As CES lunges towards the finish line, it seems a little more difficult than in past years to pick the one thing that stood out the most.  After all, we had lots of great, new, can’t-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-it tech products roll out over the last few days, but not just by one company that stole all the headlines (see: Palm, 2009), and not with any one gigantic company monopolizing all the space (see: Microsoft, most years).  This year, the e-book readers, tablet computers, and tiny information gatherers were democratically spaced over the entire show floor.

 

  So it’s with those in mind that I pick, as my favorite thing this year, the Intel “Info Scope.”  To be honest, this actually took some getting used to.  It’s a giant wall of instant, touchable information that morphs into different shapes and sizes as it, well, lives.  Kind of like the information that touches (or hits, or glances off of) our lives every day.  In a world of instant facts and opinions, and the devices that bring them to us (and nowhere in the world is all that shown more than right here, right now), this is everything writ large.  It’s jaw-dropping, it’s wonderful, it’s too much, it’s too in your face, and it’s very futuristic.  As an Intel executive told me, “It’s just the beginning of what we’ll be doing with our information.  And, we’ll probably do it on something much smaller.”
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It’s also right here, if you haven’t seen it in action:  www.qik.com/budman
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“Info Scope” represents, for better or worse, where we are right now in the tech world.  Yes, it’s powered by the world’s largest chip company, but so are a lot of cool gadgets, and we’ve – for the most part – moved past caring about what’s “inside;” we just want to get what we want wherever we happen to be.  Whether its television programming, instant messages, or news reports, it’s on its way – right now. And that’s cool.  Just like Intel’s gigantic vision.  Check it out.