Forbes reporting from CES, companies have to make a lot of noise to get noticed at the gargantuan Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. And Hewlett-Packard raised quite a racket on Wednesday.
The Palo Alto, California-based printer giant announced a flashy parade of new products: seven digital cameras, nine TVs, four laptops, a digital entertainment desktop computer, a wireless camera dock and a video uploading service for members of its online photo sharing site, Snapfish.
There's a method behind this digital madness. HP is betting on the "digital lifestyle" theme of the event discussed in Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' keynote speech. It's a story Gates has been touting for several years -- mainly that the future of technology is a home network wrangling a range of gadgets into one big functional family.
"The larger story here is that we are bringing all of our products to work together," says Karl Wardrop, HP's lead product manager of digital photography, North America. "We want to showcase our contribution to the connected home of the future so people can see where technology is going."
The idea is based on research indicating that consumers are increasingly investing in wireless home networking. That means cameras, printers, TVs and PCs will all be able to easily communicate and interact from anywhere in the home.
The Palo Alto, California-based printer giant announced a flashy parade of new products: seven digital cameras, nine TVs, four laptops, a digital entertainment desktop computer, a wireless camera dock and a video uploading service for members of its online photo sharing site, Snapfish.
There's a method behind this digital madness. HP is betting on the "digital lifestyle" theme of the event discussed in Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' keynote speech. It's a story Gates has been touting for several years -- mainly that the future of technology is a home network wrangling a range of gadgets into one big functional family.
"The larger story here is that we are bringing all of our products to work together," says Karl Wardrop, HP's lead product manager of digital photography, North America. "We want to showcase our contribution to the connected home of the future so people can see where technology is going."
The idea is based on research indicating that consumers are increasingly investing in wireless home networking. That means cameras, printers, TVs and PCs will all be able to easily communicate and interact from anywhere in the home.