Technology is a fickle business at the best of times but no more so than at CES this year.
The entire TV industry has been banging on about the merits of 3D for years, despite a comprehensive lack of interest from consumers - but at CES 2013 that theme has well and truly been killed off, cremated and scattered in the wind.
A thorough examination of the big booths at the show – Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG – reveals barely a mention of 3D as a technology or even an included feature.
Instead it's all about Ultra HD/4K, and by god are they going mad for it. The biggest stand at the show – Sony's – contains precisely two TVs showing 3D content, and even that was less about 3D and more about the 4K product displaying it.
"We believe you need 3D to have the best experience, but it has become really standardised," Sony's Kentaro Matsumoto told TechRadar at the show. "In our case, most of our TVs now have a 3D function so we're now trying to communicate the newer features."
What that basically means is that with the availability of 50-inch 3D plasmas for £350, in order to maintain the premium price points there need to be new features to talk about. 3D just isn't interesting anymore, and instead we've returned to the same theme of four years ago – higher resolutions.
Stay tuned for CES 2014, then, where it'll be all about 3D again - glasses-free flavoured - and Ultra HD will be just another feature. The technology carousel keeps turning. Rest assured, TechRadar will be there!
