The annual Consumer Electronics Show is under way in Las Vegas.   As usual, new products are shown that one just must have.  The only problem - it takes a while before they are available or affordable, or the product one now owns that it replaces will break.

Sites such as Wired Gadget Lab, Engadget and CNet are covering the CES. 

Some of the things that caught my eye so far are thin (8mm) wireless TV’s,  the Asus tablet netbook,  LG’s watch phone, thin flexible OLED display technology, and this Swiss Army knife with 32MB USB drive with fingerprint authentication, laser pointer, and Bluetooth remote control for powerpoint presentations.

The Calgary Herald reports that a woman was recently fired from her job by a message sent to her via Facebook.  She had only been at the job for 2 weeks.  So is “cyber sacking” the way of the future, or just a cruel/lazy way to terminate someone?

Slashdot points to a Times article saying that “The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant. ”

This of course doesn’t sit well with privacy advocates.  It reminds me of the statement in the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s annual report on the Privacy Act that:  “The Orwellian dystopia was predicated on a totalitarian society. In our democracy, benevolent intentions appear to be pushing us toward a surveillance society.”

For the London Free Press – January 5, 2009

Read this on Canoe

It’s time to hazard some predictions for 2009 tech developments.

REPLACING VISTA

Microsoft probably will bring out its Windows 7 operating system early, given the cool reception Vista has received. It might even be available before the end of the year.

It will be interesting to see what tactic Microsoft takes regarding the upgrade of Vista to Windows 7.

It would not be surprising to see Microsoft allow Vista users to upgrade to Windows 7 for a relatively small fee, given the negative cloud that hangs over Vista.

This is an instance where perception is more important than reality, so it would be a good move for Microsoft to offer upgrades for a nominal fee.

NEW COPYRIGHT LAW

The copyright reform bill that died at the last election will at some point be reintroduced. The previous versions — one by the Liberal government, the most recent by the Conservative government — drew loud protests from consumers and producers of creative material.

The latest copyright reform bill resulted in such a hue and cry, that we hope the drafters of the next bill will consider the reasons behind the negative reaction.

What is needed is an attempt to listen to all stakeholders and draft a bill that faces the 21st century in a more realistic and practical manner.

To some extent, the new bill may be influenced by the American election.

One reason the Canadian bill was drafted in favour of certain entertainment lobby interests was pressure from Washington, which in turn was pressured by those lobby groups. The U.S. has tried to pressure many countries into adopting copyright policies consistent with that vision.

It will be interesting to see if the change in U.S. government makes a difference, both to its own copyright position and to the pressure it places on other countries regarding copyright.

Some commentators don’t believe it will make a difference because much of the U.S. legislation was passed in the Clinton era.

It would not, however, be surprising to see a softened position on copyright in countries outside the U.S., especially if the new administration takes a more gentle approach to foreign policy.

THE .TEL DOMAIN

The new .tel top level domain will be an interesting development to follow in 2009. When it becomes operational this year, it has the potential to become a ubiquitous online directory.

This top level domain is different than .com or others that currently exist. Rather than being used for web pages that the user must create and host, it is meant to be used as a contact directory.

But I’m skeptical that the .tel domain name and directory system will gain the critical mass required to become universally accepted and useful.

PRIVACY ISSUES

On the privacy side, there seems to be some momentum in Canada toward making it mandatory to make public any unintended breaches of personal information.

I don’t think it is likely, however, that this change will see the light of day in 2009, given other priorities resulting from the economic situation.