CES 2012: China. REEs.

The 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show was the biggest such event in the show’s 44-year history, with more than 153,000 attendees, up from 149,000 a year ago.

Hot trends included Ultrabooks, OLED TVs, Android 4.0 tablets, next-generation smartphones and 3D printers.
The world’s consumer electronics show which was held last week in Las Vegas, was apparently the biggest and some say the best ever. With Microsoft dropping out from next year’s show, perhaps 2012 will represent something of a peak. From our rare metal blog perspective, there’s plenty of new products in the pipeline sure to keep demand rising for REEs.

As reported by the BBC, 20,000 new products debuted at the show, with strong interest in super-thin, lightweight TVs, Tablets with TV connectivity, including touch  screen interfaces, voice control, and on and on and on. It seems out TVs and the internet are conflating and we all want internet access on everything, from light(er) weight giant screens in our homes, to internet on the run via tablets and handhelds. Now if we can only come up with some non-Chinese REE supply, perhaps we can manufacture some of this stuff outside of China.

CES 2012: Prepare for Sub-$500 Ultrathins: AMD's Fusion Trinity
AMD rejoins ultrathin push, takes issue with Intel for trademarking "Ultrabook"

Intel Corp. (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) don't exactly see eye to eye on most things, but at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, they seemed to both be in agreement that ultrathin notebook computers were what ready for primetime in 2012.
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Staying with China for today, there were a couple of more developments that happened at the weekend. The number of internet users in China soared past half a billion in December, with 356 million of them accessing the internet on handhelds. One year ago the figures were a still very impressive 457 million with 303 million handhelds.  The second development was the re-election of Taiwan’s President and with it the continuation of his conciliatory pro-China policies. One of China’s big fears had been Taiwan reversing that policy. We may now see a slightly more relaxed China in 2012

China's number of Web users rises to 513 million
January 16, 2012 By JOE McDONALD , AP Business Writer
(AP) -- The number of Internet users in China has surged past 500 million as millions of new Web surfers go online using mobile phones and tablet computers, an industry group reported Monday.

The popularity of the Internet in China has driven the explosive growth of profitable Web companies and made fortunes for some Chinese entrepreneurs despite government controls on what the public can see online.

The number of mainland Internet users rose to 513 million in December, up 12 percent from a year earlier, the government-sanctioned China Internet Network Information Center said.

Among them, the number who go online using handheld devices rose 17.5 percent over a year earlier to 356 million.

The popularity of wireless Internet was reflected Friday in a scramble by Chinese gadget fans and scalpers to buy Apple Inc.'s latest iPhone 4S, which sold out within hours of its China launch.