CLICK HERE to download the file and listen directly.

HOSTS: Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

• CES thoughts (and crazy press events).
• CES gadget pick of the show: Nvidia’s Shield handheld gaming device on Tegra 4
• CES surprise: Intel’s tablet strategy. Latest Win 8 slates with Intel Atom have similar battery life to Win RT but run full Windows / software
• CES: Health devices like the Fitbit Flex, Withings Smart Tracker, Body Media Core 2 were popular
• Does Samsung need a Galaxy Note 8.0? Will it really bring digital inking to the masses?
• Thoughts on BlackBerry 10: Matt and Kevin are headed to the NYC launch.
• HTC releases One SV for Cricket, hands-on thoughts

SUBSCRIBE: Use this RSS feed with your favorite podcatcher or click this link to add us to iTunes

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Updated: Forecast: global mobile subscribers, 2010-2015
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile

Variable Technologies CEO George Yu gave me a demo of Node and told me a little more about the platform in this video below:

Node is admittedly a bit pricey, and maybe also a tad too geeky, to become a massive hit with consumers. The Kore, as Yu’s company calls the Bluetooth base, will set you back $150, and additional sensors cost anywhere from $25 to $150. Currently, some of the available sensors include a thermometer, a color sensor, a sensor for light and weather conditions, an electrochemical gas sensor and a module that turns Node into an LED flashlight.

Yu told me that there is considerable interest from contractors and other professionals who need to gather data in the field, like painters that have to match the color of a house. Variable Technologies has also been talking to paint manufacturers.

But what I really liked about Node was its open development approach. Essentially, it’s not just a sensor, but a platform to develop apps that make use of all kinds of sensory data. It will be interesting to see what third-party developers come up with.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• The Internet of things: creating tomorrow’s health care
• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013

Rose wants to change that with M-GO, a new service jointly backed by Technicolor and DreamWorks that launched into public beta at CES. M-Go wants to compete with the likes of iTunes and Amazon, both of which rent and sell Hollywood movies as well. Rose told me that most of these services are meant to promote hardware or some other kind of product. That’s why they haven’t paid enough attention to marketing and packaging, he contended. M-Go, on the other hand, wants to focus only on content.

Check out my interview with Fred Rose, or continue reading below.

M-Go started as a joint venture between DreamWorks and Technicolor two years ago, and made its first public debut as a company at CES 2012. The end goal is to launch a service that offers access to all kinds of media in one place, including photos and live television. The service launched into beta with content from all major studios except Disney, and also announced a partnership with pay TV network StarZ at CES.

The service is initially available on the web, on Android and on devices from Vizio and Samsung. M-Go representatives told me that an iPad app is scheduled for February.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected consumer third-quarter 2012
• Connected Consumer 2012: A year of consolidation and integration
• Who and what to watch in the new era of the living room

Huawei was on hand to show off it latest wares, including the 6.1-inch Ascend Mate. While the large screen looked fine with its 1280 x 720 resolution, I think that display is large enough for Huawei to push the envelope into higher resolution. That would also push this phone into offering a more tablet-like experience. The Mate uses Huawei’s own processor design and the company said this week that its next chip will have 8 cores.

Vizio is another company you might not think of when it comes to mobile devices. Yet at the CES, it was showing off both Android phones and tablets. The handsets are aimed at the Chinese market, so we may never see them here. Surprisingly, the larger model, a 5-incher, does have a 1920 x 1080 display.

It’s powered by a dual-core Qualcomm chip and runs Android 4.1. A smaller 4.7-inch handset at 720p resolution is also heading to Asia running on a chip from MediaTek. Both handsets support 42 Mbps HSPA+ on AT&T’s frequencies if you plan to import one.

As the CES was winding down, some Android developers were updating their applications. Dropbox is a prime example, offering an update to its Android app on Friday. The new version adds a public photo sharing functionality. After you get the update on your Android, you’ll see a new icon on the Photos tab to select photos.

These selected images are saved on Dropbox in a sharable folder which gets a unique link. That link can be emailed or posted to either Facebook or Twitter, making it super simple to share photos. I find it exceptionally handy because I have Dropbox set to auto-upload my camera photos from all of my devices when on a Wi-Fi network; they’re always in the cloud.

I’d be remiss if didn’t mention my favorite Android gadget from CES and it was one I didn’t expect: Nvidia’s Project Shield gaming device. Cramming Android on a Tegra 4, a 5-inch 1280 x 720 resolution display and wireless connectivity into what looks like a game console makes for an interesting form factor. The unit plays Android games, of course, but also titles from Steam or a PC on the same network.

My only concern about Shield is the price as Nvidia has said it won’t sell it below cost and try to make a profit on the content. My hope is that Shield costs no more than $200, but I suspect it will be at least $100 more when it comes to market.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• What the Google-Motorola deal means for Android, Microsoft and the mobile industry
• Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate

• 13 design trends for 2013: Nice piece by Gannon Burgett, who shares some of the new design trends we will see more of. One of them surprised me: Metro-style flat design.
• Design is not a veneer: Talking about design, this piece by Aral Balkan really hit home for me.
• The loves of Lena Dunham: HBO cult series Girls is back and what that means is the return of Lena Dunham, who I admit is just a great television character — as human as a neurotic New Yorker can be. This is a piece about the loves of Lena or Hannah Horvath as she is called on the show.
• Creative aging and the emergence of artistic talents: Richard Senelick, M.D. writes about the how aging and dementia impact the brain and eventually allow emergence of new artistic abilities.
• Suds for drugs: How Tide detergent became the currency for drugs. It is a jaw-dropping piece.
• The gadgets of the future from the electrical show:  A piece about CES from the old days when it actually was cool and the gadgets were worth gawking at.
• 2012: the year in mobile photography: Well, it was Instagram, Hipstamatic and iPhone photo madness. Great recap of the most exciting year in mobile photography.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• How HR can make the case for workforce analytics
• The 2013 task management tools market

Qualcomm has worked helped several partners use the Project Gimbal SDK and showed me one example on the floor at the Consumer Electronics Show. Paramount uses Gimbal to help market its upcoming Star Trek movie, making the app interact with a nearby theater, movie poster or even from a television ad of the movie trailer. The best part? Gimbal  processes much of its environmental data on the device instead of the cloud, making for near-instant interaction.

Take a look at this demo to see how it works and pay particular attention to the image recognition of the movie poster; it’s immediate.

Tying in all of the environmental variables adds context not only for the app user, but the app developer as well. Peter Marx, vice president of Business Development and Digital Studio at Qualcomm, explained the benefits to me. With this app, for example, Paramount gains an understanding of how many people see the movie poster and in what location. This type of data can provide a better return on investment for movie marketing and help measure user engagement.

Are our smartphones as smart as they can be? Not yet, but by providing tools that take advantage of the GPS radio, camera sensor and microphone, they’re going to get a lot smarter in the near future.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• Bluetooth to Feel Blue as Personal Area Network Battles Loom

And one of them — especially important for startups — was about ecosystems and control points. Basically I wanted to know where the possible toll bridges are in each ecosystem. Maybe a company charges for access to its data or maybe it charges for access to its API. In a New York Times story on Friday about the ivee voice-controlled alarm clock, my concerns about how well devices and companies would play together were beautifully illustrated.

From the story:

But in the booth itself, things were a little more complicated. Jonathon Nostrant, the company’s founder, had connected an ivee Sleek to a Nest thermostat and a Belkin smart plug, which can turn lamps on and off. But neither of these companies have shared their application programming interfaces, or APIs, with ivee, so Mr. Nostrant had a programmer build a work-around. It was glitchy, working sometimes but not others.

And this is why I’m hoping to see some large market players enter the space with open APIs or access to data. The internet of things is going to need an Android to counter the many versions of Apple’s closed ecosystem. They may be slightly less perfect when it comes to the UI, but they will help open the field for innovation at all levels, so companies like ivee don’t have to build glitchy manual workarounds instead of focusing on building cool projects.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• The 2013 task management tools market

It’s worth pointing out that this was just a technology demonstration; Haier didn’t announce any plans to ship vision control-enabled devices any time soon. Still, it’s an interesting technology, which has seen considerable interest from startups and bigger companies alike.

Some are working on vision control with regular cameras, but Haier Product Specialist Kenji Higa told me that this leads to too many errors. That’s why Haier uses a specialized camera developed by Tobii.

The setup shown at CES required users to sit between one to three feet away from the eye tracking camera, but Higa said that the goal is to eventually have this work with distances of ten feet and more. That way, the sensors could simply be installed in the TV screen, and you could sit on your couch and interact with your TV just by rolling your eyes.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• How consumer media will change in 2013

I consider this development to be a small win for Intel because it means that Samsung’s Windows 8 tablets for the U.S. market will run solely on Intel chips. Qualcomm, which has been very successful developing the chips that power many smartphones and tablets, is Microsoft’s partner for Windows RT, a version of Windows specifically designed for ARM-based chips.

After speaking with Intel this week at the Consumer Electronics show, I’m not too surprised by Samsung’s choice. Intel’s Atom Z2760 chip is reportedly on par with Qualcomm’s chips when it comes to power efficiency and, in some cases, outperforms them based on AnandTech’s recent chip comparison.

In a quick check, I saw that Samsung’s Ativ Smart PC with Intel Atom and 64 GB of storage can be had for $599 on Amazon. And Dell’s Latitude 10 Essentials Windows 8 slate with the same Atom chip and 32 GB is now down to $499. Microsoft’s own Surface RT tablet with Qualcomm processor starts at the same $499 and includes 32 GB of storage. Choose a 64 GB Surface RT device, and you’ll pay $699. That price does include a keyboard cover, however.

Regardless, consumers can choose a tablet with the full version of Windows 8 that’s fully compatible with old Windows applications for about the same price as a Windows RT slate. Samsung knows this and must figure: Why bother with the RT version?

And in terms of battery life, I’m told by Intel that the new Atom Z2760 is expected to get around 10 hours of run-time on a single charge, or the same as a Windows RT device with Qualcomm’s chips. Again, with little difference in performance and run-time, why wouldn’t consumers choose Windows 8 over Windows RT?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro
• Mobile 2012 and beyond
• Takeaways from connected consumer’s second quarter

This year’s booth is very different

I toured the booth today and while I didn’t measure it exactly, I’d estimate that 97 percent of the floor space wasn’t used to show off phones or tablets. Instead, Verizon is highlighting its Innovations Center, which it opened up in 2011, Since then, Verizon worked to get the building blocks in place so it could help partners with connected device ideas. And that’s what CES 2013 is all about for the company.

So what kind of partners and products — Verizon prefers to call them “solutions” — are in the spotlight? Through a partnership with Delphi, I saw a small OBD or on-board diagnostic module, for cars. By plugging the small device into a vehicle, it can gather heaps of data from the car ranging from engine settings to tire pressures to details about the electrical system.

A smarter connected car – no phone required

There are wired readers for such OBD modules, but why not add cellular connectivity? Without wires, a car rental agency could place these in their entire fleet of cars, for example, to monitor the vehicles for safety and maintenance.

As each car transmits its data, then, it could be aggregated in a centralized dashboard at the rental agency’s headquarters; you can’t easily do that with wires unless you want to pull every module daily and dock it.

Let’s get more efficient with our recycling pickups

I also got a glimpse at the BigBelly Solar recycling bin; not something you’d equate with a wireless company, right? It turns out that these public recycling bins — which use solar power for energy to compress waste — benefit from a cellular connection.

Each bin has sensors to monitor the level of recycled materials that are inside. With an M2M connection, the bins each report their waste capacity levels to the central recycling collection company.

If a bin is half-full or less, for example, the company doesn’t have to waste time or fuel to empty it right away. The collection company can see all of its bins on a map with green, yellow and red indicators — each representing the fullness of each bin — and route trucks only to the bins it needs to.

Look out Project Glass!

Speaking of trucks, you should soon see a new Verizon commercial with fire-trucks in it, if you haven’t already. One of the fireman in the piece is wearing a connected headset, similar to Google’s Project Glass. Because it’s connected, he can see a map or floor plan of the building on fire, presumably to help him navigate through the smoke.

This isn’t an application you’d want to use by tethering the goggles to a phone; this benefits from a dedicated wireless connection. And while it may sound far-fetched, one of Verizon’s Innovation Center partners was demonstrating a similar product meant not for consumers (darn!) but for public safety and industrial workers.

The network is waiting for connected devices of the future

I could go on and on describing what was on display: A connected athlete helmet with sensors to track hits in a football game; running shoes that upload their own data; even a smart meter that’s super smart: It can track and report energy consumption down to the individual circuit level. Oh there were some phones and traditional consumer products on display too. But they were on one small circular table that saw far fewer foot traffic during my time there.

Does everything need a dedicated cellular connection then? Certainly not and the smartphone is sure to be our hub of connectivity for some time to come. The Innovations Center, however, is enabling partners to “connectify” their products. Verizon’s just there to provide the connection itself and to help with the wireless integration. It’s up to the visionaries outside of Verizon to imagine how products and solutions can benefit from a robust wireless network.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The big theme of MWC: How to live in a connected world
• LTE-Advanced: what it is and isn’t
• Mobile Q4: The scramble for spectrum continues