By Laura Hubbard

Have you always wanted to go to the International CES, but you’ve never had the opportunity or money to make it to Vegas. The Innovation Movement is currently running two contests that will test your innovation skills and might just win you a ticket to the big event in January.

For those left-brain analytical innovators, consider entering the “Apps for Innovation” contest http://www.appsforinnovation.com. The deadline for submissions was just extended until Monday, December 14, 2009. We are looking for developers to build apps that demonstrate how innovation and entrepreneurship are impacting the U.S. economy or help consumers advance policy goals that support innovation.

As an example, an app might take data from the U.S. government’s http://www.recovery.gov site to track the spending and use of stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to reveal where science and technology project spending is taking place.

For those right-brain innovators, consider entering the Threadless t-shirt design challenge http://www.threadless.com/loves/innovation inspired by innovation. Designers can depict technology innovations of the past, present or future, depending on how they are inspired by the challenge.  This challenge already has 82 submissions that are being scored on a scale of zero to five by members of the Threadless.com community. If you’ve not already part of the Threadless community, join today so you can help pick the winner.

Both contests are part of the Innovation Movement (http://www.innovation-movement.com), the grassroots campaign launched in June by CEA to mobilize Americans in support of public policies such as broadband and international trade that will play a key role in the global economic recovery and U.S. job creation. The mission of the Innovation Movement is to encourage the U.S. government to reward innovation and investment and support policies that foster entrepreneurship in a free-market system.  More than 35,000 Americans have already joined the Innovation Movement.  Are you one of them?

By Colleen Lerro

Since getting my iPhone last Christmas I’ve built up several pages of apps. I had no idea how much fun they would add to the phone and how useful they could be. When Apple says, “There’s an app for that,” they mean it. You can find the 10 fresh and funny iphone apps, apps for web designers, apps to save your relationship, green apps, the week’s best apps, new parent apps, healthy apps for triathletes, inappropriate apps (Pepsi has since apologized), useful educational apps, apps with awesome interfaces and I could go on.

To avoid turning this post into a novel and listing all of my apps, I’ll just tell you some of my favorites. My first download was the Facebook app. It has only added fuel to my Facebook addiction. My other social networking app is Twitterific. I don’t tweet too much, but follow several of my colleagues and a few tech reporters to keep up on what’s happening in the tech industry. Pandora was the other app I had to have right away. Already one of my favorite websites, having this free streaming music app on my phone is great for finding new music and listening to my favorites. Shazam is also an amazing music app. Never again will you have to sit there and try to figure out what song is playing. This app listens to the song, tells you the name and artist, allows you to get all the info you want about the artist and tag the song to buy on iTunes.

I have a bunch of apps I use for getting around. The preloaded google maps walking directions is my biggest lifesaver. I could get lost in my own apartment, and it’s less than 500 square feet! Having directional help with me all the time has taken away my go-to excuse for why I’m always late to meet up with my friends though. Trapster warns me about red light cameras. Urbanspoon is great for finding a local restaurant by neighborhood, price or type of food. My favorite part about it is shaking the phone to get my recommendation. Clearly, I’m very mature. Flixster finds all the movie theaters near me, shows me what’s playing and when, lets me watch previews and order my tickets. AroundMe is phenomenal, especially in an unfamiliar city, letting you find any restaurant, bank, bar, coffee shop, gas station, hospital, pharmacy, hotel, supermarket or Taxi Company nearby.

I have another set of apps I find very useful for a variety of activities. Living several floors up, I can’t just walk out and check the temp outside so I always take a look at The Weather Channel app before heading out. It’s easy to take get the 10-day forecast too, change locations and even watch videos of local forecasts. Having basic cable, What’s On? is great for remembering which channels are which, and well, for knowing what’s on. I love the Flashlight app and find many uses for it. I downloaded the level app because my Dad thought it was cool and useful. Seeing as I’m not very handy I don’t use this one so much, but hey, maybe someday I’ll hang a picture. Check please is great for taking the drama out of tip decisions at the end of a group dinner. Lose It is easy to use and lets you track all the calories you eat and burn throughout the day.

Until recently, the AT&T network did not work on the D.C. metro (thank you AT&T for making this happen!), so I had downloaded a few games that didn’t require access to the network. I enjoy solitaire, minesweeper and sudoku. When travelling further than the daily commute I find Kayak helpful for finding flights and tracking prices. Skype is great to keep in touch with people back home.

I also have a selection of apps surrounding a few of my favorite things: TV, sports and shopping. AMC’s app is great for Mad Men videos, previews and behind-the-scenes features. TV.com has a whole selection of shows from CBS, The CW, CNET TV and more. NBC.com, while not an app, is my favorite web site to access on the iPhone and catch up on recent episodes or The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. ESPN is great for scores and keeping track of my favorite teams. Yahoo’s Fantasy Football app gives me updates on how my team is doing and lets me make roster changes. It comes in handy at noon on Sunday when I remember I haven’t set my team up for the weekend. Target, Barnes & Noble and Amazon apps let me check out my favorite places and Web sites to shop at anytime.

Well, I haven’t done a great job at keeping this short, but there are just too many great apps out there. I’m always on the lookout for a new app, so tell me your favorite apps for iPhones and other Smartphones. Also, all of the apps I’ve downloaded are free, do you think I’m missing out by not purchasing any apps?

By Carolyn Slater

If you couldn’t make it to the CEA Industry forum in Phoenix last week, don’t fret, you can still benefit from the amazing CE industry talent that gathered to inform and inspire. We’ve just posted the podcasts of the keynotes and sessions on our webpage.

Sir Ken Robinson – Monday’s keynote speaker

Each year the Forum offers a unique opportunity to get inside the heads of inspirational industry leaders. These podcasts include this year’s keynotes from Sir Ken Robinson, acclaimed Innovator and author of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,  Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder, president and CEO of NVIDIA Corporation and Ken Schmidt, branding guru and former director of communications at Harley Davidson.

And the conference sessions were geared to help you understand the state of the CE industry and allow you to identify the steps to take to boost your business. Podcasts of the following sessions are currently available:

· 3D TV- The Next Big Thing

· The Future of Retail

· Social Media and Business – Where’s the Money?

· Hot Tech Trends from the 2010 CES and Beyond

· Charting the Churning Waters of CE Retail

· HDMI Update

· Ten Things You Will be Doing in Ten Years

All of these podcasts are FREE and can be downloaded to your MP3 player, or you can listen to them right from your computer.

So what are you waiting for – break out those ear buds.

By Cindy Arce

There is a new buzz in your purse and it’s not your cell phone vibrating. It is your makeup! Cosmetics have been fused with technology to bring you a promise of superior quality with advanced application. Last summer the cosmetics giant, Estee Lauder, introduced the first power mascara – Turbolash. The product boasts ease of use and application with professional results. Professional make-up artists have always directed amateurs to manually wiggle the brush at application and now with the new electronic vibrations, this product exceeds expectations with flawless results. Lancome cosmetics were next to follow this trend with their Oscillation Power Mascara and won the 2009 Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) Beauty Insider’s Choice Award for Prestige Makeup Eye Product. The popular drug store brand, Maybelline, recently launched the Pulse Perfection Mascara at an even lower price point.

Consumer response has been phenomenal and even at the higher-end prices, the products have been hard to keep in stock.

Recently, I was thumbing through a fashion magazine and was drawn to the Lancome Oscillation Power Foundation. The trend is moving forward, now emphasizing the results of vibration with Mineral Foundation. On October 2, the Home Shopping Network (HSN) launched the product before it was even available in stores.

This is the first time cosmetics have joined forces with technology for application and the new product launch reinforces the trend’s forward movement. As a former MAC Makeup Artist, I believe that products developed to ease the skill of application needed have tremendous potential. Many women lack confidence in their application techniques and look for ways to achieve a flawless finish without having to dedicate extra training or time to their routines. This is another example of how technology can advance the performance of everyday products and help consumers achieve time-saving and professional results, without the professional.

By Carolyn Slater

Earlier this week, CEA held its 10^th annual CE Hall of Fame (HOF) awards ceremony, sponsored by CE Vision magazine,  to induct 13 prominent CE industry leaders. The 2009 Inductees join the illustrious ranks of industry inventors, engineers, retailers, journalists and entrepreneurs who have received this honor since 2000.

Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA, praised the inductees for their contributions to the growth of the industry. “The CE Hall of Fame gives us the opportunity to showcase the people in our industry that offer creative solutions. Their ideas have changed the way consumers live,” he said.

Here are the 2009 CE Hall of Fame inductees in the categories in which they were honored:

Founders/Inventors

· Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm who led the commercialization of CDMA technology.

· The team of Karl Hassel and Ralph Mathews, founders of the Chicago Radio Laboratory, which later became Zenith Radio.

Sales/Marketing

· Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. who helped to create one of the first commercially successful PCs, the Macintosh (Mac).

· John Shalam founded Audiovox Corp. and helped establish the aftermarket car audio business, the aftermarket security business and the mobile video business.

· The late Neil Terk, founder of Terk Technologies, introduced the Pi antenna in 1987. The Pi was selected to be sold through the Museum of Modern Art.

Retailers

· Walton Stinson is president and co-founder of the Denver-based Listen Up audio/video specialty chain and also co-founded the Professional Audio Video Retailer’s Association (PARA) in 1979.

· The Cohen brothers: Norman, Maurice and Philip, grew their father’s Cambridge tire store in Boston into the discount retail giant Lechmere Sales that specialized in CE products.

Miscellaneous

· Richard E. Wiley, past Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), played a pivotal role in the development of HDTV, serving as Chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service for nine years. 

· Dr. Joseph Flaherty demonstrated HDTV to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in 1981 and also gave demonstrations to FCC and other officials, who established the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Systems, leading to the ATSC standard.

Journalist

· Aaron Neretin is a consumer electronics journalist who wrote for Merchandising Week.

Each year the HOF honorees are chosen by a panel of industry judges from nominations submitted by industry professionals.

The ceremony takes place at CEA’s annual Industry Forum conference during the Hall of Fame dinner attended by CEA members, Forum participants and CEA staff.

Walt Stinson in his acceptance speech talked about his boyhood love of electronics and how he could not have predicted what the future held. He said he was grateful to be included in the Hall of Fame that contains some of his heroes.

One of the most sentimental parts of the evening was when Neil Terk’s daughters Michaela and Romi accepted the award on behalf of their father who passed away in 2003. Michaela, on leave from the Israeli Army said, “It means so much that my father lives on through this award.”

John Shalam, a long-time CEA volunteer and founder of Audiovox Corporation, recognized the executives at Audiovox, Shapiro, the CEA staff and his wife Jane. He said he was grateful that his father had the foresight to relocate his family from Egypt to America when he was a teenager. He said, “America provides so many opportunities that if you want to work hard, you can better yourself.”

Photos courtesy of CEA

By Joseph Gizzi

I had the pleasure of sitting down at Industry Forum with social media co-conspirator Jesse Thomas of the creative agency Jess3. Jesse has an amazing resume creating data graphics and visual storytelling for major companies including Microsoft, MySpace, Mashable, Pepsi, Tropicana and more.

CEA members know him as a moderator of our panel on making money using social media, but soon he’ll be better known as the creator of a special CES project we’re rolling out together this year, currently dubbed the CES Social Circle. We can’t wait for you to hear more about it at CES Unveiled, but in the meantime, check out my conversation with Jesse on his work, what inspires him, and how data graphics can visually convey the important conversations happening around your business.

By Sean Murphy

With the benefit of hindsight, everyone now knows that the music industry, by taking so long to see the writing on the wall, squandered valuable time to adapt and innovate. The incredibly successful and occasionally sordid history of how records got made and sold too often enriched the labels and disenfranchised the artists. Certainly, great strides have been made in the last decade and they are all consistent with the notion of a truly unfettered marketplace that has served to empower musicians. As a result the benefits are manifold for artists and audience: the entertainment is delivered at a lower cost while greater profits are possible for the people who actually create the content. It is, in short, democracy in effect and yet another illustration of innovation improving an imperfect situation.

These advancements have myriad implications for writers. Fortunately, the publishing industry has mostly embraced the development of new technology and hardware to cut costs, attract audiences and benefit the environment. Michael Cader, who oversees Publisher’s Marketplace, points out that the success of e-readers was easy to predict. “Dedicated e-reading devices were introduced before MP3 players took off. Early Palm devices included a popular e-reading application, but these (and similar products) did not succeed in their first incarnation.” When asked his opinion of how the publishing industry is embracing the concept of e-books, he offers some illuminating insights. “I don’t think publishers “accept” or “reject” new technology so much as they make intelligent investments, moving with the market and their audience. Most publishers are accelerating digitization and e-book investments as the market shows signs of rapid expansion.”

Authors only stand to gain from these advancements, which are both profitable and environmentally sound. The less money that is spent on antiquated means of production (trees becoming paper that go to factories to produce books) and marketing (PR people to promote books, in print) liberates the author to focus on the work of writing and disseminating their work. The increasingly old-fashioned (and exceedingly expensive) efforts of promotion (the ads in print media, the exclusive practitioners who placed them) perpetuated the unfortunate reality that only established authors could afford to be properly marketed. Now, a virtually unknown writer with an e-mail account and a website can do more than even a moderately successful writer could imagine doing a decade ago. Add the revolutionary message-spreading potential of social networking and it would not be wrong to consider this a major paradigm shift, unfolding right before our eyes.

Jeff Kleinman, co-founder of Folio Literary Management, has been intimately involved in the publishing industry for two decades and welcomes the advances e-books are making possible for both writers and readers. When asked if he can envision traditional books disappearing in this generation or the next, he looks to the past to anticipate the future. “(Printed) books going away seems doubtful to me, but they seem to be going the way that illustrated manuscripts went, when the printing press came out,” he observes. “All of a sudden there was a much cheaper, more popular way of having access to a book’s content. We’re not even near where things will be moving in the future. Most insiders are realizing that the e-book industry is pretty much the only sector of the marketplace that is growing.”

In much the same way musicians have found ways to benefit from streaming their music (for free and/or via iTunes or a service), authors have a considerable stake in the e-books sweepstakes. For obvious reasons, the prospect of cheaper and easier access to content is a strategy writers can endorse, and it represents another step toward democratized dissemination of material, while operating within the profit-driven imperatives of the free market. “Books are not dead, but the definition of the “book” is changing,” Kleinman explains. “People are always hungry for content, and the print newspapers or print books increasingly seem like antiquated means of delivering that content. Interestingly, Amazon has repeatedly stated that the older demographic has been utilizing Kindle specifically because of its ability to expand font-size.”

What we have here is another happy example of innovation prompting technology that creates unprecedented opportunity in the marketplace. This is great news for artists and audiences, and it represents another success story for the CE industry.

By Joseph Gizzi

Green, Gaming, 3D and Remotes for the iPhone.

These were the themes behind products leading the way in CEA’s second annual i-stage competition, and it’s no surprise why. Consumer interest in eco-friendly products, innovative gaming solutions and a reinvigorated 3D movie market have all been major tech stories this year. The Apple ecosystem continues to inspire developers, and a number of i-stage contestants built in apps and social feature that could be supported on iPhone.

 Unlike last year, when the audience favored the endearing presentation of Minoru 3D webcam over the judges’ selection of the accomplished application Boxee, this year’s audience agreed with the judges, picking Regen Inc.’s ReNu, a family of stylish solar-powered products, as the standout winner in the competition.

Other “wows” came throughout the day, especially from runner-up The eDGe, which married the netbook with the eBook. Judge Natali Del Conte of CBS and CNET TV praised The eDGe for providing just the right amount of functionality without too many distractions to pull her away from a great read.

Del Conte and her fellow judges injected a welcome amount of humor into the competition, especially when Natali discussed her do-it-herself in-home tech solutions.

The judges also handed out a few cautionary tales based on their own personal experiences. Jeff Pulver, founder of Pulver.com and co-founder of Vonage, stressed the importance of consumer privacy throughout the day, and questioned whether some products could be used to steal content.

Ross Levinsohn, no stranger to content pitches as former head of Fox Interactive, was wowed by the advances in green technology shown throughout the day.

And Blake Krikorian, a man behind his own successful startup, the Slingbox, warned contestants that focusing on too many features weighed down their wow factor. He repeated to several contestants the need to find a focus and drive their message home. Del Conte echoed the sentiment, asking for an elevator pitch she could give to her viewers on TV.

The judges had some stern criticism for some of the contestants — namely identify your market niche and do your competitive research — but also made it clear that it was a huge accomplishment just being present for the contest. All in attendance were more than pleased that innovation is still alive and i-stage gave it a home for continued development.

I’m getting married in less than a week and I have to be honest, creating a registry was not one of my favorite pre-wedding activities. Actually, the only reason I created a registry was so that people wouldn’t get me a bunch of random stuff I’d never use. I am a very practical person and I don’t like a lot of random stuff. I only like functional stuff. This is why my registry was not limited to crystal and china that I may only use once every ten years. No, no. My registry included electronics! That’s right – gadgets that I can use every single day. Some upgrades and some add-ons.

Choosing the electronics was the best part of the whole process! Plus, some of the larger ticket items are great opportunities for friends to go in on group gifts.

If you’ve been thinking about adding some technology items to your gift registry, here’s a list of electronics recommendations from my registry:

1. Slingbox – We don’t like missing our favorite shows. For me, it’s sit-coms, movies, etc. For my fiancé, it’s sports. Pick a sport. Any sport. He has to watch his team and most of his teams are in New York. He plans to take our new Slingbox up to his parents’ house in NY so he can view all of his teams all of the time. I plan to stop him so that I too can enjoy our new toy.

2. Wii Gaming Console – We may be the only people I know that do not yet own a Wii. This actually would’ve been a good shower gift with Wii Fit to help me get in shape for the big day! Just sayin’. Too late now.

3. Digital photo frame(s) – Let’s face it. Once you have one digital photo frame you realize you need a few more. One for the living room, one for the home office, one for your office/cube at work…

4. HDTV(s) – We have an HDTV but… we want more! Plus, we’d like one rather large HDTV for our basement. The larger the better so that you can see the TV all the way from the pool table on the other side of the room.

5. Digital Camcorder – I’ve never ever had a camcorder and I really want one. I love watching home videos. Plus, I want to be ready for when we have babies! I need lots of material for when they are teenagers. Hehehehe.

And I like to think that several of my friends and family well enjoy the experience of visiting the electronics store more than they would the kitchenware store.

By Sean Murphy

CE products are perpetually in some state of transition. Movies, for instance, were silent, then shown on public screens, then available on private screens (TVs), and now they can be viewed on PCs and smartphones. Music went from vinyl to reel-to-reel to digital, with the hardware constantly becoming smaller to the point where a device holding thousands of songs can now fit snugly in your front pocket. Games have followed a similar course: from cardboard table-sized offerings to free wireless programs that can be played simultaneously by people in different area codes.

Books, on the other hand, have remained virtually unchanged since their inception. They have been refined to accommodate ease of use and their means of production have advanced considerably, but a book has remained a bound and printed product, read the same way yesterday as it was six centuries ago. Thus, the rather recent development of electronic media (specifically e-books and their associated hardware, or e-readers) signals a considerable paradigm shift.

Indeed, where the transformation of music and movies has been underway for some time, the big battle of the immediate future is the ostensible decline of book sales once e-books gain mainstream traction. One important distinction is that the book publishing industry − beneficiaries of the hard lessons learned by the music business − has already embraced these inevitable developments and continues to plan accordingly. The prediction, therefore, that books will follow CDs to the tar pit is unlikely to reach fruition anytime soon: paperbacks, especially used copies, are significantly less expensive than compact discs ever were. As such, physical texts are affordable and entrenched; they will not become extinct in our lifetimes.

Books, as their history illustrates, represent arguably the most adaptable and user-friendly form of entertainment ever created. Put simply, people love books and savor the experience of reading text; the somewhat recent portability of music is a solution books never needed to address. On the other hand, the initial success of e-books owes more to a refinement of the experience as opposed to an obliteration of it.

This refinement represents a relatively simple reality that may anticipate the success of e-books. Ultimately, the process of watching or listening (or reading) is unchanged: the inherent attraction of new hardware is related to increased convenience and/or decreased cost. When it comes to books, the essential model exists, and the consumer is simply trading the experience of reading a physical book for an electronic text.

Unlike music and movies, which have never been easier to procure for free (albeit illegally), the price proposition for books is, to a certain extent, already established. Put another way, it remains difficult to conceive a process by which books are easily procured at no cost. Uploading a song, or album, is light years − in conception and execution − removed from the task of uploading a novel. In other words, even if the possibility of pirated text was feasible, what would the net gain be? Saving ten bucks on a paperback that you still need to store on your notebook? Or download to read, or print? Neither of those options seems demonstrably preferable to paperback books, which are portable and not reliant on batteries. A book, in other words, is already close to an ideal delivery device for a specific type of content, and e-readers might perhaps be best positioned as an alternative instead of a replacement. E-readers can (and, in this writer’s opinion, will) exist harmoniously with traditionally bound books.

Nevertheless, there is no way to avoid the reality that the next generation of kids will be increasingly unfamiliar with the more “old fashioned” types of content. We have already seen it with music and games: it is no longer unusual to encounter a teenager who has never owned a compact disc or seen an LP record. So as computers become more commonplace in classrooms, another trend to keep a close eye on is how e-books will impact academia.

While it’s improbable to envision paperback books disappearing, it’s much easier to see how bulky and costly textbooks might slowly phase out in favor of PC (or eventually, e-reader) accessible content. McGraw-Hill Education has already announced that they are making a number of college textbooks available for use via Kindle. CourseSmart LLC, which has a catalog of over 7,000 e-textbooks, is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Even, if not especially, at the High School level, a younger demographic raised on PCs and portable devices is increasingly likely to engage with the dynamic capabilities of e-text, and may find textbooks old-fashioned. In addition to the green-friendly aspects of this conversion, there is a potentially substantial cost-savings initiative involved: in a recent feature for The New York Times Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is quoted as predicting that providing “free” e-textbooks could mean savings in the millions on an annual basis. In the same article, William M. Habermehl, the Orange County superintendent, predicted that within five years the majority of students will be using digital textbooks.

Next up, what these developments could mean for authors − as well as the people who edit, market and sell books…