AP Photo

Next week, as I have in early January for I can’t remember how many years, I’ll head for Las Vegas and the International Consumer Electronics Show. I’ll admit I don’t much like either Vegas or CES, but this year, I’m anticipating the endless cab lines and paying $350 for a $150 hotel room with even less enthusiasm than usual. That’s because the prospects for anything resembling news from CES are pretty grim.

This is less a rap on CES than a comment on the current state of the industry. True, CES is to some extent of its own success, a cacophony of announcements, most of them of little interest to anyone beyond the people making them. And with the shift to mobile, some of the attention has moved to Mobile World Congress, the annual...