CES Awards: A Push to Innovate

The Consumer Electronics Assn. singles out products that will lead the way to the next generation of high-tech goodies

by Matt Vella

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The annual Consumer Electronics Show—which opens to the public on Jan. 7, 2008, in Las Vegas, Nev.—is a blur of high-tech goodies, from ultra-thin cell phones to WiFi-enabled picture frames. This year some 2,700 exhibitors will show their wares to around 140,000 attendees at one of the world's most closely followed tech fairs. Popular with electronics retailers looking to find new stock, or consumers looking for gadget inspiration, the show also helps analysts figure out potential trends for the coming year.

But the ever-growing gear glut has made it more difficult to sort the merely wondrous from the genuinely ingenious. The CES Innovation Awards, now in their 11th year, aim to help you cut to the chase. The prizes, announced last night, also help the 32 winners increase holiday season publicity by allowing manufacturers to plaster the now well-recognized CES logo on product packaging, Web sites, and promotional materials in order to drive sales.

The awards could also help prime the pump for the $48.1 billion the Consumer Electronics Assn. expects will be spent on tech gadgets in the fourth quarter. To enter, manufacturers must exhibit at CES and their products must be available for sale within the next year. Winners in each category are decided by a group of three independent judges, which has included industrial designers, engineers, analysts, and members of the trade press.

Awards Stimulate Innovation

The awards have also become an important way for the CEA to evangelize innovation in consumer products. "The value in giving out the awards is to raise the industry's awareness about the value of good design," says Brian Vogel, a business coach and consultant based in North Andover, Mass., and one of this year's judges. "This is the stuff that builds reputations."

The awards have a knack for trumpeting key tech trends for the coming year. In 2004, Motorola's (MOT) RAZR cell phone won for its sleek design, helping launch a trend toward thinner, lighter phones. "These awards stimulate the consumer electronics industry to innovate in product features, user conveniences, and better packaging," notes Kenneth Wacks, another judge and an independent engineer based in Stoneham, Mass.

This Year, Green Fades to Brown

This year, the judges lauded pared-down designs which focused on blending functionality with panache. The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod dock, for instance, is an audacious form which still promises high quality sound projection. The Drop cellphone handset, by fuseproject, is an exercise in radical chic, with a form based on the shape of a water drop.

Of more concern to eco-watchers was this year's apparent lack of focus on issues of sustainability. Last year's awards were clearly green-themed, with winners including Herman Miller's (MLHR) eco-aware, LED-clad Leaf lamp and Intel's (INTC) energy-efficient Core 2 Duo processor. Despite the judges' insistence that green criteria make up an important part of the judging process, the lack of a statement could signal the environmental train is running out of steam.

Meanwhile, style still reaps rewards. Dell (DELL), Sanyo (SANY), Kensington, and Sling Media all took home awards for sleekly designed products from slim laptops to smart set-top boxes. And awards are also bestowed on enabling-technologies, the less sexy innovations that make certain technological feats of wonder possible. This year, SanDisk (SNDK) received an award for the Vaulter Disk, a type of flash-based memory that speeds up the transfer of data in a computer's hard drive, thus improving performance.

Click here for a closer look at some of the most innovative winners.

Matt Vella is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.