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Speaker 1: tech stuff. Hello again, everybody, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: My name is Chris Poulette. I am an editor of
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com and sitting across from me
Speaker 1: a guy who UH had to stop flapping because his
Speaker 1: arms were so tired from flying back from Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Someone must have slandered Joseph K
Speaker 1: for one morning without having done anything truly wrong. He
Speaker 1: was arrested. What happened to the Biggest Things? The Biggest Baby?
Speaker 1: So we're talking today about CE selve. This podcast, of
Speaker 1: course is publishing well after the show, but it's as
Speaker 1: early as we can get it out there. Um, we
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of talk about what I saw at
Speaker 1: the show and sort of the trends and what the
Speaker 1: show was like. This this year there were actually some
Speaker 1: pretty big announcements, some of them not directly connected with
Speaker 1: what was on the show floor, but still pretty important. Nonetheless, Yeah,
Speaker 1: c S. They've they've asked us to just call it
Speaker 1: CES but for branding purposes. But the Consumer Electronics Show
Speaker 1: right right, And this UH started out a few decades
Speaker 1: ago basically sort of as a small trade show. And
Speaker 1: because electronics are such a big part of our lives now,
Speaker 1: people are really interested in in the stuff that people enveil.
Speaker 1: Some of it is uh, stuff that's going to show
Speaker 1: up on on shelves, some of it now, other stuff
Speaker 1: will be available later on, and then a few products
Speaker 1: are kind of in the prototype stage which we may
Speaker 1: never see implemented into an actual consumer product. Yeah, sort
Speaker 1: of like the the auto shows. Actually the Detroit Auto
Speaker 1: Show was going on at the same time, um, but
Speaker 1: that wasn't in Las Vegas. Curiously, Um, must have something
Speaker 1: to do with the name of the Detroit Casino. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean they're they're they're hundreds of companies
Speaker 1: I guess technically thousands of companies um exhibiting on at
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas Convention Center and at several hotels around
Speaker 1: the area, The Venetian, the LVH what was formerly known
Speaker 1: as the Las Vegas Hilton but is now just the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Hotel. Yeah. Yeah, so um uh it's it's
Speaker 1: always extremely busy. I mean for the people who go.
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't, it may sound like
Speaker 1: it's really cool because you get a lot of time
Speaker 1: checking out the latest gadgets, but you know, not for
Speaker 1: the for the people who are working the show, both
Speaker 1: as exhibitors and the media, it can be exhausting because
Speaker 1: you're you're sort of uh uh uh and enveloping yourself
Speaker 1: in tech from the time you get up until the
Speaker 1: time you go to bed and at night, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. Yeah and uh and this year was
Speaker 1: a record breaking year as far as attendance goes. The
Speaker 1: the attendance was over one hundred fifty three thousand people.
Speaker 1: So that's a lot of people, even in in a
Speaker 1: building as as big as the lvc C. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think they said they had one point seven million square
Speaker 1: feet of exhibition space in the convention center this year.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, even in that size, it's it's still crowded,
Speaker 1: and you gotta you know, if you've listened to our
Speaker 1: ce S podcast, we've talked about the experience. So we
Speaker 1: won't dwell on it too much here because we don't
Speaker 1: want to repeat ourselves too much. But yeah, it can
Speaker 1: be overwhelming, especially to someone who has never been to
Speaker 1: the show before. Now, and this was my fourth c
Speaker 1: e S, so I kind of knew what to expect.
Speaker 1: Although in years past the attendance level had dropped a
Speaker 1: little bit. Last year was was fairly was fairly well attended,
Speaker 1: but twelve was a record breaking year, which was that
Speaker 1: was new to me. It wasn't since two thousand eight
Speaker 1: that it had felt that crowded. Yeah. Um, And and
Speaker 1: often at these shows, not always, but often at these shows,
Speaker 1: there's there's a product or a handful of products that
Speaker 1: absolutely steal a show. Um. Speaking as someone who didn't go,
Speaker 1: I didn't get the sense that there was one product
Speaker 1: that people were just you know, it was just so
Speaker 1: jaw dropping lee awesome that everyone was talking about it.
Speaker 1: But it does seemed like they were a handful of
Speaker 1: products that people were sort of going, Okay, now that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, there were there was a collection of
Speaker 1: products that I think got a lot of attention during
Speaker 1: the show itself. And while there might not be like
Speaker 1: you can think of like the Palm pre or the
Speaker 1: or the smart watch from a few years ago, like
Speaker 1: those were devices that got people buzzing on the floor
Speaker 1: and almost it almost became their show. I agree that
Speaker 1: I don't think there was any single product that really
Speaker 1: dominated this year, but there were a lot of products
Speaker 1: that got quite a bit of of mention and uh,
Speaker 1: and then there were new product categories they got a
Speaker 1: lot of attention, like the ultrabook category is a very
Speaker 1: good example up to you know, last year's CEOs. Even
Speaker 1: though there were a couple of computers out there that
Speaker 1: probably could have qualified to be an ultra book, the
Speaker 1: designation itself really had not emerged in the first part
Speaker 1: of it was the second of twenty eleven when we
Speaker 1: started to hear about ultra books. Yeah, um, specifically, actually
Speaker 1: they made and tell is behind the term ultra book,
Speaker 1: and you made their announcement after ce S last year.
Speaker 1: So uh, just in brief, and we're gonna have an
Speaker 1: episode all about ultra books coming out later, so we
Speaker 1: won't go too into detail here, but it's an ultrabook
Speaker 1: has to have an Intel Core processor, it has to
Speaker 1: be a certain thickness or thinner, uh, and it has
Speaker 1: to be able to boot up from sleep mode to
Speaker 1: active mode in seven seconds or less. So really it's
Speaker 1: an competitor to the MacBook Air. That's ultimately what ultra
Speaker 1: book is and tablets and tablets, you know, and to
Speaker 1: a to a certain degree, really, the ultra book was
Speaker 1: almost an a response to the way tablets had affected
Speaker 1: the netbook industry. So ultra books are kind of you
Speaker 1: know that they're they're more powerful and larger than netbooks,
Speaker 1: but they're also still very portable because they're very, very
Speaker 1: slim and light. Because tablets were a big thing at
Speaker 1: C and they were still a big thing in too,
Speaker 1: there were odd of tablets on display, a lot of tablets,
Speaker 1: but they weren't they weren't show stealers like some of
Speaker 1: the ultra books that you saw. No ultra books, I
Speaker 1: think mainly because it was a new category took a
Speaker 1: lot more attention. Because tablets at this point, really, especially
Speaker 1: Android tablets, we've seen so many of them that it's
Speaker 1: hard to get people excited about tablet, even if it's
Speaker 1: a really good device. It's just, you know, it's almost
Speaker 1: like the Boy who Cried Wolf, right, You hear it
Speaker 1: enough times and you're just like, oh, okay, it's another
Speaker 1: Android tablet, and you may not pay the attention that
Speaker 1: that device actually deserves to that device. But so there
Speaker 1: were still plenty of tablets. I would say that just
Speaker 1: about every major company had at least one or two
Speaker 1: different kinds of tablets on display. We also saw some
Speaker 1: Windows eight tablets on display. One of my favorite devices
Speaker 1: was an Android tablet on display, which was the Asis
Speaker 1: Transformer Prime. UM very very sleek, very uh, very responsive. No,
Speaker 1: it does not transformed, but as it was, you can't
Speaker 1: get a docking station that's essentially a keyboard, so it
Speaker 1: turns it almost like into a laptop computer, but a
Speaker 1: very very snappy processor and that it was very responsive.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the devices that I actually
Speaker 1: sought out on the floor. I had heard about it
Speaker 1: and I had to find it. And that was a
Speaker 1: little tricky because it was it was it was lumped
Speaker 1: in with other companies. It wasn't like there was the
Speaker 1: ass booth you would go to and see it. It
Speaker 1: was more like you'd go to these other booths that
Speaker 1: had one on display in order to showcase something else.
Speaker 1: But I'm really just interested in the hardware. Um, So
Speaker 1: that was you know, tablets were still a big deal,
Speaker 1: but I would say ultra books definitely were more of
Speaker 1: a show stealer as far as a category goes. And
Speaker 1: Intel had said that in we should expect between sixty
Speaker 1: five and seventy different ultra books coming out onto the market. Uh,
Speaker 1: some of the ultra books that were on display at
Speaker 1: CES may not ever go to market, like Intel's Nikishi,
Speaker 1: which had a clear window in the keyboard section, of
Speaker 1: the notebook and you close the notebook. Uh and the
Speaker 1: clear section gives you an actually touch screen interface, so
Speaker 1: even when your notebooks closed, you still have an active
Speaker 1: computing element there and you can run certain apps, check email,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. This is very Windows eight Metro
Speaker 1: kind of layout. So, uh, you know, we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of that and and other innovations and ultra books,
Speaker 1: mostly esthetic designs, like really super slim, sleek designs to
Speaker 1: kind of go head to head with the MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: Samsung Series nine was probably one of the more striking designs.
Speaker 1: HPS Envy Spector was also very striking, very pretty design.
Speaker 1: What had gorilla glass on on the outside of the Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: to help protect against scratches and things like that. There
Speaker 1: was gorilla glass all along the back of it. Gorilla
Speaker 1: glass also represented ces corning headed booth. It was a
Speaker 1: gorilla glass too that when the unveiled grill to it's
Speaker 1: thinner than the original gorilla glass and just as strong
Speaker 1: and uh so we saw demonstrations of that where they
Speaker 1: showed people trying to scratch the glass or break the glass,
Speaker 1: showing how it stood up to force compared to previous
Speaker 1: versions of gorilla glass. And competing glasses that have you know,
Speaker 1: the protection built into it. Um. So yeah, they were there.
Speaker 1: We also saw I mean, of course CES, it's hard
Speaker 1: to talk about CS. We'll talk about television's TVs again.
Speaker 1: We're a huge deal now this year, I would say
Speaker 1: that the you know, in years past, it's all been
Speaker 1: about better resolution, faster refresh rates and and the size
Speaker 1: of the TV. Yeah, this year, those are still important,
Speaker 1: but smart TV really was another thing that's being pushed
Speaker 1: heavily at CS. And you know, you went to c
Speaker 1: S two thousand eight. You remember the Internet, the I
Speaker 1: P t V s we saw, right, Yeah, we really
Speaker 1: took Yeah, no they didn't. Yeah, And see that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that it's weird to say that four
Speaker 1: years later we're starting to see it actually kind of
Speaker 1: get more support. But then you think about it. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, the widgets, the applications you
Speaker 1: saw and smart TVs were very limited. They were so
Speaker 1: as things like weather reports or stock prices or news
Speaker 1: a news feed, but that was about it. Well, now
Speaker 1: you go and you look at a smart TV, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the smart TVs are concentrating on alternate
Speaker 1: ways of getting content on your television. So having Netflix
Speaker 1: Instant directly integrated into the television set, or Hulu Plus
Speaker 1: or Amazon Video. These are are things that are being
Speaker 1: put into TVs from the get go, so you don't
Speaker 1: have to have a video game console or a set
Speaker 1: top box like Roku necessary in order to be able
Speaker 1: to access these things. Um Now, I would definitely say
Speaker 1: that there's not really any danger of those set top
Speaker 1: boxes going out of business anytime soon, because it's pretty
Speaker 1: expensive to go and replace your TV, you know. So
Speaker 1: I think those companies have to really look at what
Speaker 1: their future is going to hold, like they need to
Speaker 1: have a long term plan in place, because maybe five
Speaker 1: years from now you might start seeing companies like Roku
Speaker 1: having issues because if it's built into more and more televisions,
Speaker 1: then it becomes less relevant of a product. So hopefully
Speaker 1: those companies are starting to develop long term plans that
Speaker 1: can take into account the the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff they offer right now is going to
Speaker 1: be built into televisions in the near future. Roku, by
Speaker 1: the way, also introduced a USB dongle. Yeah, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what I was going to mention. Even the set top
Speaker 1: boxes themselves are sort of changing form factor in Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny because the Roku two came out
Speaker 1: in eleven and that was a smaller form factor than
Speaker 1: the original Roku. Right. You look at and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so tiny and it's pretty and it's not just
Speaker 1: a black box. Wow. And then ces they bring out
Speaker 1: a dongle that connects to a USB port. A lot
Speaker 1: of televisions now come with USB ports where you can
Speaker 1: do things like like load photographs directly to your your television. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it interacts with the TV and becomes essentially your
Speaker 1: Roku set um. You know, it has the functionality built
Speaker 1: into it, but it's it's now it's not even a
Speaker 1: set top box anymore, right into the TV itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of cool, uh, you know. And and
Speaker 1: again that's the way of differentiating itself from other set
Speaker 1: top boxes and still trying to keep the price point down.
Speaker 1: The one of the things that attractive things about Roku
Speaker 1: is that it tends to be around fifty dollars, and
Speaker 1: I think that the USB dongle was going to be
Speaker 1: priced at around still pretty attractive, especially when you're thinking like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's one less box, one less set of cables I
Speaker 1: have to worry about, you know, I don't have to work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to look like an octopus exploded behind
Speaker 1: my television. You Yeah, that's the way my TV looks
Speaker 1: right now. Uh. I would say that probably the television
Speaker 1: that got the most attention while I was there was
Speaker 1: an LGO LED display. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's partially
Speaker 1: because oh lad is still such a it seems kind
Speaker 1: of foreign, like it's an elusive category to make an
Speaker 1: organic LED TV. Now, a lot of us have smartphones
Speaker 1: with o LAD screens on them, but they're far more
Speaker 1: common in small form factors than in large. Yeah. Even
Speaker 1: back in two thousand eight, we saw prototypes of oh
Speaker 1: led televisions, but in those cases they were very small
Speaker 1: TVs and expensive, very expensive, and things like, you know,
Speaker 1: a twelve inch television screen and you think, wow, that's
Speaker 1: you know, in the era of the of the super
Speaker 1: enormous big screen TV, that's nothing. Well, this was the
Speaker 1: year where we started seeing oh lad screens being pushed
Speaker 1: in the large television form factor and l G had
Speaker 1: a fifty five inch television oh lad screen three D capable. Um,
Speaker 1: it was gorgeous and and depending on who you ask.
Speaker 1: It was between four and five millimeters thick, which meant
Speaker 1: that if you looked at it in profile, it looked
Speaker 1: like a pane of glass. I mean, it was so thin,
Speaker 1: and and it was just everyone's jaw dropped when they
Speaker 1: saw how how the profile of this device. People were
Speaker 1: trying to take pictures of it and having problems taking
Speaker 1: pictures of it because it was so thin that it
Speaker 1: was not really registering in the photo very well. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I have a picture of one. I took
Speaker 1: it on my my phone, so it's not a very
Speaker 1: high definition photo, but I took a picture on my
Speaker 1: phone and it has one of these television's face on
Speaker 1: in the background and then one in profile in the foreground,
Speaker 1: and it just looks like there's a line like like wow,
Speaker 1: that television is terrible because look at the line of
Speaker 1: distortion right in the middle. And no, no, no, that's
Speaker 1: another TV in profile in front of the one that
Speaker 1: you're looking at. Whoa so um. And also they did
Speaker 1: something kind of cool and that they have a proprietary
Speaker 1: port on the LG television that connects to a control
Speaker 1: box and so you plug in all your peripherals to
Speaker 1: the control box and then you put the proprietary chord
Speaker 1: between these control box and the television set, and that
Speaker 1: way you cut down on all those chords going to
Speaker 1: the TV. Because when you get a form factor that thin,
Speaker 1: suddenly chord management becomes a big deal, right because you
Speaker 1: know you're like, well, I've got the power chord and
Speaker 1: then I've got all my H D, M I chords
Speaker 1: or whatever component composite whatever you have, all of that
Speaker 1: has to go to the TV from my peripherals. Well,
Speaker 1: now suddenly I've got this gorgeous television with all these
Speaker 1: ugly bulky chords hanging off. Well that that was sort
Speaker 1: of the approach of getting the control box in there,
Speaker 1: So that way you would have a different device. You
Speaker 1: plug everything into that almost act like a receiver and
Speaker 1: then feeds all of that stuff as a switch to
Speaker 1: the television in itself. Um, there's a there's a bit
Speaker 1: of a caveat. I have to add this lad screen
Speaker 1: and that's Uh, it'll cost you a pretty chunk of
Speaker 1: change if you want to buy one. They did not
Speaker 1: have an official price mentioned at c E S. Then
Speaker 1: if you have to ask, you can't afford it. Kind of,
Speaker 1: but there are there's the devices. These TVs have launched
Speaker 1: already in Europe. Okay, and if you look at how
Speaker 1: much they cost in Europe and you were to translate
Speaker 1: that to American dollars, we're essentially looking at a ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollar television TV. Meanwhile, you had other companies like
Speaker 1: Sharp looking at pushing larger and larger form factors, trying
Speaker 1: to get those popular in the consumer market. So Sharp
Speaker 1: at their press conference had an entire video about how
Speaker 1: an eight inch television just that's not that big. Eight
Speaker 1: inch television isn't too big for your living room. Okay, Well, um,
Speaker 1: I just got I just moved into a new place,
Speaker 1: and I've got a fairly spacious living room, not not huge,
Speaker 1: but bigger than what I'm used to. Uh. I can't personally,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine having an a d inch television in
Speaker 1: that space. It would to me it would look up scene. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the experience is great because the televisions were fantastic,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong about that. The quality of the
Speaker 1: TV screens were amazing. Uh. The size, though, just was
Speaker 1: so enormous. I don't know that I would ever get
Speaker 1: over the fact that it was that big. UM would
Speaker 1: be pushing it for me. Yeah. So, um, also, not
Speaker 1: to be out done, Samsung announced in oh led TV
Speaker 1: ed TV, so they're competing right with LG in that
Speaker 1: same space. And uh, meanwhile, you had Sony coming out
Speaker 1: with a technology they were calling Crystal l e ED,
Speaker 1: so not O l e ED, they called it crystal
Speaker 1: l e ED. I am not entirely clear on what
Speaker 1: that means, not crystal clear anyway, So I don't know
Speaker 1: what the technology behind crystal LED actually is. That's something
Speaker 1: I have to look into. But that's kind of their
Speaker 1: approach to this ultra high definition era. That was another
Speaker 1: big deal, the move to ultra high definition. So you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about ten A D being the the uh,
Speaker 1: the cream of the crop right now. Yeah, they're talking
Speaker 1: four K sets and there were even a couple of
Speaker 1: prototype eight K sets on display. The trick about these
Speaker 1: is that there's no one producing content for them yet.
Speaker 1: That we have an article about ultra high definition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was written by Jessica Toothman. Uh, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite articles on the site. It is. It is a
Speaker 1: very good article. You guys, If you have not read
Speaker 1: how ultra high definition television works, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: I've had industry experts tell me that that's a great article.
Speaker 1: So props to Jessica from some of that. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the four K and eight K sets, that's they're even
Speaker 1: higher resolution than than what we think of as HDTV
Speaker 1: right now. But the problem is that if you went
Speaker 1: out and bought one right now, you wouldn't have anything
Speaker 1: you could watch on it that could run at that resolution.
Speaker 1: You know, we need the rest of it. We need
Speaker 1: the next level and Blu ray technology, We need the
Speaker 1: next level in broadcast technology because otherwise you just you
Speaker 1: just have you have a set that's capable of running
Speaker 1: at a very high resolution. You just won't have anything
Speaker 1: that can that can take advantage of it. Um. But
Speaker 1: we saw some of that. That was like a fairly
Speaker 1: big move. Another thing that was big at CES this
Speaker 1: year we're apps. Apps have become a big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: I was gonna stop you before we left TV for good.
Speaker 1: One thing I didn't notice you mentioning was big hit.
Speaker 1: Oh the big buzzword three D. Yeah, I understand it
Speaker 1: was understated. This year, three D was still a thing.
Speaker 1: There was still I think every press conference that I
Speaker 1: went to the head Television has had a no, not everyone.
Speaker 1: I take that back. Most of the press conferences I
Speaker 1: went to that had a manufacturer that made televisions is
Speaker 1: part of their main line of products, had a three
Speaker 1: D portion where you had to put on glasses and
Speaker 1: watch lgs. Big deal was that they were really pushing
Speaker 1: passive glasses technology as opposed to active glasses. Active glasses,
Speaker 1: of course, have a shutter in them that goes on
Speaker 1: and off in time with the refresh rate of the television,
Speaker 1: so that each eye seems just sees just one set
Speaker 1: of images, and the two sets together combine in your
Speaker 1: brain to create this three dimensional environment. But they those
Speaker 1: are powered glasses. You have to you have to have
Speaker 1: some sort of power source to keep them going, so
Speaker 1: that means you have to keep recharging them. They're also
Speaker 1: a little bulkier than passive glasses. Passive glasses just use
Speaker 1: polarized light and they only allow one kind of polarized
Speaker 1: light through, so that you know, each eye gets again
Speaker 1: one set of images, but both sets of images are
Speaker 1: being displayed at the same time on your television. They're
Speaker 1: not alternating like active glasses. And then's like the active
Speaker 1: glasses have a standard much better chance of breaking well,
Speaker 1: because it's something else that can fail technologically, and and
Speaker 1: they're more expensive. Passive glasses are less expensive. So uh
Speaker 1: LG is betting on the passive glasses technology. It's not
Speaker 1: the only one either. There are a lot of other
Speaker 1: companies that also have passive glasses sets. Three D was
Speaker 1: still a still a thing, but it was not being
Speaker 1: pushed as hard. The smart TV element was being pushed
Speaker 1: way harder than three D. So if you look at
Speaker 1: years past, I would say that every C E S
Speaker 1: seems to have a kind of an emerging technology that's
Speaker 1: coming out that starts to um get people talking about stuff. So,
Speaker 1: uh Like in two thousand nine, I would say it
Speaker 1: was tablets, Like that was when the tablet idea was
Speaker 1: really starting to get pushed. Two thou ten would be
Speaker 1: three D. Two thousand eleven was this idea of a
Speaker 1: digital ecosystem where all of your devices, like your appliances
Speaker 1: could talk to each other. Now that continued also in
Speaker 1: but that wasn't you know, at that point, it's no
Speaker 1: longer an emerging technology, it's a maturing technology. The emerging technology.
Speaker 1: In twelve, I would say, besides ultrabooks, which you know
Speaker 1: is a new category that was the idea of revolutionizing
Speaker 1: the user interface across multiple devices and multiple platforms. I
Speaker 1: think that the big uh, the things that really pushed
Speaker 1: the industry to do this are the Microsoft Connect that
Speaker 1: that was obviously a something that was influencing manufacturers in
Speaker 1: their decision to kind of push user interfaces, and also
Speaker 1: products like Apple's Serie and and Google's voice recognition software.
Speaker 1: This is stuff that is pushing the various industries to
Speaker 1: try and to create new ways for you to interact
Speaker 1: with your electronics. UM and that's tough to do because
Speaker 1: it's not just a technological old barrier, it's a user
Speaker 1: The user interface barrier is psychological too. You have to
Speaker 1: look at the way people use stuff, and even if
Speaker 1: you create a new way that maybe is easier or
Speaker 1: more intuitive, there's a lot of inertia you have to
Speaker 1: fight against to get people to adopt it. So if
Speaker 1: I'm used to using a keyboard and mouse, or even
Speaker 1: a keyboard and a touch pad, uh, it might take
Speaker 1: a lot for me to get to a point where
Speaker 1: I want to use a touch screen device, right Like,
Speaker 1: So we're seeing computers that come out now that have
Speaker 1: touch screens integrated into the computer itself. So notebook computers
Speaker 1: having a touch screen, or even desktop computers having a
Speaker 1: touch screen. Well, I know a lot of people who say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm really going to use that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: reaching out and touching the screen. Am I'm really going
Speaker 1: to do that. I think in a couple of years
Speaker 1: that will pretty much be the norm and we won't
Speaker 1: even think about it. It'll be like the way the
Speaker 1: mouse was way back in well we were looking at
Speaker 1: the next step. We're looking at just your controls where
Speaker 1: you move, make emotion in the air and that gives
Speaker 1: a command to whatever your electronics devices and it responds
Speaker 1: in kind. I saw a lot of this with televisions
Speaker 1: where it was going to be uh integrated directly into
Speaker 1: the TV set. So think of a Microsoft Connect being
Speaker 1: part of your TV. So if you want to change
Speaker 1: the channel, you can do that by gesturing in the air, right,
Speaker 1: you might you might lift the can, You might lift
Speaker 1: a hand and do a swipe motion to the left
Speaker 1: or to the right to change the channel, or you
Speaker 1: might raise your hand to to increase the volume. There
Speaker 1: were also a lot that were including things like voice
Speaker 1: recognition software where you would give voice commands to your
Speaker 1: device including TVs to get it to UM to respond,
Speaker 1: and I argued it, well, it's something boisterous, like say
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl party that might become a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, where someone yells out something and then the
Speaker 1: television interprets that to switch over to desperate housewise or
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, and suddenly something You've got
Speaker 1: a bunch of guy who are really getting into the show,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. It could be a good thing anyway.
Speaker 1: The point being that I saw that that was a
Speaker 1: big theme and everyone had different interpretations and implementations of
Speaker 1: this technology. So there was a company called soft Kinetic
Speaker 1: which had a three D sensing technology that is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you looked at it, you would first think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like Microsoft Connect, but they use a different approach.
Speaker 1: So the connect, the way it it interprets depth is
Speaker 1: that it projects a grid onto the environment from the
Speaker 1: camera right so, and then it it interprets the um
Speaker 1: the deformation of the grid as motion and commands. So
Speaker 1: think of a flat grid and then if I stand
Speaker 1: like I'm pressing against that grid, the grid to forms
Speaker 1: around my shape and as I move around, that's what
Speaker 1: it measures. Soft Kinetics depth. Sensor technology uses a different approach.
Speaker 1: It uses light that's being protected at you, not in
Speaker 1: the usible spectrum by the way that's being protected at you,
Speaker 1: bounces back and hits a sensor, and depending on how
Speaker 1: long it took the light to hit the sensor, that's
Speaker 1: how it knows how far away you are. So it
Speaker 1: actually has a greater resolution, like you can get closer
Speaker 1: to the camera and still have accurate motions than you
Speaker 1: could with connect because connects technology is different. If you
Speaker 1: get too close to the grid, it won't deform properly, right,
Speaker 1: But this uses a different technology, And so their point
Speaker 1: was it was something that could be worked into things
Speaker 1: like tablets or laptop computers where you've got the sensor
Speaker 1: technology built in, but you can be closer to the
Speaker 1: camera and it won't be a problem. But another example
Speaker 1: was Toby t o b I I. They had eye
Speaker 1: tracking technology. Really yeah, they just used it used a
Speaker 1: webcam in a computer that could track your eyes where
Speaker 1: your eyes were on the screen. You had to calibrate
Speaker 1: it first, but once he calibrated it, it would know
Speaker 1: where you're looking on the screen and respond. It was
Speaker 1: the weirdest sensation to read a web page, and as
Speaker 1: I was getting towards the bomb the page, it started
Speaker 1: to automatically scroll up, and as soon as my eyes
Speaker 1: went up, it stopped scrolling so I could continue to read.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm controlling it with my mind.
Speaker 1: And you could even select links. You would stare at
Speaker 1: a link and if you looked at the link for
Speaker 1: you know, two or three seconds, that would be the
Speaker 1: command of I want to go to there. So imagine
Speaker 1: having Windows eight the Metro design. You have all these
Speaker 1: icons on the screen that all go to different applications.
Speaker 1: You just stare at an application for a couple of
Speaker 1: seconds and it launches. It was and they even had
Speaker 1: a video game where it was kind of like Asteroids.
Speaker 1: You had to destroy asteroids that were coming in towards
Speaker 1: Actually you're protecting Earth, so kind of a combination of
Speaker 1: asteroids and missile command. So asteroids are flying at the
Speaker 1: Earth and you stare at the asteroids and a laser
Speaker 1: shoots the asteroids you're staring at. So you just have
Speaker 1: to keep on looking at the different asteroids they are
Speaker 1: coming in and constrant on the ones that are moving
Speaker 1: the fastest towards the Earth. That was again another really
Speaker 1: neat implementation. Um, And and it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you know, you're not necessarily going to see
Speaker 1: a Toby branded computer, but they might be able to
Speaker 1: form relationships with other manufacturers and incorporate the technology directly
Speaker 1: into that computer. And yeah, speaking of Microsoft, this was
Speaker 1: their last year for the keynote. Wow. Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: their last year being on the floor too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was it was underwhelming. They said they didn't
Speaker 1: really bring much now the keynote. The keynote wasn't anything
Speaker 1: particularly overwhelming or exciting, but that was kind of the point, um, Microsoft.
Speaker 1: The reason why Microsoft is leaving ce S, or at
Speaker 1: least the reason that we've been given, is that, uh uh,
Speaker 1: that that they their release cycle for their products is
Speaker 1: different than the ce S schedule. So that's the real
Speaker 1: problem with having a big show like the two big
Speaker 1: problems with having a big show like this one. You're
Speaker 1: beholden to their schedule, not your own. Right, So if
Speaker 1: your product isn't ready to be shown off, then you
Speaker 1: have the risk of, well, do we show off something
Speaker 1: that isn't totally ready yet and then if things fail
Speaker 1: that could really hurt our product, right, Or do we
Speaker 1: not show it, not mention it, and then just kind
Speaker 1: of have a lackluster show anyway. The other problem is
Speaker 1: that you're making announcements the same time everyone else is,
Speaker 1: so there's always the risk that your announcement will be
Speaker 1: overshadowed by someone else. Even if what you have is
Speaker 1: a really great product, there's the chance that some little
Speaker 1: no name company has created something that just it hits
Speaker 1: that that sweet spot, you know, like the not to
Speaker 1: say that these are no name companies, but again like
Speaker 1: the Palm pre the palm pre got a lot of attention. Well,
Speaker 1: that took attention away from other products, and there could
Speaker 1: have been company saying like, I don't understand this product
Speaker 1: is great, it's fantastic, it's not getting the traction it
Speaker 1: needs to get. Everyone's paying attention to the smartphone, which
Speaker 1: is not even in the same category as what we make. Um,
Speaker 1: there's that danger too. So uh yeah, Microsoft had made
Speaker 1: the announcement that was going to be the last time
Speaker 1: that they were going to be on the show floor
Speaker 1: and the last time they delivered the keynote. Traditionally, the
Speaker 1: Microsoft keynote is what launches the whole show. Now there
Speaker 1: are are press events that happened the two days prior
Speaker 1: to the show floor opening. But it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you don't really think of ceings starting until the Microsoft
Speaker 1: keynote happens. So the fact that that's not going to
Speaker 1: be there anymore, it's kind of a big deal. Also,
Speaker 1: from what I understand, news dot com reported it took
Speaker 1: forty five minutes for the exhibition space that Microsoft usually
Speaker 1: takes up to be sold. And uh, there are two
Speaker 1: companies that ended up purchasing the exhibition in space. One
Speaker 1: was a Chinese based electronics company called Hycins. The other company.
Speaker 1: Do you know what the other company was, You're very
Speaker 1: familiar with the other company, Dish Network. Oh yeah, they
Speaker 1: bought up the rest of the space. Now, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, who have never been to cees, Microsoft
Speaker 1: had some pretty sweet real estate. There are different entrances
Speaker 1: to the Central Hall and the Central Hall at the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Convention Centers, where I'd say the majority of
Speaker 1: the really really big names are the biggest booths by
Speaker 1: far are in the Central Hall. That's where Sony and
Speaker 1: Panasonic and and LG and UH and Tshiba and all
Speaker 1: these other big companies. That's where they are is in
Speaker 1: the Central Hall. Well, Microsoft was in one of the
Speaker 1: entrances to the Central Hall, the one that was connected
Speaker 1: to the South Hall. You walk into the Central Hall
Speaker 1: and on your left would be the Microsoft booth and
Speaker 1: on your right was Intel, and they just dominated that section.
Speaker 1: They were huge booths and Intel still will be because they,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, are still playing on being
Speaker 1: and CS. Well, now High Sense and Dish Network are
Speaker 1: going to have that prime real estate on the left
Speaker 1: when you first walk in, and it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see how that affects traffic in the Central Hall. I'm
Speaker 1: really kind of curious about it. Um. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: I think the sad fact is Microsoft's departure from c
Speaker 1: E S got more pressed than Microsoft's announcements at CES. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now that being said, I did visit the Microsoft booth
Speaker 1: and I thought that Windows eight looked really really nice. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I also played with Connect and played a three
Speaker 1: D Star Wars pod racing game and had a good
Speaker 1: time until I hit a wall. Really, pod racing, you
Speaker 1: mean that that thing was now unveiled in episode one. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to defend episode one, and I'm certainly
Speaker 1: not going to defend the pod racing you know, like
Speaker 1: many series, that took took over half of episode one.
Speaker 1: But as a game, it's awesome. Alright. As a movie,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm still not sold. But as a game,
Speaker 1: I loved it. Um. So that was but that was
Speaker 1: kind of fun and uh as far as booth spaces go,
Speaker 1: there were some interesting stories there too. UM. In the
Speaker 1: South Hall, the upper level of the South Hall when
Speaker 1: you walk in on your right is the Kodak booth. Now,
Speaker 1: Kodak was at the time looking at going filing for bankruptcy,
Speaker 1: which they have Yeah since since the show, they have
Speaker 1: actually filed for bankruptcy. Uh. In past years, Kodak has
Speaker 1: had some pretty cool booths, some very interactive displays, uh,
Speaker 1: really large ones. Um. You know, there was one where
Speaker 1: there was a display that was a vertical display and
Speaker 1: then a horizontal display. So it's like an L shaped
Speaker 1: uh display, very long and narrow, but it made it
Speaker 1: look like a waterfall. You know, information was falling down
Speaker 1: the vertical side but hit the horizontal side then slide
Speaker 1: down and the horizontal side was about table height and
Speaker 1: it was multi touch so you could then interact with
Speaker 1: the display when it was on the horizontal level gorgeous,
Speaker 1: very very uh like, when you saw it, you had
Speaker 1: to go play with it, right, it pulled you into
Speaker 1: the booth. Well, this year, Codex presence was much more understated.
Speaker 1: UM still had a pretty good sized booth, but there
Speaker 1: was a it was a little bit of a sober
Speaker 1: atmosphere in Kodak, which was you know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: rough to see. It's always rough to see any company
Speaker 1: that's struggling show up at c S because you realize,
Speaker 1: you know that those representatives are going to have to
Speaker 1: answer a lot of really tough questions, tough, uncomfortable questions
Speaker 1: about the state of the company and what they're gonna
Speaker 1: do to get out of whatever slump they're in. So
Speaker 1: I was gonna say gaming gaming, Well, you know, CS
Speaker 1: is not as big on gaming as E three, but
Speaker 1: there were a lot of gaming peripherals, um there always are,
Speaker 1: uh there's and apps showed off a lot of gaming,
Speaker 1: including apps made specifically for television. So of course you
Speaker 1: will eventually be able to play Angry Birds on your
Speaker 1: TV without any other device connected to your television, because,
Speaker 1: as we all know, Angry Birds is the measure of
Speaker 1: whether or not the apps on your device are good
Speaker 1: or not? Yes, And of course they're coming out with
Speaker 1: the uh D Angry Birds device, which actually doesn't show
Speaker 1: TV because they're just an Angry Birds game. Birds wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me. Um. There's also there are also a lot
Speaker 1: of examples of gamification where things that wouldn't normally be
Speaker 1: considered a game have had game elements added to them,
Speaker 1: including fitness technology. There's a lot of fitness technology. This
Speaker 1: year at CES we saw that we know, we it's
Speaker 1: always been part of ce S, but last year we
Speaker 1: really saw that takeoff with body Media FIT. Little body
Speaker 1: Media is back and they showed updated versions of the
Speaker 1: fit device. That's an arm band you wear that has
Speaker 1: sensors in it, including uh sensors that that measured the
Speaker 1: um how much you've sweat, your body temperature, has accelerometer
Speaker 1: in it and everything so that it keeps track of
Speaker 1: how much activity you do and it accumulates data and
Speaker 1: then exports that to your computer. You sink using a
Speaker 1: cable um at least the standard version, You sink with
Speaker 1: the cable, and then you can track how much energy
Speaker 1: you burn per day. You also can put into the
Speaker 1: software you know what you ate so that you can
Speaker 1: track how many calories you consumed versus how many you
Speaker 1: burned and stay on track to lose weight or just
Speaker 1: use an exercise program. Well, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: other devices out there that compete directly with the body
Speaker 1: media fit. Motorola had one Motoactive that was very pretty
Speaker 1: um I was also an MP three player, so it
Speaker 1: had added functionality there you could you could use it
Speaker 1: while exercising and listen to music. But then you had
Speaker 1: a device. There was a device called the Strive str
Speaker 1: i I V which you could attach to a key chain. Uh.
Speaker 1: This also was sort of like an advanced pedometer, so
Speaker 1: it keeps track of your steps. But it also had
Speaker 1: some games in it. It has a touch screen interface
Speaker 1: and there's a game that's kind of like farm Bill,
Speaker 1: like as you exercise, you accumulate currency within the game
Speaker 1: and then you can use that to to build up
Speaker 1: your your character's realm. But it also had a really
Speaker 1: cool idea in that as you as you uh take
Speaker 1: more and more steps, you can dedicate the the currency
Speaker 1: that you generate. Two charities, three different charities. There's one
Speaker 1: for clean water, there was one for save the rainforest.
Speaker 1: Um I forget what The third one was off the
Speaker 1: top of my but as you walked you could end
Speaker 1: up banking that toward a charity and then Strive and
Speaker 1: its corporate partners would donate money for every x amount
Speaker 1: of energy that you expended. Yeah, so it gives not
Speaker 1: just gamification, but also sort of this this idea that
Speaker 1: you can help other people while getting fit. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, just other ways to motivate people to stay
Speaker 1: with it and not just you know, buy a product
Speaker 1: and use it for a couple of days and then
Speaker 1: forget about it. Yeah, by the way, you got ten
Speaker 1: points from mentioning gamification, thank you. Uh. And there there
Speaker 1: were a lot of other kind of cool things. There
Speaker 1: was a company called a Rasma which did augmented reality
Speaker 1: applications where you know, we've seen like the Nintendo three
Speaker 1: D S has augmented reality elements built into it where
Speaker 1: you have specific cards that you can point the three
Speaker 1: D S at the camerat and it'll create a virtual
Speaker 1: character will pop up on your screen on top of
Speaker 1: the picture of the physical card that's on the table, right,
Speaker 1: So that's augmented reality. Well Erasma sort of does similar stuff,
Speaker 1: except they do it with all sorts of things, not
Speaker 1: just uh, specific cards. So you can have let's say
Speaker 1: that you have a company that enters into an agreement
Speaker 1: with the Erasma and Erasma produces the app that would
Speaker 1: exist on your smartphone device or whatever. It has to
Speaker 1: be a device as a camera. And then obviously and
Speaker 1: then uh, the company, Let's say it's a soft drink company.
Speaker 1: If you point your camera at that soft drink, it
Speaker 1: might suddenly create this little animated character, right. That could
Speaker 1: end up being a link to something along the lines
Speaker 1: of you might get nutritional information, or it might be
Speaker 1: a link to a sweepstakes or a survey. You know,
Speaker 1: it could be pretty much anything that the manufacturer wants
Speaker 1: it to be. But it gives you that added level
Speaker 1: of information on top of the physical product, which is
Speaker 1: what the promise of augmented reality is all about. So
Speaker 1: that was really exciting to see. There was there was
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting Oh, cell phones, let me talk
Speaker 1: about smartphones. Yeah, okay, so did you see what I
Speaker 1: what I said I wanted after I saw it? You
Speaker 1: mean the Samsung Galaxy Note. I want a Samsung Galaxy Note.
Speaker 1: It's bigger, that's the weird thing. It's smaller than a tablet,
Speaker 1: but it's bigger than a phone five point three inch display,
Speaker 1: which is big for a smartphone. And I was skeptical
Speaker 1: when I first saw one. I thought, yeah, when I
Speaker 1: first saw when, I thought, there's just no way. That's
Speaker 1: just too big. It's just too clunky. And then I
Speaker 1: got in my hand and I'm like, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: it's not too big for my hand. It doesn't feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: What about my pocket? So that slid one in my pocket, like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's not too big for my pocket. I no longer
Speaker 1: have an excuse um. And also black coats with sunglasses
Speaker 1: came over and said, okay, buddy, can you take that
Speaker 1: back out of your pocket now? Except that in this case,
Speaker 1: I was actually using someone else's Samsung Galaxy Note. It
Speaker 1: was a guy named Tony who works for This Week
Speaker 1: in Tech. He had one, Yes, so I got to
Speaker 1: play with it. Um. It has a stylus and it
Speaker 1: actually has handwriting RECOGNI technology built into it. So let's
Speaker 1: shout back to the newton Um. Yeah. But then, so
Speaker 1: let's say that you want to a text message, but
Speaker 1: you don't want to type it in using an on
Speaker 1: screen keyboard, you can actually scribble it down and then
Speaker 1: it will translate your chicken scratch into text, hopefully accurately.
Speaker 1: I guess it all depends on how bad your chicken scratches.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was a really cool phone. I thought that.
Speaker 1: Uh it has the Android operating system that I love,
Speaker 1: and it's got a nice big screen, so you can
Speaker 1: use it for all sorts of stuff. Uh. The biggest
Speaker 1: argument against is that it was at that size, it's
Speaker 1: a little awkward to use as a phone. It's almost
Speaker 1: more like a tablet than a phone in that case.
Speaker 1: But then you have to ask yourself, well, if you
Speaker 1: don't use your phone that frequently, then is it as
Speaker 1: big a deal? And the truth is, I use my
Speaker 1: phone not that often, Like I'll use it to talk
Speaker 1: with my wife, um or I might occasionally use it
Speaker 1: to make a call once in a while, But in general,
Speaker 1: I use my phone far more for executing apps and
Speaker 1: browsing the web and and that's o email and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So, uh, you know, that's that's an
Speaker 1: argument for something like the Samsung Galaxy Note. Now, if
Speaker 1: you just can't get past that form factor, then you know,
Speaker 1: I can totally you know, I can totally understand, like
Speaker 1: because it is it is pretty big. Um other interesting
Speaker 1: things the Razor project, Fiona, did you see that it's
Speaker 1: a gaming tablet and it's kind of cool. It had
Speaker 1: a special controllers that you could hook up to it
Speaker 1: that would uh turn it into this really kind of
Speaker 1: um innovative gaming device. Speaking of gaming, I also got
Speaker 1: a demonstration of hands on demonstration of the Nintendo we
Speaker 1: you and guys. I kind of liked it. Uh, it
Speaker 1: was really a pretty interesting implementation of a video gaming device.
Speaker 1: This in this case that we you you know, it
Speaker 1: has a controller that has its own LCD screen inside
Speaker 1: the controller and it's in the can strollers big. But
Speaker 1: you can use it in various ways. One way, the
Speaker 1: obvious way that a lot of people have concentrate on
Speaker 1: is that the game that the screen could show supplemental information.
Speaker 1: So for example, let's say you're playing a game like
Speaker 1: a Zelda game, Well it might be that all your
Speaker 1: health information, your items information is on your little screen,
Speaker 1: and then your big screen, the television is dedicated to
Speaker 1: the action that's going on in the game itself. So
Speaker 1: in that way, your your WEU controller could take the
Speaker 1: place of a heads up display. So then you just
Speaker 1: glanced out your screen to get that info and then
Speaker 1: otherwise you look back at the television for everything else
Speaker 1: but heads down display HDD. Yeah. The other the other
Speaker 1: way that it was used I thought was really cool
Speaker 1: was in multiplayer mode where they had four people playing
Speaker 1: with standard WE controllers, so the we remotes and the nunchucks,
Speaker 1: and then a fifth person was playing with the Nintendo
Speaker 1: We You control ler, and it would be the four
Speaker 1: versus one in various games. And then one of the
Speaker 1: games a person played a character who's trying to escape
Speaker 1: the other four by evading them for a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time within a maze. So I likened it to
Speaker 1: playing the game pac Man, where the person using the
Speaker 1: Wii You controller is playing the part of pac Man
Speaker 1: and everyone else is playing the part of the ghosts
Speaker 1: and they can actually you know, coordinate, Like I see him.
Speaker 1: He's heading to the yellow section and everyone starts running
Speaker 1: over there. It's like, oh no, no no, he's cut back
Speaker 1: to green and like you you so you try and
Speaker 1: cut them off and and and trap them. Uh. That
Speaker 1: was a really cool way of playing a game. I thought, now,
Speaker 1: is it gonna be enough for a Nintendo to really
Speaker 1: compete against Microsoft and Sony? I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you that U. When it comes to games,
Speaker 1: like if if you're really interested in having games where
Speaker 1: you have groups of people over to play, I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a neat way of shaking things up.
Speaker 1: And I kind of like it where you know, you
Speaker 1: can take turns being the one guy versus the other
Speaker 1: four players. That's kind of uh, you know, if nothing else,
Speaker 1: it gives you bragging rights if you if you win,
Speaker 1: like I was up against four of you guys, and
Speaker 1: I still kick butt. Yeah, yeah, well I've I've actually
Speaker 1: and this is the subject really for another day, but
Speaker 1: I have been hearing rumors that Microsoft and or Sony
Speaker 1: may consider getting out of the gaming hardware business just
Speaker 1: because it is so expensive and cutthroat to do uh
Speaker 1: research and development and compete so um. Not that they
Speaker 1: were getting out of gaming, but out of the manufacturing
Speaker 1: of the machines themselves. So that might, you know, if
Speaker 1: they decided to do that, that might give Nintendo the
Speaker 1: ability to stay in the market, if they're willing to
Speaker 1: do that. Yep. See ye, and uh, I guess i'll U.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much more I can talk about.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked about any of the the like the
Speaker 1: parties I went to, or I did go to some
Speaker 1: of those to get my hands on some stuff that
Speaker 1: wasn't really being shown on the show floor itself. Up.
Speaker 1: I also went to the International Association of web Tv Awards,
Speaker 1: which was really cool. Are buddies over at tech News
Speaker 1: Today one for Best News Show, and uh the guys
Speaker 1: over at Rooster Teeth one for Best Animated Web Series,
Speaker 1: and the Guild one everything else not not not entirely true,
Speaker 1: but it started to seem like it well deserved. They
Speaker 1: are all pioneers and web television, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting thing to see the the award show
Speaker 1: and actually, you know what, surprisingly went pretty smoothly. There
Speaker 1: were a couple of technical glitches, but overall I thought
Speaker 1: it was a pretty good effort. And actually I was
Speaker 1: very impressed. I shouldn't say pretty good, it was very impressive. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'll say one last little bit, the last little
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was really cool at the show floor.
Speaker 1: And we've seen these before. Two three D printers. Now,
Speaker 1: the idea of that three D printer has been around
Speaker 1: for a while. There have been quite a few of
Speaker 1: them out and there are companies that use them to
Speaker 1: help design prototypes. Um and there are other companies that
Speaker 1: will use them so that you can send a design
Speaker 1: and and they will print it out in three dimensions
Speaker 1: for you using some sort of polymers various ways. We've
Speaker 1: done a podcast about three D printers in the past. Well,
Speaker 1: the MakerBot was there and they actually have pre orders
Speaker 1: open for two thousand dollars for three D printers. So
Speaker 1: this is actually coming to the market where the average consumer,
Speaker 1: assuming you've got too grand to drop, can get hold
Speaker 1: of one of these printers. There was also the Cube
Speaker 1: three D, which was another three D printer on display
Speaker 1: at CS. Both of them were really interesting and they
Speaker 1: are able to print uh some neat stuff in various colors,
Speaker 1: and I mean it was it was it was cool
Speaker 1: to see them work, you know. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where we're getting closer and closer to the
Speaker 1: time where you'll be able to create a printer, just
Speaker 1: like the promise has always been there. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to create a printer that ultimately can print all the
Speaker 1: components for a second printer and then you just replicate printers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm thinking about buying myself one of those and
Speaker 1: printing myself a new car. Yeah, it might be. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like the Johnny Cash one piece of the
Speaker 1: time song. Yes, what model is it? Well, it's because
Speaker 1: it's gonna take you a while to get all those
Speaker 1: parts printed out, that's right, not in the lunch box.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, the printer. The printer is not so big
Speaker 1: that you could print a car. And plus I guess
Speaker 1: if you printed a car in one piece, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: really move, would it now? Anyway, Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was a good show overall. I had a really good time.
Speaker 1: Saw a lot of my friends that are in the
Speaker 1: tech journalism business. UM got to meet some other really
Speaker 1: cool people. Met with the channel flip founders who were
Speaker 1: They were great guys, phenomenal guys, very nice. Uh my
Speaker 1: buddy I as actar over this weekend Tech. He and
Speaker 1: I hung out a lot, uh and just sort of
Speaker 1: talked about the show and as well as just debated
Speaker 1: on where to go to eat that that was always
Speaker 1: a big discussion at c S. UM got to be
Speaker 1: on Tech News to while I was there, so those
Speaker 1: guys were there seen it was there. There are tons
Speaker 1: of celebrities at the e S. That's also a big thing.
Speaker 1: It's the companies will get various celebrities to come in
Speaker 1: and help draw attention to their booths. So like Tozy
Speaker 1: Robotics brought in Justin Bieber, which raised the question of
Speaker 1: whether or not he's a Bieber bot and uh I
Speaker 1: Hip brought in Snooky from the Jersey Shore as classy.
Speaker 1: I did not go to the I Hip party. I
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna go, and our our former editor
Speaker 1: here at How Stuff Works that Candice Keener, was begging
Speaker 1: me to go. But it started at ten pm local time,
Speaker 1: which now Vegas time, ten pm feels like one am
Speaker 1: to me and I am not. I am not a
Speaker 1: night ol. So that was that end up not happening.
Speaker 1: But yeah, other celebrities a little cool J fifty cent a,
Speaker 1: Linza Dishku was the celebrity ambassador to c e s A.
Speaker 1: Felicia Day of course was there for the International Association
Speaker 1: of Web TV Awards as well as just seeing other
Speaker 1: stuff that was there. Um Rick Fox, former Lakers player,
Speaker 1: was there. Very tall man as it turns out. Um
Speaker 1: Wayne Brady of of whose Lives It Anyway and and
Speaker 1: Game show fame was there. Very funny guy. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was cool to see these folks around. I didn't
Speaker 1: really I'm name dropping like crazy, but let me make
Speaker 1: it clear. I did not chat with these folks. I
Speaker 1: watched them and thought they were really cool, and they
Speaker 1: seemed to know their stuff, which was very refreshing. It
Speaker 1: didn't feel like it was a UM at least the
Speaker 1: once I saw. I didn't see Justin Bieber in person.
Speaker 1: I didn't see Snooky in person, but the others I saw,
Speaker 1: and they all seemed to really know their stuff, which
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. UM. But yeah, I did not
Speaker 1: personally go up and meet these folks, so I don't
Speaker 1: want to give the wrong impression there. I'm not best
Speaker 1: buds with any of them. They don't know who I am,
Speaker 1: and it's probably for the best. So you're Jonathan, Well,
Speaker 1: mama said knock you out. Please do not call going
Speaker 1: to come back. I've been here for years for to
Speaker 1: be exact. Yeah, So that's that's the lowdown on CS twelve.
Speaker 1: There are tons of websites out there that list all
Speaker 1: the technology that was on display from the big manufacturers,
Speaker 1: you know, the best of CS that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and uh, I do recommend you check it out if
Speaker 1: you're interested in seeing the sort of things that could
Speaker 1: be coming out in twelve. Keep in mind that some
Speaker 1: of the more adventurous and innovative designs may not ever
Speaker 1: make it to consumer electronics in the form that they
Speaker 1: appeared in at CS. They might eventually make it, it's
Speaker 1: just they might be totally different by the time they
Speaker 1: get there. Yeah. Anyway, Yeah, and then you shook a
Speaker 1: narrow to the name. All right, Well, on that outdated meme.
Speaker 1: We're going to wrap this this conversation up. If you
Speaker 1: guys have any topics you would like us to cover,
Speaker 1: you can let us know on Facebook and Twitter are handled.
Speaker 1: There is tech stuff H s W. Or you can
Speaker 1: send us an email at our brand new email address. O,
Speaker 1: get out your pendant paper. It's tech stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com. And Chris and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Brought to you by the reinvented two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you