One major impression CES has made on me is the number of demos that connect mobile devices with fixed screens. In most cases, this involved connecting a tablet to a digital television (DTV). However, other variations included notebook to DTV, smart phone to DTV, and notebook to monitor. The most popular technology I saw to connect these devices was Wi-Fi Direct, but also included standard Wi-Fi, WHDI, WirelessHD, WiGig,  MHL, SlimPort/MYDP, and probably a few other acronyms, abbreviations, and trade names I’ve already forgotten. Types of content transmitted over these technologies included user-generated video, movies, still images, web content, productivity software files, and games.

Maybe the tired legs and lack of sleep are getting to me, but one thought kept crossing my mind as I saw these demos: If tablets are really the future of mobile computing, why do these companies think consumers will be so anxious to transfer images from them to bigger screens? Do they believe tablet screens are too small to satisfy consumers for web browsing, video viewing, and other typical tablet uses? If this is the case, perhaps consumers would prefer a larger tablet screen to begin with, rather than a technology to get their tablet content moved somewhere else.

This is a subject that we will be exploring in more detail at USFPD Smart Displays: From Emerging to Mainstream in San Diego next month.