CES will be remembered for many things, but in our eyes, it will be remembered for this:
2006 will be the year of mainstream alternative cooling products. At CES this year, many companies have either optimized their products for the mainstream user like CORSAIR's Nautilus 500
water cooling system which claims a 15 minute install time as per this article
, or have gone beyond Water as revealed in this article
talking about the OCZ Cryo-Z Phase Change Solution. The only way to make it mainstream is to not only make it easy, but make it internal so you aren't draping a radiator over your case. It looks like from these pictures
that COOLIT from Canada may have beaten everyone to the punch. It is neither water, nor phase change, and allows the user an easy, self contained install inside a case. They even have it strapped to an Xbox 360
.
CES 2006 also marked the true awakening of the Home Theatre PC as everyone at the show had something powered by Windows Media Center or SageTV, or some other HTPC shell OS. Hardware Vendors and Software Companies both are also embracing the HTPC. Companies like SHUTTLE
and AOpen
have been heading up the cavalry with machines that fit right into your "Digital Lifestyle" without taking up space while ANTEC
has made a renewed effort to secure a piece of the HTPC case market. ECS even showed promise
in the Media Center HTPC run with some new machines. This also means that sales of PC Capable display devices like larger LCD Panels or DLP and LCD Projection units will start to see themselves in people's homes with a PC hooked up to it.
Anyway, enough rambling! Though we couldn't write about everyone, we leave you with our galleries of everything we didn't get to pen down. Please make sure you come back soon for regularly scheduled programming plus lots of product reviews influenced by our visit to this years CES 2006. Let the pictures talk!
Farewell CES 2006! See you again @ CES 2007!
