What's new for the holiday season? Plenty of gadgets and applications to make broadband users happy.

Consumer electronics and high-speed networks have become inextricably linked. Soon, all of our gadgets will be talking to each other over the home network and talking to other people’s gadgets over the Internet. Content providers are adopting the “three-screen strategy” and delivering content to the television, computer and mobile devices. But the devil, as they say, is in the details, so we went to last week’s press preview of the Consumer Electronics Show to learn the details of what the gadget manufacturers are thinking.

The Consumer Electronics Association has been surveying American consumers to find out what they're planning to buy during the 2006 holiday season, and the survey indicates that the season will be a whopper. Prices for individual items may be falling, but consumers plan to make up for that by “buying up” – shopping for top-of-the-line models instead of for the basics.

 
Bandwidth-Gobbling Holiday Gifts

Two findings of special interest to Killer App: First, the most popular holiday gift item is slated to be the digital camera. You might think that everyone who wanted a digital camera already had one, and you might be right. But many of those camera owners have first-generation digital cameras that they are eager to exchange for newer models. Since the newer models create much higher-resolution pictures than the old ones, we can expect these consumers to use even more bandwidth when they share their photos and videos with friends, family and YouTube.

Second, sales of TV sets are expected to exceed sales of PCs and mobile phones this season, and the key driver for television sales is HDTV. Even with new compression technology, HDTV gobbles up huge amounts of bandwidth. This year, cable companies and telcos will find out whether their bandwidth projections for TV transmission are on target – and how soon they’ll need to upgrade their networks. (And don’t forget that many of those HDTV owners will want to download high-definition movies and TV shows from the Internet, too.)

 So what are the manufacturers bringing out for the holiday season and the CES show? Here's a sampling of items that we think will be of interest to broadband users:

Music

The Internet’s musical offerings are far more varied than what you can find on your radio dial – or in your personal music collection. All you need is a good Internet-capable radio, and manufacturers are rising to the occasion.

Slim Device's Transporter

Slim Devices, which was just acquired by Logitech, is marketing two network music players, the Transporter for upscale audiophiles (at about $2000) and the Squeezebox for the rest of us ($250 - $300). The Transporter takes several weeks to ship, but the company will send you a free Squeezebox to listen to while you're waiting for its big brother. These devices connect to broadband modems via wireless or Ethernet interfaces and play Internet radio streams with higher fidelity than you're likely to get from your PC speakers.

Com One is introducing the Phoenix IP Radio, which also connects to the Internet via broadband modem (wireless link only) and streams Internet radio or podcasts. The Phoenix is small and weighs only about a pound, so you can carry it with you and use it in wireless hot spots. Its clock and alarm features make it suitable for a bedside radio.
 

Video

Hillcrest Labs' Loop

Here's something new to worry about: Once your cable provider is offering 500 channels plus video-on-demand, and you're using your television to watch Internet video and look at the family photos from your PC, will it take you more time to find what you want to watch than to actually watch it? Today’s channel-selection interfaces and remote-control devices won't be up to the job of sorting through this vast flood of content. But several companies are hard at work developing new solutions. One of the contenders is certain to be Hillcrest Labs, whose nifty ring-shaped remote, called the Loop, has only two buttons and a scroll wheel. The Loop uses motion-sensing technology to move an on-screen cursor and navigate a user-friendly, intuitive visual interface.

Verisign is marketing a peer-to-peer content distribution system based on a platform developed by Kontiki, a company it recently acquired. The software lets content owners distribute video securely over the Internet, and monetize it through advertising or pay-per-view, at much lower cost than traditional content delivery networks. Though consumers have embraced peer-to-peer technology for free content, it’s an open question how many people will pay for content when a service is using their computing resources and bandwidth. But Verisign says its software also has a role to play within the enterprise, offering a low-cost method to distribute corporate training, messages from executives, and similar video content to employee desktops.

Finally, we had a chance to try out WorldGate's Ojo personal videophones, which we've written about before. Even in a crowded and noisy environment, the videophone experience really is more like a face-to-face conversation than a phone call. WorldGate recently introduced a new lower-cost “Shadow” model, similar to its full-featured phone but without a cordless handset. Ojo phones are being resold by broadband providers in New Zealand and elsewhere.