Top trends of CES 2012: Geek pundits speak out

Takeaway: In evaluating the most important stuff at CES 2012 I got an assist from Leo Laporte, Veronica Belmont, and other smart geek commentators.

Photo credit: Jason Hiner | TechRepublic

To help sort through the craziness of CES I interviewed some of the smartest and most passionate tech commentators I know and asked them about the best products and trends they saw at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

I asked all of them the same two questions:

• What was the most interesting new product you saw at CES?
• What trend do you see coming out of CES that will have the biggest impact on 2012?

Watch their responses in the following videos and read the highlights below.

Veronica Belmont

Most interesting product: Toshiba Excite X10 tablet

Most important trend: Cloud content sharing

Becky Worley

Most interesting product: ViaSat Exede Broadband (satellite Internet)

Most important trend: Gesture controlled interfaces

Tom Merritt

Most interesting product: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga

Most important trend: Connected TVs

Harry McCracken

Most interesting product: Dell Studio XPS 13

Most important trend: Natural user interfaces

Sarah Lane

Most interesting product: Boxee Live TV (Boxee Box with over-the-air antenna)

Most important trend: Smart TVs and OLED TVs

Leo Laporte

Most interesting product: Samsung 55-inch OLED TV

Most important trend: Apps in TV

More from CES 2012

• Tablets: What Amazon and Apple know that all the CES tablet peddlers are still missing
• Windows Phone: The Hail Mary pass is now in the air
• Ultrabooks: A new era for PCs or Wintel innovation bankruptcy?
• Cracking Open Live at CES: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
• Five must-crack-open devices from CES 2012