Microsoft's Idea Thieving, GM's OnStar Blunder and Other Takeaways from CES

I've left the whirring and clanging of the Consumer Electronics Show behind. Done, for now, with Vegas hotels the size of small empires, dinner conversation openers about flat-screen TVs the size of barn doors, and so many lines I expected there to be one to get into my hotel room.

Thought I'd share a handful of thoughts that stick with me...

-- Everyone knows Microsoft is brilliant at, well, being the second or third or fourth to "think up" an idea, and then making billions on it. (See: Apple v. Microsoft.) In Microsoft's keynote by Bill Gates and some of his execs, the company talked about Microsoft features that seemed like direct conceptual rip-offs of iLike (as part of the Zune store), Evite and Google calendar (as part of Windows Live), OnStar (how Ford Sync will call 911), and TiVo (in Microsoft's DVR Anywhwere). And then Gates touted applications from Tellme, which Microsoft bought last March. What exactly do they do at Microsoft Research?

-- Photos are going to get smart. Cell phones with GPS will increasingly tag photos with time and place, making it easier to find them when they're on your hard drive. Software in cell phones, cameras or on your PC or Web site will be able to automatically know where to send photos and videos (Flickr, YouTube, etc.). Microsoft, Motorola and Google all talked to me about this kind of stuff at CES. I'm sure others are doing it.

-- GM finally does a CES keynote about on-board computing and networking 13 years after the company introduced OnStar -- which, at the time, was way ahead of the competition in this realm. But OnStar has barely changed since 1995, giving Microsoft the opening to offer its Sync technology on Fords. Talk about GM frittering away an asset.

-- I saw lots of products at CES that were spectacularly cool -- and either unnecessary or way too expensive. (Like, who is buying those 100-inch flat-panel TVs?) I only saw two things at CES that I plan to incorporate into my life sometime soon: the Web site eJamming (featured in the Intel keynote) and the Asus EeePC.