CES 2010: Is it time to end consumption electronics?

This year's Consumer Electronics Show didn't produce any startling hits or misses - but the contradictory messages about environmental efforts hit a sour note
For the thousands of people who thronged the halls of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas over the past week, innovation was harder to come by than they might have expected.
While plenty of new products were launched, ideas paraded and deals forged at this year's event, proceedings were ultimately overshadowed by two companies who didn't even launch anything there.
Apple, which had competitors scrabbling to compete with rumours – just rumours - of a tablet computer, routinely sidesteps the exhibition. Google meanwhile, had decided to launch the Nexus One phone not in Las Vegas but at its own headquarters on the eve of the event.
As a result, the show – which has been the birthplace of technologies like the DVD, CD player and the video recorder in the past – was relatively light on innovation. Instead of going out on a limb with new concepts, many manufacturers decided to crowd behind a just a handful of ideas, particularly electronic books and 3DTV.
But of all the things that personally disappointed me, the biggest was the lip service paid to environmentalism. Hundreds of the exhibitors were trumpeting their green credentials – from hydrogen fuel cells to laptops made from recycled CDs - and even the expo itself boasted about its recycling programme and "sustainable planet" exhibition.
While the industry has made strides in recent years, and many companies have started cleaning up their act, it seems ultimately doomed to failure unless something more fundamental changes.
That's because even if the claims and assertions made by the industry were accurate – and for the most part, they are merely marketing chaff – they don't address the wider the deeply-embedded conflict between the technology industry and protecting the environment.
As its name suggests, the consumer electronics business – worth $165bn a year in - is one built on consumption: consumption of materials, of power and (most importantly) of products. As long as we are encouraged to keep buying, we are unlikely to make inroads on the vast environmental footprint that our gadgets and gizmos leave behind.
Despite that, though, there are plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the role that technology can play in improving our environment. For starters, virtual trade can cut carbon footprints and increase energy efficiency: moving bits over wires is a lot less than environmental damage than physically transporting goods.
But for every positive possibility, there are social, cultural, economic and environmental drawbacks.
Despite the promise of internet connectivity, we don't yet live in a world of widespread telecommuting. Indeed, rather than negate the need for travel (a common promise of futurists) the high-speed, always-on world has simply meant that we now work in all the spaces that exist between the office and the home. Every public space is now a mobile office; every worker with a laptop or a BlackBerry is constantly on call.
And for every energy-saving technology, there are a hundred more that entreats us to spend more, buy more and use more power for no good reason other than to keep the industry tumbling forward.
Just take this year's big topic, 3DTV. Nearly every major manufacturer was chanting in unison about the incredible possibilities of 3D television sets, even though it is a technology that still feels a very long way from being a fixture in our living rooms.
And while on one hand companies like Sony shout about their green designs, on the other they encourage us to buy huge new TV sets to watch our 3D programming. And, to make matters worse, this comes from the selfsame groups who - just a couple of years ago - encouraged us all to buy high definition sets. It's another technology we can't live without and that will change we live. The only thing that doesn't change is the need to buy, buy, buy.
This isn't me entreating you to stop buying new gadgets. I don't expect hairshirts or the collapse of the consumer electronics business. But after days of being bombarded by gadgets, I prefer realism and honesty to glitzy advertising and PR guff.
The first step to squaring the circle of the consumer electronics industry? Perhaps pausing the endless cycle of 'must-have' products. Perhaps an end to the shameless copycatting. Or perhaps even just a better understanding of how CES's attempts to go green conflicts with its Las Vegas surroundings.
After all, any message about saving the planet can't help but feel like window dressing when it's delivered by billionaires in a city that revels in orgiastic levels of consumption.