On the opening day of the Consumer Electronics Show, CES, in Las Vegas, all the big names unveiled 3D TV's.

Industry experts said the picture looks promising with a survey showing around 3.4m 3D TV sets will be sold in the US this year.

"It's a challenging market. We need something to kick us out of this," said Panasonic's Elsuke Tsuyuzaki.

"To me, the thing that's going to get us there is 3D," added the firm's chief technology officer.

"2009 is a year none of us want to repeat," said Gary Shapiro the president of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) which hosts the annual tech gathering.

                          

Some of the best in the past year include in no specific order, the Blackberry Bold 9700, Playstation3, Etre Gloves, Zune HD, the PowerMat, the FLO Personal Television, WD TV Live HD media player, Sonos S5 Zone player and the Leatherman Freestyle CX.

A little more detail on a couple of toys ...

The Blackberry bold 9700 offers a sleek design, stepped down from the original, plus an optical track pad, added memory and a high-resolution screen, plus a 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS and wi-fi. Very nicely done.

The Zune HD : Next-Generation Digital Entertainment Zune HD marks a significant step forward for portable media players, combining powerful hardware components such as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) multitouch screen, an NVIDIA Tegra HD processor and HD Radio capabilities with software advancements such as the new Quickplay menu, a well-featured Web browser, and engaging music and video playback features to deliver a new portable listening and viewing experience.

                          

One of interest to us, is Times Best Inventions of 2009! A big list of 50 best inventions.

My TOP 5 Favs include, #2 Tuna in a Tank (love sushi), #3 a new light bulb by Phillips (saves energy), #6 Teleportation, #35 Handyman's Xray, and #42 the super suit.

Check them out here Best Inventions of 2009

All kinds of industry sectors are involved, these new products and services will hopefully serve us well.

                          

1 Google’s push into mobile, with rumours it will be launching its own handset, the Nexus One, on 5 January on both sides of the Atlantic

2 The long-awaited Apple tablet is due out in March-Apr 2010. If it does appear in 2010, the most fascinating effect will be on the burgeoning e-reading market.

Here a link to some interesting design info

3 Cloud computing. The benefits of storing data online rather than on your computer are still a mystery to many, but the expansion of Google’s App Engine and the launch of Microsoft’s Azure Platform on 1 January

4 The life recorder. Hang these on your neck and the quantity of personal data will leap, capturing photos, video, sound and location data, like a personal black box.

5 Flexi-displays, Wistron is rumoured to be launching an e-reader next year with a flexible, pull-out display – heralding a new era of affordable and foldable electronics.

macbook touch design

                          

This should help me immensely as we go forward, blogging about ideas, inventions, innovations and technology.