Here are a few additional highlights from the CES 2008 show floor:

• Best of CES nominees are in–CNET editors announced the 30 finalists for Best of CES 2008.

• Blu-ray player for less than $300–The major gripe against Blu-ray has always been that the hardware is just too expensive. Funai is looking to fill this gap.

• The end of the cable set-top box?–Comcast predicts that by year’s end, virtually the entire cable industry will support an “open cable” standard that would render cable boxes moot.

• Luxury trip for Panasonic’s 150-inch plasma–How do you bring giant plasma televisions from Japan to the U.S.?

• CIA technology will map your face–Using technology from a CIA-funded project at the University of California, BigStage creates a model of anyone’s head by using just three photos.

• Azentek builds a PC for your car–Two car computers use Windows Vista overlaid with a custom automotive interface, which provides easy access to such functions as navigation or audio playback.

• Other Items of Interest:

• Blackberry -Not much new showing here. I had hoped to see the new 8120, but they didn’t
  have it (interesting that I did get to see it at the SlingBox booth though!).

  

• Wireless HD - Continues to mature, maybe we will soon see the ability to connect desktops wirelessly to these monitors for use in OR’s, or procedure rooms, etc.

  

• Entertainment lounge - seating pods with full surround sound capability. The audio is amazing when seated in the pod, but can’t be heard outside the seat.

  

• Texas Instruments Dual View DLP TV.

  

• 3D glasses haven’t been a big part of gaming since the days of the Sega Master System, but Texas Instruments looks set to change that with the DualView DLP TVs. Much like recent 3D movies like Beowulf, these TVs display two slightly different images at once, using special glasses to isolate the correct perspective for each eye.
  
  The images were bright and crisp, without so much as a flicker and “Madden NFL Football was a whole new experience: you were right down on the field, with every receiver receding into the distance as he ran. Games currently have to be specially designed for the effect, but 1UP reports that TI “intends to eventually institute plug-and-play support” so all games have that added depth.
  
  But the best gaming application for this DualView technology might be full screen multiplayer. As shown in this Gizmodo video, the DualView technology can be used to give two different players simultaneous, full-screen views of different characters or locations in a game. The end of split screen as we know it? Maybe … if you have a special TV and two pairs of 3D glasses, that is …