With a feeling dormant since move in day at Syracuse University circa 1996, I looked around after stepping foot into the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. What a setup! Talk about overwhelming! Where to start? Where do you go? I felt like a lost freshman clinging to my class schedule and campus map. Luckily, it’s easy to get acclimated, and the CES staff is amazingly helpful. Once you’re checked in, you’re good to go! So let’s roll!

You can’t miss CES in Vegas right now- starting when you step off the plane at the airport. With thousands of gadgets and innovations clamoring for attention which ones will stand out?

This morning started with some cool new products from Netgear. They put a lot of their innovations under the umbrella “Connected Lifestyle”. They’re unveiling 15 new products here at CES, but here are 2 that really stood out…

-Internet TV player- joining the likes of Apple, Netflix and many others, Netgear adds it’s name to the growing list of companies with a device that connects your TV to the internet and promises to expand your viewing options. This had a few standout features, though:

1. search- the demo showed a very powerful search feature that culls from all over the web to bring you content. One big problem with all the video on the web is that it’s so splintered, it’s hard to find anything. And further, when you bring it to your TV, there are no channels. This helps with that problem. You can search by actor, title, etc.

2. playing live TV from around the world- to me, this is one of those features that sounds great, but how many people will care? When is the last time you were sitting on your couch thinking “gee, I wonder what’s on the tube in England?” Maybe I’m alone on this one, but there are already 200 channels in the US I don’t watch. It did intrigue me though.

3. quality- I was struck by the non-grainy, non-internet style way the picture looked. It looked like, well, TV. There were only a few things shown in the demo, but most of them looked great. At least it shows “web TV’ doesn’t have to look like YouTube. However, I will say, that not everything looked great. They showed off the ability to find Tina Fey SNL clips through the powerful search, and the video was more web-esque and the audio was the typical tinny hollow web audio. Let’s see which way the majority of content end up.

There were some other copy cat features- ability to rent movies directly from the player, etc, but overall, seems like a worthy addition to the web player world

Next up was a feature I’m shocked hasn’t been demanded from manufacturers already… a USB mobile broadband router. I’ve seen other versions claiming you can plug in a PCMCIA card and share the connection, but here Netgear promises the ability to plug in any USB broadband modem (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, you name it) and create an instant hot spot. Brilliant! Netgear touted it’s ability to create a “hot spot on the fly” at camp sites or tailgating at the big game. Me, I’m thinking it’s more suited to remote offices or temporary office spaces, but I’m more curious to see how much resistance the wireless providers will put up. As it stands now, they expressly forbid sharing your broadband card connection. I similarly remember when you weren’t “allowed” to share your home DSL or cable modem connection. That was washed away in a flood of consumer demand. Hopefully the same will happen here.

More updates throughout the day! We’re just getting started!

-- Peter Szabo