{"id":764,"date":"2008-01-14T18:15:21","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T23:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soundadviceblog.com\/?p=764"},"modified":"2008-01-14T19:54:30","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T00:54:30","slug":"ces-2008-legend-silicon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soundadviceblog.com\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"CES 2008: Legend Silicon"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first meeting \u00a0of day 2 \u00a0was with Legend Silicon<\/a> at a hotel suite. \u00a0 You probably haven’t heard of Legend Silicon before, but they are incredibly important to the most populated country in the world- China. \u00a0 Legend Silicon helped develop the digital television technology used in China and developed innovative circuitry regarding mobile televion reception and miniaturization. They filled me in on some remarkable facts. Did you know that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing will be broadcast only in digital form in the host nation? \u00a0 That’s right… China has actually beaten the USA to the punch here! \u00a0 In the United States many viewers will still be watching the Olympics on their analog TVs. \u00a0 In China if you don’t have digital TV, you won’t be watching the Olympics.<\/p>\n

With this drive to digital television came some innovate products and technology to make it accessible to everyone. \u00a0 That leads to the coolest thing I saw all day… the credit-card digital TV antenna\/converter.<\/p>\n

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See that credit-card looking thing in the picture, with the USB connector pulled out? \u00a0 Plug it into your laptop and you have a digital television that can tune and watch digital broadcast channels and display \u00a0them on your laptop screen! \u00a0 How cool is that?!! \u00a0 The Chinese government plans on handing these out to reporters covering the games when they land at the airport. \u00a0 The technology is being adapted for use in the United States and involves some changes to broadcast towers, but plans \u00a0in \u00a0progress \u00a0and you should see this product on the market sometime in 2009.<\/p>\n

How much? \u00a0 I was told to expect a retail price point of about $70. \u00a0 I’ll take two! \u00a0 Hope they come in both PC and Mac versions.<\/p>\n

\"laptop.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The technology will also find its way into laptops, as shown in this prototype HP laptop. \u00a0 Soon any laptop you buy may \u00a0be able to \u00a0display digital television signals right out of the box.<\/p>\n

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This is a portable navigation system with integrated digital TV via Legend Silicon technology.<\/p>\n

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Though the Legend \u00a0Silicon name \u00a0may not be known to most consumers, their partners read like a who’s who of the electronics industry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"smartphone.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Here’s a smartphone with built-in digital TV.<\/p>\n

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Digital photo frame\/digital TV with a Chinese cartoon. \u00a0 Because all the Legend Silicon technology is based on the Chinese digital TV standard, they had a small transmitter in the hotel suite which provided the programming displayed on all the devices on display.<\/p>\n

Given the sheer quantity of LCD screens we see in day-to-day life, with Legend Silicon’s help a lot of them will double as TVs. \u00a0 Pretty cool!<\/p>\n