How We See CE

Consumer electronics and the technologies that enable their evolution are interesting things. For example, how many people 20 years ago would have thought I would be typing this post at 36,000 feet somewhere above the 50^th parallel? Did anyone care that they could not do something like this back then? Admittedly 20 years ago, I could have cared less about being able to use a PC on an airplane and having the world as a virtual office. What I did care about was why I couldn’t play my favorite two-player Nintendo games with friends a few miles away as easily as when they were a few feet away. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the problem was that we were not "connected". Before getting too far down that path, though, allow me to digress into a brief introduction about myself.

A few years after enhancing my hand-eye coordination on my old 8-bit buddy, I completed a BS degree in Engineering Physics and a MS in Telecommunications Systems Management, both from Murray State University. Yes, I still occasionally wonder exactly what those degrees mean. Regardless I jumped ship on true engineering as quickly as possible and immediately took up business and marketing roles at Texas Instruments. I've spent the last eight years looking at a diversity of applications: from IP-enabled security cameras to portable audio players, PMPs, picture frames, and various other consumer electronics widgets. While CE is a fun market to be in from a technology supplier (and career) standpoint, from a consumer standpoint I get the pleasure (and more so the pain) of seeing things that are around the evolutionary corner (and painfully having to wait for them). With Captain Dipert’s autobiography request now fulfilled, I will return to the original course….

Unfortunately, the carrier I am on does not have provisions for me to actually submit this article from high above the Pacific. However, I will surely be able to quickly send it upon arriving in Tokyo, before transiting to China. Colleagues of mine, on more connected airlines, have even made VoIP calls from their PCs on similar routes. Here's another example; the night before leaving, I did not dare get online to play "Gears of War", since not so long before I'd gotten pummeled in "Halo 2" by a combatant who was likely thousands of miles away and half my age. With scenarios as these becoming ever more prevalent, not to mention cell phones in several billion pockets, one might ask what more could we connect?

An area that has me excited at the moment is portable devices. Sure, there are a few digital cameras, PMPs, and other portable connected devices out there besides cell phones. However, most consumers haven’t even thought about what connected portable devices can do and have no reason to care....yet. While I have my own thoughts regarding why I, as a consumer, want a connected portable device, I will leave it you to ponder and post reasons to make consumers care, until we talk again.

Kevin Hawkins
Texas Instruments