CES 2012 - Day 2: So, what's new?

A lot of people I spoke to today seemed comprehensively underwhelmed by the supposed cutting-edge of consumer electronics. There's noise, there's hoards of inquisitive, pawing attendees and there's a whole lot of walking around, but...

The non-plussed feeling amongst some attendees was best highlighted on Monday night when Microsoft megaphone Steve Ballmer held his annual (and perhaps final) CES keynote speech. When it finished, we were left asking - what's the news? Simply, there wasn't any. 

The big stories probably come from Intel, with developments in Ultrabook laptops and the company's belated entrance into the smartphone market. Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini astutely observed: "Computing is no longer confined to your computer – it's everywhere".

But of course, Intel being late to the portable party isn't really headline news either, or especially revolutionary. Essentially Intel is playing catch-up with rival company ARM.

Elsewhere, amongst the hum of air conditioning, the pulsing music and the flashing lights was something else; 'eco' or green technology. There's plenty of talk of technology companies being kinder to the planet, but their very existence if of course somewhat at odds with this idea. In true CES style, a wall of TVs the size of a house was placed next to a solar powered car.

Then there's some new smartphones, some new tablets and a whole lot of TVs - some of them super-thin, some of them super-3D and some of them super-smart. Undoubtedly smart TVs will become bread and butter on store shelves over the coming years. The good news is that (finally) major names like Samsung and Panasonic are doing some decent work in delivering more useable, intuitive smart TVs.