It's hard to ignore the TVs that are on display at CES, and until now I've been doing just that. However, there is some big news regarding television technology that debuted at CES this year. It's my final day on the show floor, and today I'm focusing on doing some technology wrap-ups.

The biggest news, literally, is the 11-foot, plasma prototype that joined Panasonic President Toshihiro Sakamoto onstage for his keynote address Monday. Later, after seeing it in the Panasonic booth, it was clear that whatever was playing on the screen was hardly suitable for such a massive display. At a resolution of 4x 1080p, it's a very stunning display. Last year, Panasonic displayed a retail 103-inch plasma display. Since, they've managed to sell over 3,000 of the 103-inchers, at a price of $51,000 each.

Sony and Samsung both displayed prototypes of their OLED technology. OLED differs from plasma and LCD in that each pixel produces its own light, eliminating the need for a backlight, and the pixels can be turned off, allowing the television to produce a true black. OLED has contrast ratios upwards of 1 million to one, is extremely light and thin, and cuts power consumption by more than half. Sony has an 11-inch display, retailing for $2,500, that will hit the US market very shortly.

Speaking of thin, it's certainly in. Created as part of Pioneer's Project Kuro, a complete overhaul of the company's plasma technology, is a display that is just 9mm thick. While the Pioneer display is a concept design, Hitachi is hitting the market with a 1.5" LCD, and LG sports an equally impressive 1.7-inch LCD.

In the coming year, expect more entries to the OLED market, as that technology becomes more robust, and expect more in the way of thin displays. While I've called first dibs on the 150" Panasonic, I don't see too many more televisions bigger than 100 inches in the retail domain in the foreseeable future.

by Tony Brown, a junior at the University of Missouri