Apps and Touchscreens Dominate CES 2010

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I was lucky enough to attend CES this year and spend a good amount of time on the showroom floor. Now that I am home and have had a chance to organize my thoughts, here are some of the noteworthy trends that caught my attention.

Apps:
CES confirmed that apps are no longer just for phones. For example, Ford revealed new in-car technology complete with a color touchscreen in the dashboard that links to apps such as Twitter, Internet radio, free maps and turn-by-turn directions.

Vudu Streaming Movie Service unveiled a service that will deliver apps and services to home theaters, HDTV's and Blue-ray players. Consumers will be able to access a range of Internet based applications and services...including streaming radio, photos and social networks. The conference room TV just got a lot more interesting.

Touchscreens:
Touchscreens undoubtedly provide a sleeker, modern look and feel and can enhance productivity along with the user experience. This was a feature I saw all over CES.

Many vendors rolled out tablet PC's, devices that do the majority of tasks a laptop does, but with touch controls. Lenovo separated itself from the pack by introducing a normal looking laptop complete with a physical keyboard, but with a detachable screen. These tablets - or slates - can make road warrior life simpler...and fun.

Light Blue Optics introduced the Light Touch interactive projector, which turns any flat surface into a touchscreen. This could definitely add a whole new component to interactive presentations.

Green:
Being green has gone from being an afterthought to now being the standard. Judging by the CES floor, developers have definitely taken that mindset into account and are working to incorporate practical and easy-to-use green functions and features into products.

Control4, which makes home automation software, introduced its Energy Management System that combines a thermostat and touchscreen energy controller. This system allows people to effectively track energy usage and correctly identify how much energy certain items use.

Sony also introduced an Eco Edition notebook, an uber-green mini laptop outfitted in a green tinted plastic enclosure made from 23% recycled CD's. The green doesn't stop there - the carrying case is even made out of recycled plastic bottles.

Save Time With Stamps.com

I'm excited to announce the launch of our new Stamps.com SmartSolution. This solution is designed to help customers save time when shipping via the US Postal Service. Take a look at this short video and visit www.Stamps.com/Lexmark for more information and a special offer from Stamps.com.

Great Story From ZDNet

I was lucky enough to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week and ran into Jason Hiner from ZDNet at one of the press events (where Lexmark was being honored for our new Platinum Pro905).  Here is an interesting write-up from him about the $0.01 per page black ink available in both our Platinum Pro905 and Prestige Pro805 inkjet printers.  Read the entire blog and you'll be rewarded with an up-close interview with me about the Platinum product.

- Greg

How I'm De-Cluttering This New Year

My desk can be an absolute mess.  A years worth of papers (or more) are strewn around...I'm afraid to know what important documents might be buried in there.  And all the folders I so purposefully bought this time last year to help get organized are hardly doing the trick.

So, here's how I'm thinking I'll tackle my obligatory 'get-organized' New Year's resolution for 2010.

Being Focused
'Get Organized' is a big, daunting, nebulous goal, which means I'm never really able to achieve it.  This year, I'm going to aim a little lower - my main issue is clutter, so that'll be my focus.  If I'm able to reduce clutter in my office to a tolerable level and more or less maintain that throughout the year, that would be a big score.

Having No Mercy
This week I'm making a list of all the things I absolutely must have in my office (computer, all-in-one printer, stress ball, and so forth).  Then, I'm going to take inventory of all the items I actually have in my office.  Everything on the list stays - everything else goes (probably stuffed in a closet somewhere...but I'll worry about that later).  This will also give me a way to see how I'm doing throughout the year.

Going Paperless
Not totally paperless - I'm just going to make an effort to use less paper.  So, I'm going to scan and store more documents, such as invoices, files and letters on my computer and make sure to print two-sided whenever possible.

Avoiding Temptations
I can be a sucker for organizational paraphernalia.  But I'm coming to the realization that many of these things actually have the opposite results from their intended purpose.  So even though that cool office supplies carousel has space for my pens and pencils, charges my iPod and still has room for bills and mail, I must resist.  After all, it's not on my list.

Confronting Clutter
To actually keep my resolution, I'm going to try to adopt the practice of making it a part of my end-of-day ritual to always clean up so I stay on top of that clutter.

This all seems do-able.  Think it will work?

- Greg