Kickstarter and CES
A small observation: as I am not at CES this year, I've been attending from afar, using the internet, and my ability to read others' words. It's a great way of doing it and I think it's going to be big.
Two of the most-commented products (by non-scientific survey)? The Pebble smartwatch and the Oculus Rift, both of which are from talented but independent hardware startup companies, bootstrapped entirely by Kickstarter campaigns.
It's not that the traditional consumer electronics industry is going away–there are some things that simply need multi-billion-dollar scale–but that this new model is opening the door to innovation at a scale beyond the garage tinkerer. Oculus, in particular, is probably going to walk away with many publications' Best of Show award, and they haven't even shipped their dev kits yet.
Not every product that appears on Kickstarter is a winner, naturally, but how fantastic that the platform exists.