CES-OUTLast month, Drew featured Chil, a Charleston South Carolina company creating innovative, stylish accessories in our Holiday Gift Guide. Chil has a line of iPad cases, charging products and their signature Chil Box which is a bluetooth boombox type speaker that rivals the sound quality of the Beats By Dre Pill or similar speakers offered by Jawbone.

Griffin, a company that thinks Techfaster isn’t worthy of covering them, also makes great accessories, app controlled toys, innovative music based iOS products and more. They’re headquartered in Nashville Tennessee. While it seems that the focal point for startups is Silicon Valley, companies everywhere are making good quality products.

This year the International CES convention in Las Vegas Nevada has attracted over 240 companies from the south alone. (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia) will debut their latest consumer technology innovations at the 2014 International CES®. Owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the 2014 CES, the global gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technology, will run Tuesday, January 7-Friday, January 10, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“CES provides an extraordinary opportunity for exposure for smaller companies like ours, so we plan to launch a full array of the world’s first, flexible, wearable, graphene-based products there,” said John Lettow, president of Jessup, Md.-based  Vorbeck Materials, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and located in Venetian Booth #74409.  “The energy and excitement of CES will provide great momentum to propel our company, products and partnerships into 2014.”

The 2014 CES will feature more than 20 market-specific TechZones. New hot spots at the 2014 CES include the 3D Printing TechZone, showcasing the transformational shift bringing 3D printing technology from the manufacturing world into the home, making 3D printing more accessible for today’s consumer   Cisco’s Internet of Everything (IoE), enables attendees to experience IoE in action and learn about the unprecedented opportunities it creates by bringing together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before.

“We are honored to be a CES Innovation Award Honoree and thrilled to showcase the Skulpt Aim at CES,” said Jose Bohorquez, CEO of Skulpt Inc, based in Florida and Boston and located in LVCC South Hall 2 Booth #26419. “The Skulpt Aim will revolutionize how fitness is assessed by enabling users to better understand their bodies, exercise smarter, and reach their fitness goals. Recognizing the power of CES, we planned a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo precisely to coincide with the conference.”

Other popular TechZones highlighting the latest technology at the 2014 CES include Academia Tech, Eureka Park, FashionWare, Gaming Showcase, GoElectricDrive, High-Res Audio, iLounge Pavilion,  MotionTech, PMA@CES, Robotics, TransformingEDU, WristRevolution and Zigbee. Additionally, lifestyle TechZones featured at the 2014 CES include: Digital Health Summit, Kids@Play, MommyTech, Silvers Summit and Fitness Tech.

“This is our first year at CES. We’re attending because we expect it to be a prime opportunity to demo our new service that enables people to easily play and share underground music in the cloud,” said Max Acchione, co-founder of Alexandria, Va.-based UndergroundMusic.fm, which is supported by the National Science Foundation and located in Venetian Booth #74506. “We’re excited to connect with consumers and network with other professionals and potential partners.”

The 2014 CES conference program will feature 300 robust sessions and 850 speakers, including keynotes from the leaders of Intel, Audi, Sony, Cisco and Yahoo. Additionally, the Entertainment Mattersprogram,sponsored by Variety, is back for its fourth year with exhibits, conference programs and special events for professionals in the entertainment community and will feature Extra TV host Maria Menounos as the program’s ambassador.

“We are very excited and proud to be part of the Eureka Park 2014 CES exhibitors,” said Jean Jacobson of Hangatablet LLC, based in Miami Beach, Fla. and located in Venetian Booth #73303 at the 2014 CES. “We have two new, unique, and very necessary products to introduce to you -The hangatablet and the hangaphone – moveable and adjustable holders for your mobile devices and they let you place your devices where you have not been able to do so before.”

The 2014 CES will feature more than 3,200 exhibitors unveiling the latest consumer technology products and services across the entire ecosystem of consumer technologies. For more information on the 2014 CES, visit CESweb.org. To learn more about other exhibitors in the Southern region, or for a complete listing of CES exhibitors, please visit the 2014 CES Exhibitor Directory.

You can find more of our CES coverage here. 

If you have a product company at CES, you should click here.