Wednesday, January 9, 2008

The Consumer Electronics Show: The "Eyes" May Not Have It

I’ve been given a project by my boss to track what’s happening at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. The trick is I need to track it from my office in New Jersey. Thanks to publications like Wired, CNET, USA Today, Business Week, and the plethora of bloggers at the show, the tough part isn’t getting the information – it’s sifting through all of it. I’m not complaining in the least; I am a master sifter. And this project feels much more like play than work- my gratitude for this terrific job has now reached an all-time high!

I came across a post on Amazon Current’s blog regarding Sony’s OLED TV, one of the hottest products at the show. http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK30ULMBBBDWULY Among their many features, these TVs feature “super deep black” levels. Pictures pop with a vibrancy never before seen in a TV. This started my nerd wheels going – can our own eyes even experience “super deep black” on their own?

After a few hours of looking far and wide on numerous medical sites, I couldn’t find any evidence of whether or not this color contrast is something we can naturally experience without the aid of technology. (I did discover that the human eyeball weighs approximately 28 grams, can discern between 500 shades of grey, and that sailors once thought that wearing a gold earring would improve their eyesight!) It’s possible that the answer to my question is out there living on some website I have yet to discover. It’s also possible that these advanced technologies are helping us experience the world “out there” from the comfort of our own couches in a way that we could not see it on our own.

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