The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) recently announced that the Tech Enthusiast (TE) program will be discontinued. CEA also announced a redesign of its website, CE.org, which will become home in 2012 to the original consumer content originally housed on the TE website. CEA's Tech Enthusiast program was a paid membership category within CEA designed for individuals, whereas the new CE.org will offer free access.

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"CEA walks the talk and takes risks to innovate. Sometimes we fail and we learn from it and move forward. The TE program did not attract the large numbers we needed to make it viable so we are discontinuing it," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. "At the same time, we understand consumers want tech information and we are pleased to be implementing a free consumer portal on CE.org. CEA remains focused on providing the highest quality service to its more than 2,000 corporate members and on producing the world's largest technology tradeshow, the International CES."

CEA has stopped accepting new members or partners for the TE program. The membership site, CEAte.org, will remain live through January 31, 2012, after which it will be discontinued. TE members who still have an active membership as of February 1, 2012 will be provided a refund of their membership fee. Tech Enthusiast members with questions can contact [email protected].

To provide consumers information and other content about consumer electronics, CEA is redesigning its homepage, CE.org to include a free consumer portal. CEA will transition the content that was on CEAte.org to the redesigned CE.org.

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