The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) organised by the The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)  kicks off the technology events circuit each year, early in January promoting growth in the $170 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. This year CES will be held from January 6 – 9, in its usual location, Las Vegas.

As is usually the case, the Pre-show Keynote will be delivered by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft ( 6:30pm PST; 02:30 GMT Thursday) and according to the last paragraph of a story in the New York Times, Windows 8 may make its first public appearance. In previous years, Microsoft has used the CES keynote stage to launch major products including Xbox, Windows Vista and its Sync technology partnership with Ford. See the Full Keynote Schedule for CES 2011.

CES usual showcases the trend for consumer hardware and electronics products and services each year with some manufacturers making announcements about new products and services and others pricing and availability dates for those already announced. According to most of the pre-show coverage the biggest trends of CES is likely to be Tablets, 3D, Apps, Internet enabled devices, 4G and new laptops and desktops using Intel’s new Sandy Bridge architectures.

Shawn Dubravac, Chief Economist and Director of Research, CEA has two blog posts about some of these major trends and here’s a quick roundup (paraphrased and quoted from his posts) about these trends, tablets, 3D, Apps, Internet enabled devices).

Tablets

2010 saw announcements of planned devices but most of these did not get released in 2010 and it is expected that a good number of the 80+ announced tablet devices will debut at CES 2011. This is even more so because of the success of Apple’s iPad, which means tablet computing device have (finally) achieved mass market appeal. With competition heating up, each and every aspect of differentiation will be on the table – OS, screen size, color, and available applications.

3D

The 2010 CES was certainly defined by 3D. This included 3D content, hardware and services, including 3DTVs, Blu-ray players, and AV receivers. CES 2010 also showcased DirecTV’s first public broadcast of 3D, ESPN’s announcement of ESPN 3D, a spec for 3D Blu-ray was released in conjunction with CES – making possible home 3D viewing and Sony showed 3D gaming on the PS3. CES 2011 will have this trend continue with more manufacturers rolling out 3D enabled devices.

Internet Enabled Everything
Last year the big showing for TVs was 3D. But least you forget, these TVs were also Internet-enabled through integrated WiFi or an Ethernet jack in the back. Beyond TVs and connected set-top devices, the Internet will be ubiquitous at CES this year.  Expect to see it garner further inroads into the vehicle, the camera, the printer, and every screen imaginable.
App-lification
To be sure, apps will be omnipresent at CES in televisions, tablets and mobile phones.  Apps are a conduit for the Web and consistent with the growth of Internet connectivity, I expect to see apps gain significant inroads in cameras, printers, in the vehicle and digital displays like photo frames.  I also expect to see apps gain significant inroads at CES
into things like mobile and digital health, and sports and fitness.

CES is never complete without the Awards which include award contests organsied by CNET and Mashable and also the Honoree Awards by a team of expert judges chosen by CEA.

We will be combing through all the press releases, blog posts and media coverage to bring you things which will excite any gadget lover. We hope there will be also be enough stories about devices that are relevant to Ghana and/or to make debuts in Ghana within 2011 or early 2012.

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