6. Hiding From: Zune, OQO

There are some topics that always rear their heads at CES, and we’re sick of it. The following tech advancements won’t be drawing our attention (whether or not they actually show up) because we’re betting against them—they won’t matter in the year to come.

Zune Phone

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that Microsoft won’t introduce a “Zune Phone,” that is, one manufactured and branded by Microsoft’s Zune division. Fine. But we still find it hard to believe the company won’t try to brand someone else’s Windows Mobile smartphone with Zune software. But even if they do, we don’t care. Zune’s toast, and Windows Mobile is stale. Whatever Microsoft has to say about the Zune at CES, we won’t be on the edge of our seats.

OQO Update

Years ago, mobile computing company OQO was ahead of its time. It came up with the notion of the ultramobile PC before the UMPC platform or the netbook and ultraportable notebook categories existed. But ever since we first laid hands on an OQO in late 2004, we’ve been underwhelmed. OQO will surely announce an updated version, but given that we’ve never been convinced by previous incarnations, we doubt this one will turn our heads—even if it does have an OLED screen, touchscreen, 3G data and an Atom processor. The slide-out, squarish form-factor just turns us off.