2011-1-9
This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
Tablet computers were the stars of this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The international gathering in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the world's biggest technology trade show.
Companies launched more than eighty handheld computers similar to the popular Apple iPad. Tara Dunion from the Consumer Electronics Association is a spokeswoman for the show which ended Sunday.
TARA DUNION: "Tablets are huge at the twenty eleven CES. Twenty eleven is going to be the year of the tablet and there's just going to be a great array of options out there for consumers who would like a tablet."
Examples include a new Wi-Fi version of the Galaxy Tab made by Samsung of South Korea. The Taiwanese company Asus announced four new tablets for this year. One of them can connect to a keyboard to make it more like a laptop computer. Another has a keyboard that slides out.
Both of these tablets use Google's new Android Honeycomb operating system. Motorola, based in the United States, also demonstrated that system on its new Xoom tablet.
Reporter Arash Aalaei from VOA's Persian News Network was at the show. He says more and more companies are offering 3-D images on devices like tablets and notebook computers. There are 3-D Blu-ray players, cameras, camcorders and printers.
Arash looked at the newest three-dimensional televisions, including some that require no special eyewear.
ARASH AALAEI: "Toshiba introduced a new line of 3-D without glasses televisions. And that is a television that enables the users to watch 3-D content on the TV without wearing the glasses, which is very significant."
He also looked at some of the different products marketed as green technology at the show.
ARASH AALAEI: "Lots and lots of companies from overseas, especially from China, selling very cheap products, that users can have in order to recharge their cell phones or small devices, that run on solar energy or wind energy."
And, speaking of phones, Tara Dunion says smartphones keep getting smarter.
TARA DUNION: "We're hearing also talk of 'super phones' which have fourth-generation chips in them that allow instantaneous access to videos and photos. And, really, that delayed wait while your phone catches up to what you want to do seems to be a thing of the past."
Hot items at the Consumer Electronics Show also included Internet TVs and devices to stream video onto existing high-definition sets.
More than one hundred twenty thousand people attended the show.
One big announcement this year involved the British company ARM and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Microsoft said the next version of Windows will work on devices that use ARM processors.
And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs are at testbig.com. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember.