Communicators on cspan, and we are in las vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics show international, now known as ces international. And this is one of the exhibits here at samsung, its next to kobe. There are literally thousands of exhibitors and thousands of people here at the Convention Center here in las vegas. One of the things we decided to do this year in our coverage is talk with a reporter, actually follow a reporter around as he toured and see the ces through his eyes. Troy wolverton is with the San Jose Mercury news. Mr. Wolverton, how often have you been coming to ces, and whats its importance . Guest ive probably been coming for seven of the last eight years, Something Like that. And its importance is that it is, basically, kind of the showcase for, or the centerpiece for the Technology Industry. Its where many of the Major Companies come to show a off their latest and greatest products, and you get a sense of whats going to be on store shelves later in the year. You know, its a place where, um, consumers can kind of get a glimpse of where things are going, but the real import is that this is where the manufacturers try to sell to the retailers what they should have on their store shelves later. Host and whats the importance of the San Jose Mercury news to the Technology Industry . Whats the connection . Guest well, the mercury news is in the heart of Silicon Valley, and our focus and our business section has long been on technology, in fact, its basically what we cover, is technology. So im the personal Technology Columnist for the merc, and thats my bent. I try to keep an eye on all things consumer technology. Host do can you find that washington do you find that washington and Silicon Valley are on two different planets . [laughter] guest i think thats probably fair to say. You know, i think that the ties are probably getting closer. Theres a lot more interaction these days than there was before, but, you know, i think in many ways and for a long time folks in Silicon Valley didnt really care or want to know what was going on in washington, and, you know, likewise, i think the folks in washington have sometimes been tone deaf to whats going on with the Technology Industry. Host when you talk to Tech Companies in Silicon Valley, what do they say about washington . Guest oh, gosh. I host that you can report. [laughter] guest i think it kind of depends on which companies youre talking about. You know, i think in some cases Technology Executives want washington to stay the hell out, to keep it hands off. In some cases Technology Companies want certain steps from government, so, you know, theyd like to have more spectrum available for the mobile phone industry. In some cases they want, you know, again, for washington to not regulate. So, you know, there was a big uproar over the sopa legislation. Theres been uproar over, you know, various kind of things regarding whatever privacy or whatever. I mean, its kind of a divided message coming out of Silicon Valley, because the company depends on the issue. In some cases they want government to do more action, and in some cases they want government to do less. Host well, Troy Wolverton, give us a preview of the tour youre taking us on today. Guest so i was hoping to go to a number of the Big Electronics companies. Were going to stop by sony, lg, panasonic, maybe intel as well and get a flavor of some of these things the companies are showing off here at the show. Host well, lets go. Guest so e yeah. Its very striking to see how these companies and its not just sony. Lg, samsung, everybody else has really been flogging 3d for the few years, and basically nobodys mentioning it year. First, what we have here is we have Design Display camera and connectivity. So we can definitely start [inaudible] it has an omni balance, so its perfect no matter how you turn the device, it just feels comfortable in your hands. And you can view the content no matter how the device is tilted. It has a [inaudible] and that displays what we call engine 2, and that technology we acquired from sony. The technology that powers our televisions is the same technology thats implemented in our mobile devices now. Phenomenal. It has two gigs of ram, so its definitely a powerful device. Guest lt . Of course. Guest is it available in the market yet . Its not yet, availability will be announced in the time to come. Guest are there other highlights to the phone . Absolutely. One which is probably my favorite is one sort of technology, were able to transfer content to another enabled device. And that technology [inaudible] for example, lets say i go to open, i hit play, and i want to get that music now on my headset, so instead of connecting it to the wire table, i tap here. Its automatically tiered, so i never have to go to the blue tooth setting, find it and pair it. Guest any nscenabled device or just sony products . Just sony products. [inaudible] stream over. Guest right. Tap it again, theyll disconnect, and itll come back to my phone. Guest right. Similar technology to past technology, but it sounds like its not going to work with the samsung technology. No, it wouldnt work with the samsung. With onetouch technology, we actually took it a step further. For example, youre at home with a family, you have content that you would like to display on your big screen tv, is so you pick up your enabled tv remote, take your device, tap the remote, and it automatically transfers that content to your tv. What we have here is one of two new sites weve introduced for 2013. Last year we launched the 84inch over there, and this year were introducing smaller sizes to make it more sort of accessible and also make it easy for folks to put them in different rooms for different applications and things like that. Guest right. We have been involved in 4k for quite a while. We have a saying called from the lens to the living room. And thats because a majority of the cameras are, in fact, sony cameras. As a matter of fact, three out of four movie theaters currently use 4k projectors from sony. Guest right. So, essentially, people have been paying 15 to watch content on 4k at their local movie theater. Guest right. So were uniquely positioned to offer the technology to the end user at home, and what weve shown over here is an example of content thats captured. And this could, essentially, being you using your own 4k camera capturing this stuff. Guest and what size is the screen here . This is 43 inches. 64 inches. Guest and when are those available . We are shooting for mid to late spring. Guest med to calculate spring. And [inaudible] hasnt been announced yet. Guest any range . They will be competitive, but no price has been announced yet. Guest okay. So the idea is youre going to get these down, started off at, what, 25,000 . 25,000, yes. The benefit of a 4k television is everything looks great. That said, because we own a movie studio as well, we are leveraging that relationship, were leveraging the content that we have access to to deliver 4k content. Min who gets the 84inch television gets a video player. It comes preloaded with ten full4k movies, including the amazing spiderman, as well as independent movies and shorts, what we call eye candy, like stuff like in this. Guest right. The its available to to the users at no charge to them. At some point during the second half of the year we will officially unveil a content Delivery System that willen able folks to have access to 4k content. Guest and is that going to be delivered direct to the tv like netflix or something . Or is it a Download Service . So currently folks who get the 84 inch get the player. As for when 4k becomes available, sony sends them a bluray data disc. As to the mode of transport or the mode of distribution, nothing has been announced just yet. Um, you know, it is possible that it could be streaming, or it could still be physical media, but nothings been announced yet. Guest bluray dvds as well . What we have are bluray discs that were mastered in 4k. Theyre still guest oh, okay. Theyre shot and mastered in 4k. Guest downgraded. Okay. Guest i guess i must have misunderstood. In the summer we will offer a 4k distribution service. Guest okay. What you can get today in a retail story store is, essentially, a 2k bluray movie that may have been shot and or mastered in 4k. Host so in this tour of sony, what have you learned . Guest well, theyre obviously pushing 4k. Host what is 4k . Guest thats a High Resolution television. Host is that 4 thousands pixels . Guest right now its twieped as 1080p. That means youve got about 1,080 lines of resolution by about 2,000 what we call columns of resolution. On a 4k tv you you have double. So you have double the lines of resolution and double the columns of resolution, so you get about 4,000 columns of resolution on a 4k tv. Its, actually, the resolution because both sides are doubled, so the length and the columns, you actually have four times the resolution of a regular television. So its useful on a big screen tv. Most experts would they its useful on, like, a 60inch and above tv, that below 60 inches you cant tell the difference. But on a large screen tv and particularly if youre sitting up close, you can definitely tell a difference. I dont know if you saw, but there was a display on the other side of this wall here where they were demonstrating newspaper text on a screen, and they were showing what it looks like on a 4k and a 1080 tv, and you could definitely tell the difference. Its much sharper and clearer on a 4k tv than it is on a 1080p tv. The problem right now is the 4k tvs are extraordinarily expensive. Sony came out with its first 4k tv this past year, and like daryl was saying, they started off at, like, 25,000. So theyre hoping to get those prices down, and they probably will come down, but youre still probably talking about several times the cost of a regular 1080p television at the same size for a 4k v. The other problem is as we were talking about in our conversation, theres just no content out there. So sony is distributing with its 4k tvs a hard drive that has ten movies on it. Well, i dont know about you, but i watch a lot more than ten movies in my regular viewing habits, so youre not going to get any of your latest Television Shows in 4k, the vast majority of the latest movies in 4k, you know, your streaming Video Services arent coming in in 4k, theres just nothing out there in 4k right now. So sonys trying to help spur that along, and as terrell talked about, you know, sony has a lot of the movies that are shot these days are actually shot in 4k, theyre just distributed to consumers in 2k and 1080p resolution. So theyre hoping to start moving the ball so you get more of those out in 4k, but its going to be a big process. And, you know, frankly, i have my doubts that theyre going to put much out in 4k unless theres a sizable market of consumers that are going to watch the content. I mean, why would they take those through the process . There is going to be a considerable, pence if nobodys expense if nobodys out there to buy it. Thats kind of what they learned with 3d. It turned out that consumers werent terribly interested in 3d, and so its kind of this chicken and egg thing. Consumers arent interested, theyre not putting out more 3d content, and 4ks going to be even worse because its in the sense that its only applicable to bigsized televisions, and the market while growing and significant, its like 20 now, its still a fraction of the total market. Host Troy Wolverton, how do you view sony in the tech stratosphere . Guest you know, sony, i think, for a long time was considered to be the pinnacle of technology. I mean, they were the die monday Company Diamond company. But theyve really been knocked off in recent years. You know, sony was the dominant game company five years ago. Today theyre in third place. If you look at music players, sony was the testimony plant player with their dominant player with their walkman, and then they got knocked off by the ipod. Theyre not a huge player in smartphones. They and, you know, its funny, i was at the samsung conference yesterday, and really in many ways samsung has become the sony of today. Samsung dominates a lot of the markets that its in, including smartphones. And thats something that you might have been able to say about sony 5, 10, 15 years ago. Thats not something you can say about sony today. Host this is the communicators on cspan, and we are following Troy Wolverton of the San Jose Mercury news on his tour at ces international in las vegas. This is a brand new system from he novo, available out in the spring. Its called yoga. One of the interesting things about it is not only does it look like a full pc, but its an ultra book, so its super thin and light. I can use it like a tablet, and then if i really want to use it like a tablet, i can take and convert it into a full tablet mood. Guest when you do that, the keyboard turns off, right . It does, so i can rest it on my lap, and i dont have to worry about input happening, and ive got full access to my applications. Guest so its a full pc. When i want to bring it back, i convert it back up, my keyboard will turn back on guest the keyboard turns on whenever its more than narrower than 180 degrees, correct . Correct. Whats great, too, is you can put it in tent mode where i can have it like this, and you can see the screen automatically reconfigures. So if im watching a movie, you put them on your lap, and you on the constantly have to be looking down. This you can just pop up. Even be you want to show off photos, you have a full tablet interface just propped up for you. Guest right. So that is calls the lenovo yoga. Itll be available in the springtime. Guest right. Thats going to be sort of like an 800, 700 its going to start at 799. A different one, if i want more of a tablet usage, this one is actually designed for business, but itll be available for all. I can have it as a full pc so it has a full key poard, intel processer, but then if i want to take it as a tablet, i can remove the tablet part, and its extremely light, thin. Full pc performance. Everythings built right into this part of it, so i have all the great benefits. Windows 8, full desktop mode, etc. , but also as a tablet. And then if i want to, i can just put it back together. One of the also interesting things is i can put it in the opposite way so i can have it as a tablet facing out. Is. Guest and when you do that, you also get the [inaudible] into the base. Exactly. Exactly. So then i can just carry it around like this, plus my keyboard is protected. Guest splits the battery usage between the screen and the bay so youre going, what, six hours at the top but together it gets ten. Youre exactly right. So i get the battery life built in for both of those. I get that extra battery built into the base as well as the tablet as well. Guest right. Okay. And this one, though, is going to be 1299 or 1199 . The pricing i dont think has been officially set, but probably will be in that range. Guest available First Quarter . First half . This should be available at the end of next month. Caller okay. So very soon. Guest so here in the booth, how many convertible designs are you guys showing off . We have about 40. There is over 140 different ultra books available on the market today. Guest right. But not all those are convertible. Correct. Guest right. But 140 of them, 40 of them will have touch capabilities, and then the convertible part of them were showing at least, i think, about a dozen of those. So whether or not its a dispatchable design, some that twist and flip or some that fold over, so many, many different types. Guest right. About 40 that have touch capabilities, only about a dozen that are actual convertible . Used on dispray . Correct. What i think is very interesting happening in the marketplace today which is very different than previous times is you really have to take a look at these and decide which is the best for your lifestyle. You really have a lot of choice now. You may think only caseally would i be typing things, well, for that this is probably a really great type of model for you. The other ones that we showed you where, hey, maybe i do want a regular pc and only in sometimes do i want to take it into a tablet type mode, this may be the right type of design. Or you have this betweener so i can take it as a tablet but also have it set up as a full pc. So lots of choices. You really just have to take a look at what is the right one for your lifestyle. What actually works pest for you . Guest some of the things were seeing on the notebook side were also seeing on the desktop side too. Exactly. Interesting things on the desktop side. Theyre making desktop all in one systems which you may have been familiar with. These are full pc capabilities built into a really giant type of screen so all you see is the screen and the keyboard and mouse. Not only do they have touch capabilities, but they also have capability to be used without being tethered no to an electrical outlet. They have a builtin battery. It only lasts a couple of hours, but its designed where you can take it down and use it as a typical all in one pc for productivity, but then when i want to have fun with it, i can take it around the house. So if i want to watch a movie and et it up in a different room or a i new take on family game night. They have games like monopoly, air hockey, etc. That i can then play with my whole family. Put it on my kitchen table, dont have to worry about losing the dice or losing all the Different Things. Everythings built right into the pc. Guest so this is a monopoly by [inaudible] for hasbro, correct. And what were looking at here is a system called lenovo horizon. Its a 27inch display, and it is a full windows 8pc. You can use it with a keyboard and mouse or with a touch interface. So, again, your standard windows 8 interface that you can use. Now, it also has a builtin battery, so i can take it a