For the third consecutive year, Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams graciously offered to write a few blog posts while in Las Vegas for last week’s annual Consumer Electronics Show. In his final post, he gives us his Top 10 gadgets from 2013 CES.

CES 2013 ended Friday. There was a lot to see and more buzz about new electronic technology than in other recent years. Here’s a list of the Top 10 technologies and/or gadgets that caught my attention.

1. Samsung’s Flexible Display

Samsung’s president showed off this prototype device during his keynote address. It was not on the exhibitor floor at 2013 CES. Instead of the rigid screen of your smartphone, imagine rolling up the screen like a dollar bill. In the future, you may be able to roll up your 65-inch flat screen like a rug and store it in the closet until the next use.

2. OLED TV

All the major electronics manufacturers at CES 2013 promoted OLED TV’s. (Here’s LG’s, for example.) OLED TVs were promoted last year, but today’s price puts OLED in the premium TV category, inhibiting consumer acceptance. OLED stands for “organic light emitting diode,” a solid state material that is also behind flexible screen displays. OLED technology is an improvement over liquid crystal displays (LCD) by producing higher contrasts, less energy consumption and thinner screens. A fixed but curved OLED TV screen was exhibited by Samsung. OLED is the next generation of screens.

3. Casio Lamp Free Projector (Short Throw)

This projector makes giving an audio/visual presentation a lot easier. You lose the lamp and the need for replacement lamps, can project a 60-inch image from only two-feet away and can connect wirelessly to a mobile device or laptop as well as hard connect through USB, HDMI, and RJ-45 ports.

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Samsung displayed a phone made of plastic that bends at 2013 CES in Las Vegas. (AP Photo)

For the third consecutive year, Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams graciously offered to write a few blog posts while in Las Vegas for last week’s annual Consumer Electronics Show. Here, he writes about the trends to watch out for. On Tuesday, he’ll share his top ten gadgets of CES.

The thousands of products and services on display at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show can crowd out perspective, like so many trees that you cannot appreciate the forest.

But attending a keynote address or an informational program or two brings larger perspectives to what one sees at CES. I attended a Q&A with Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and the keynote address by Stephen Woo, president of Samsung, which ended with a surprise address by former President Bill Clinton.

Here some of the trends in consumer electronics shown by 2013 CES.

Everything on mobile devices

Manufacturers are convinced that consumers want their mobile devices to do everything. Today’s mobile devices are smartphones and tablets. As a result, manufacturers are committed to developing smartphones and tablets with ever-increasing capabilities.

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For the third consecutive year, Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams has graciously offered to write a few blog posts while he is in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. 

The weather is beautiful in Las Vegas as nearly 150,000 registered attendees flock to the 2013 Consumer Electronic Show. Products and services are displayed over 1.8 million square-feet of floor space at three primary venues: the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center; the Las Vegas Hotel next door (formerly the Hilton); and The Venetian about a mile down the Strip. The show runs through Friday.

Smartphones, tablets, and large TVs dominate 2013 CES. The iPhone remains the standard against which all smartphones are compared. Manufacturers exhibiting at CES are showing thinner and larger smartphones. Tablets are incorporated into ultrabooks and hybrid PCs, with some designs using hinges and others with tablets that snap on and fold over a keyboard. There are cinema-quality flat screens TVs that can be controlled by voice commands and gestures. Manufacturers are still promoting 3D TVs and the high-picture-quality OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TVs.

Samsung is the most prominent exhibitor this year. As the Apple-fighter, Samsung seems to have extra panache this year setting it apart. The Galaxy Note tablet and Galaxy Note II smartphone are attracting lots of attention.

If anyone at CES is missing Apple and Microsoft as exhibitors, I have not noticed. The iLounge area of the show contains hundreds of accessory products for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, demonstrating Apple’s huge impact on the industry.

Microsoft, incidentally, is absent from CES for the first time in 14 years. Its software operates many of the products on display here but its own hardware products, such as the Surface tablet, are not a factor at CES.

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Happy Cyber Monday! No holiday specials in the law blog roundup, just our usual mix of news and comment. For instance:

– Ron Miller discusses a phone scam that was new to him you might want to be aware of

– It’s a serious topic that deserves serious consideration, particularly since it appears to be the way warfare is heading. But it had me at “Killer Robots” in the title.

– One law school has come up with a response to decreasing applications: voluntary buyouts.

– If you’ve declared a personal copyright on what you post on Facebook, I’m sorry to break the bad news to you…

Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

A new survey found 90 percent of in-house counsels found useful computer coding used to sort through legal documents. Of the 24 attorneys surveyed, however, the results were mixed as to how much money using such coding saved their companies.

The predictive coding technology uses specific case searches to find legal documents related to litigation. Many said the coding was helpful in that it sped up the process of reviewing documents and was helpful in big cases when sorting through thousands of documents.

Many general counsels were worried the technology would replace human review and were concerned how the courts viewed using this technology. About 27 percent said they were not sure how much the technology saved the company, but another 27 percent thought it saved more than $500,000. Another 27 percent thought the technology saved between $25,000 and $250,000. About 18 percent thought it saved between $250,000 and $500,000.

So, here’s our question for you:

Do you use predictive coding at your in-house jobs? If so, how much does it save your company?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

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When it comes to creating a potential attorney-client relationship, “Discussion” is out; “Consultation” is in.

That change, designed to put online communications on par with actual conversations, was adopted Monday by the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates as a result of the work of the Commission on Ethics 20/20.

The vote in favor of Resolution 105B amends several of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct to provide more guidance on online marketing and lead-generation. As Debra Cassens Weiss writes for the ABA Journal, 105B addresses such questions as:

When do online discussions give rise to duties to prospective clients? May a lawyer generate leads through Groupon? What type of online communications are impermissible solicitations?

The changes include replacing “discussion” with “consultation” in Model Rule 1.18, which deals with duties to prospective clients. Lawyers with their own smartphone apps may want to pay close attention here: “According to new commentary,” Cassens Weiss writes, “duties may arise if a lawyer invites the prospective client to submit information about possible representation without sufficient warnings or cautionary statements.”

Resolution 105B also amends Model Rule 7.3 to deal with online client solicitations. And it adds a new comment to Model Rule 7.2 to address marketing methods like Total Attorneys, Martindale-Hubbell’s Lawyers.com and even, yes, Groupon. The new comment says it’s OK to pay for “lead generation” services, provided the generator doesn’t vouch for the lawyer’s credentials or abilities, or create the impression that it has chosen the lawyer by analyzing the potential client’s legal problems, or pretend that the recommendation is being made gratis.

Finally, if you’re the kind of lawyer who thinks none of this applies to you because your social network is more about your crowd than The Cloud, well, think again. The House of Delegates also approved Resolution 105A on Monday. Under a new comment, 105A adds to Model Rule 1.1, the duty to provide competent representation now requires not only that you keep up with changes in the law, but also with the risks and benefits associated with new technology.

Those were just two of the resolutions adopted at the ABA’s Annual Meeting in Chicago, which wraps up on Tuesday. For more information on the delegates’ votes and other reports from the meeting, click here.

Lots of options during the first educational session at the Maryland State Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in Ocean City. But, this being a blog, I felt I would not have been doing my duty if I did not attend the session on technology.

There was lots of talk of gadgets (Livescribe smart pens), apps (FastCase, Clio) and social media at the session, sponsored by the Solo and Small Firm Practice Section.

The big takeaway from the speakers was to embrace the technology. One audience member asked Hughie Hunt, a presenter, how secure cloud-based case management is.

“That’s a very 1980s question,” Hunt replied to laughter. “How secure is anything?”

The audience skewed older, many taking notes with pen and paper (although there were a few iPads in the crowd). So there was a lot of Tech 101. Dropbox, for example, was a “bigger and dumber version – in a good way” of Evernote for storing and sharing files, said presenter Bruce Godfrey.

There were also plenty of reminders that new technology doesn’t mean you can forget old ethics.

“FindLaw made me do it is not a defense” before the Attorney Grievance Commission, Godfrey said. “If you delegate marketing, you delegate ethics.”

Godfrey was also skeptical of lawyers marketing themselves online.

“We’re not cans of soup,” he said. “Our brand is our name on our letterhead.”

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a name for yourself in social media, according to presenter (and Generation J.D.’s own) Heather Pruger.

Setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account or LinkedIn profile is OK, she said, but being engaged is a better way to enhance and expand your professional network and reputation.

“Social media is very much a two-, three-, four- and five-way street,” Pruger said.

The standard warnings you’ve probably heard a million times already still apply — don’t mix professional and personal conduct in social media and don’t do advise your client to do anything online you wouldn’t advise them to do in the real world. Pruger told the story of one lawyer fined $700,000 for advising a client to delete her Facebook profile during litigation.

Pruger recommended lawyers advise clients to stay off social media during litigation “unless they have a really good reason not to.”

This week it is all about CEOs and general counsels.

Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

Clarissa Cerda, general counsel at LifeLock, Inc., took on her job around three years ago. The corporate counsel takes on a “partner role” with her CEO, Corporate Counsel reports. Cerda takes the company’s CEO to court proceedings and meetings with regulators.

“I took my CEO along,” she told Corporate Counsel. “A lot of people thought I was crazy when I decided to do that.”

Here’s our question for you:

What is your working relationship like with your company’s CEO? Do you let him/her have as much access to the in-house department as Cerda and why or why not?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• An in-house legal chief for a Houston company created a fake law firm and funneled almost $9 million of company money into the paying the “firm” for its “legal services.”
• Texas Lawyer has the 2012 summer reading list for corporate counsels.
• Pinterest hired Google’s deputy general counsel, Michael Yang, as its general counsel. Pinterest has faced copyright issues since its website has users post pictures and content from other sites.
• A former Warner Bros. executive, Mark DeVitre, will join Entertainment Studios as executive vice president and general counsel. The company produces and distributes over 31 syndicated TV shows.
• Remember how we reported this month that more law students are interested in corporate counsel jobs immediately after graduation? Well, it’s happening in India, too, except between 50 to 75 percent of graduating law school students went to corporations this year, The Times of India reports.
• One in-house counsel in California is backtracking and going back to private practice after about 13 years. The general counsel for Callaway Golf, Steven McCracken, made the move in May.
• Knome, Inc., the human genome interpretation company, appointed Gary A. Cohen as general counsel, senior vice president and secretary of the company.
• If you are interested in intellectual property law in the gaming industry, check out this Q&A by the Las Vegas Review-Journal with the deputy general counsel of Cantor Gaming.
• The Allstate Corporation named Susie Lees general counsel this month.
• To get more in-house counsel news, sign up for our FREE monthly email newsletter, In-House Counsel. The newsletter is a compilation of The Daily Record’s coverage of in-house counsel news as well as job listings, movements within the industry and other resources. Click here to sign up today.
• Follow us on Twitter for the In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse
• Want the latest on who’s been hired, fired or moving and shaking in between? Head to our Movers and Shakers page to find out.
• For networking events and other happenings this week in Maryland, check out our calendar of events.
• Get the very latest updates from our law reporters on Twitter: @TDRKristi, @BenMook, @Steve_Lash
• Check out The Daily Record on Facebook.

After telling us what was hot at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and giving us a peek at the future of smart TVs, Frank Gorman and Julie Harada of Gorman & Williams now present their Top 10 gadgets from the expo. Our thanks to Gorman, Harada and Mike Yang for providing us with these dispatches.

The Consumer Electronics Show 2012 launched 20,000 new products.  Selecting the top 10 gadgets out of so many products, even discounting the hype, is a very subjective process.  Our 2012 list contains a wide variety of products, although we gave an edge to several that might have a law practice application.

Lytro Light Field Camera This is a simple, auto-mode camera that captures the light field. It allows you to take a picture and focus after the fact using its touch screen. Pictures can also be viewed in 3D. Winner of the Last Gadget Standing competition at CES.

AirStash Wireless Flash Drive and Media Streamer by Maxell This USB drive has wireless capability that allows storing and transfer of documents and photos and streaming of video to an iPhone, iPad or Kindle Fire. A Wi-Fi environment is not needed, and emails are not necessary for file transfers. It also has a built-in rechargeable battery and still plugs into a USB port on a computer.

IdeaPad YOGA by Lenovo A multi-mode, 13.3-inch notebook with a 360-degree flip-and-fold design that allows four separate usage positions — notebook, tablet, stand and tent. It combines the tablet’s ease of use with the functionality of an ultrabook, the latest generation of the laptop. The cool dual-hinge design is patented.

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Julie Harada joined her colleague Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Harada writes today about the biggest trend she noticed at this year’s expo. Earlier this week, Gorman and Mike Yang wrote about what’s hot at this year’s show. Later this week, they’ll have their list of the 10 best gadgets from CES.

The most prominent product at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show was the so-called “smart” TV that has built-in web browsers and Wi-Fi connectivity. Television remains the most powerful viewing screen, despite the explosion of mobile devices. Smart TVs were on display last year, but this year they have become even smarter.

Television manufacturers have to provide the viewer with the ability to browse the web, send text and e-mails and  perform other Internet functions, and the standard television remote cannot perform these functions well. Instead, there are apps that allow your tablet or smartphone to become an interactive remote and push any media through your tablet or smartphone to your TV.

Voice and motion control may eliminate the need to connect a tablet or phone to a smart TV, however. With voice control, web browsing on your TV requires no typing. One can perform a web browser search by speaking to the TV, which then converts your voice to text. (It’s similar to the iPhone’s Siri.) With motion recognition, simple hand gestures are all it takes to scroll up and down the on-screen menus. These two features ease the navigation process from one menu to the next, as well as from one web page to the next.

Other smart TV improvements include access to apps. In the Android operating system market, Samsung’s smart TVs provide access to apps. In the Apple or iOS market, access to apps seems to depend on Apple introducing a smart TV.

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