for small darkened rooms and will be ideal for presentations to small groups of people.

Power Line Carrier Technologies

Working over standard AC power plugs in your home or office these technologies offer Ethernet speeds up to 85 MB/s which can be used for HDMI video, streaming video or basic broadband Ethernet. These technologies in many cases are preferable over wireless as there are no dropouts, low signal levels and are more secure than wireless technologies. Coupled with centralized media centers it is now possible to touch all parts of your home or office without many of the difficulties associated with wireless. All that is needed is an existing 120 VAC power outlet anywhere in your home or office.

Home / Office Automation

Using a combination of Power Line Carrier Technologies and RF wireless technologies control of your home / office including door locks, water and temperature sensors, thermostats, lighting and appliance control is available at your fingertips from your PC, iPhone, Blackberry or most any internet connected device.

Price points on these products now make them very cost effective for all applications.

Call Management Tools

An exciting new product was announced for availability in Canada late Q2 or early Q3. Replying automatically to calls, texts and emails letting callers know that you are focused on driving the product reduces the significant risk of texting while driving. Offering parents and employers a rich feature set including:

• Notifications on entering or departing pre-defined safe zones
• The ability to locate phones anywhere, anytime and to track past locations
• receive speeding alerts
• auto response to texts, calls and emails when motion is detected

All 911 calls and calls to a pre-determined safe list are always allowed.

Integrated Automotive Products

Look for in-dash integrated GPS, Bluetooth Cell Phone, Video, Audio and CD players to become available throughout the year. Available today on higher end cars these products offer aftermarket availability of these same integrated tools.

If there are any of these technologies that particularly interest you please do not hesitate to contact us.