A number of Irish technology companies made the pilgrimage to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, writes John Collins.
RedMere Technologies, the fabless semiconductor company which is
designing products for high definition televisions, flew the flag
highest with its own stand at the show.
Others such as Cork-based Firecomms, games software company
Havok and Silicon & Software Systems, which supplies software
and design services to many of the consumer electronics giants
attending CES, are either
exhibiting on the stands of their partners or are attending
ancillary events.
RedMere took a stand for the second time but its executives have been attending the show to collect intelligence on the market since the company was founded in 2004.
This year it had a booth in the HDMI TechZone, an area devoted
to products based on the standard for connecting high definition
devices.
RedMere's MagnifEye embedded cable product, basically a smart
cable containing a chip, which connects high definition consumer
electronic devices like camcorders and TVs with thinner cables.
Silicon & Software Systems (S3) demonstrated its software
which can help set top box manufacturers and pay TV operators
quickly deploy HD offerings such as digital video recorders at the
STMicroelectronics suite.
Fiona D'Arcy, S3's corporate communications director, said
CES was such a vast event (there are 2,700 exhibitors) that
exhibiting with a larger partner was often the best way to ensure
exposure.
Firecomms, a developer of low cost optical networking,
featured as part of a four-room demonstration of home networking
hosted by the High Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA).
The Cork company's
technology enabled the high speed transmission of data over
plastic optical fibre - already widely used in cars and industry -
to support IPTV and other triple play services.
Havok, the developer of software for the games and film
industries, was also in Sin City Las Vegas this week to pick up a
technical Emmy Award at an awards ceremony that was held as part of
CES.
Chief executive David O'Meara said he was personally thrilled to have the award presented to him by legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
