The Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas may have been a little emptier than usual in 2009 with only half the usual number of visitors and many exhibitors deciding simply not to attend, however there were several exciting developments which will make a difference to peoples lives over the next few months

One such development is the wireless powermat which will bring an end to carrying lots of chargers and cables for multiple devices. It also means you'll never need to worry about picking up the wrong charger if all your chargers start to look the same.

The matts will be ideal for travellers carrying around multiple devices such as an ipod, mobile, camera, camcorder, psp or even pico projector. Initially the matts are likely to compatible with the most popular gadgets on the market such as the iphone or major brands perhaps followed closely by the most power hungry gadgets.

To date the one drawback with wireless chargers has been that multiple adaptors have been required to ensure compatabilty which means carrying around a stack of adaptors which is only a minor improvement on carrying lots of chargers in the first place. The beauty of the wireless power matts is that the batteries themselves have "sleeves" attached to them which can either be either retro fitted or embeded during manufacturing. Thus, all you have to do is place any compatible device onto the matt and through near field conduction the batteries are charged as normal with no cables or plugs in sight.

This will be great for road warriors and we're really looking forward to seeing them in operation for the mini projector market as although these devices have a very respectable 2 hour battery life it would really be a bonus to be able to charge up several spare batteries at once on a power matt. Hopefully the manufacturers will incorporate these options into the next generation of pico projectors and we'll soon see them in projectors such as the 3m micro projector or the Aiptek Pocket Cinema V10.