The Consumer Electronic Show is the largest trade show in North America and the largest consumer gadget show in the world. There were over 150,000 people that attended and I must have walked over five miles up and down the floors each of the four days I was there.

I thought I would give you some of the highlights of my treasure trip.

TV Screens

It was very clear that the best commercial HD TVs at the show was Panasonic 102 inch plasma screen. Even though it was not as large as the 108 inch LCD from Sharp, it was much brighter and had far deeper blacks. It was almost like looking through a window. Incredibly sharp and bright if you could afford the $70,000.

However just as plasma was an obviously superior picture relative to LCD screens, there was a new technology that was far superior to plasma and if they can get by some of the patent and technical issues there is absolutely no question that this will be the TV of the future.

OLED TVs

To me this was the most impressive item I saw even though it is not yet commercially available. OLED is short for organic LED which is a special type of light emitting diode (LED) that has is so bright it does not need a backlight and as a result has extraordinarily low power requirements.

The range of colors, brightness, and viewing angle possible with OLEDs are greater than that of LCDs because OLED pixels directly emit light. Because of this, OLED pixel colors appear correct and unshifted, even as the viewing angle approaches 90 degrees from the axis perpendicular to the display.

The radically different manufacturing process of OLEDs lends itself to many advantages over flat panel displays made with LCD technology. Since OLEDs can be printed using inkjet printer technology, they can theoretically have a significantly lower cost. The fact that OLEDs can be printed onto flexible substrates opens the door to new applications such as roll-up displays or even displays embedded in clothing.

One of the people I attended CES with was Justin Taylor who is the chief technology officer of Novell. He was Bill Gates equivalent at Novell and actually served as Eric Schmidt's primary technology assistant when he was CEO of Novell before he left to be the CEO of Google.

Justin was in Japan in a private meeting with Sony about six months ago when they rolled out a 25 foot roll and placed it on the wall. Yes, you read it right, that was foot not inches. Anyway it was the most extraordinary piece of technology he ever saw.

Why is OLED the TV of the future?

The primary reason is that it has a superior picture. It is absolutely extraordinary. Once you see OLED you become spoiled and even a Panasonic plasma set seems inferior.

Aside from the bright 100% color reproduction. They are ultra thin and can actually be rolled up. They have no ghosting whatsoever or refresh issues. They have a fantastic contrast ratio of one million to one.

They also have very low power consumption, because they don't require any backlighting they have much lower power requirements than LCDs in notebooks There is no question that they will be the screen of choice in future notebooks.

The picture above was the entire Sony OLED exhibit but they had one large prototype (in the center above) but it was only 27-inches,

The display below does NOT do the picture justice as you are most likely viewing it on an LCD monitor,, but it was BETTER than looking at a photo.

SanDisk Sansa Connect WiFi Portable Audio Player

This is now my favorite MP3 player. It is a 4GB flash memory player that is 2 x 3.5 x 0.63-inch and will go for $250 when it hits the streets in late March. One of the reasons why this is so great as it is a device that heralds the NEW way you will be listening to music.

iTunes is so last century. You simply will not be purchasing songs and owning them in the future, but rather you will be listening to them through a subscription service in which you pay $10 to $15 per month to have access to MILLIONS of songs that you can listen to at any time so long as you are subscribed to their service.

The best service out there currently is Rhapsody. Sansa already has a music player that connects with Rhapsody but it is not as good as the Connect.

I had heard of Rhapsody before the show but never fully appreciated it but without question this seems to be the way to go. You can download whatever music you want to your player and play it on the go. You won't have to be connected to the Internet except for once every few weeks to make

Rhapsody is also an integral component of the other great feature I saw at the show which was Sonos which I discuss below.

Sonos Digital Music System

This is really a very elegant way to stream music to different rooms in your home and it also integrates with the rhapsody music service mentioned above so you don't have to purchase music anymore, just rent it.

The system allows you to wirelessly control music in every room in your house that it set up with it.

It is a simple, elegant, and relatively affordable solution to streaming hard-drive-based music to multiple rooms via a series of networked base stations.

This is not a new product as they have been out for a few years but it is new to me and probably to most of you. It really was one of the best things I saw at the entire show and is something I am definitely going to get. You can read more about them at http://www.sonos.com/