Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome to tech Stuff. This is Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Because of the holidays, recording time is scarce around here,
Speaker 1: so that's why I've decided to look back at another
Speaker 1: classic tech Stuff episode. This one is from two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, and it's all about the c e S experience.
Speaker 1: In just a couple of weeks, I'll be in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas for c e S two thousand fifteen. Now, in
Speaker 1: this classic episode, Chris Palette and I talked about the
Speaker 1: history of the show, what it's all about, and what
Speaker 1: it feels like to actually attend check it out. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about UM the event formally known
Speaker 1: as the Consumer Electronics Show, but I think it's it
Speaker 1: bears throwing that name in there for people who aren't
Speaker 1: as familiar with the acronym which the organization behind it
Speaker 1: wants us to use when we talk about it, E
Speaker 1: E es yeah and uh. And when this episode goes
Speaker 1: live will be while I'm in Las Vegas at the
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve c e S. We're recording this
Speaker 1: in December, but by the time this goes live, I
Speaker 1: should be if I if I've counted my calendar correctly,
Speaker 1: I should be in Vegas as you're listening to this
Speaker 1: if you downloaded it the day it came out, right,
Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this right now and it's
Speaker 1: it's the second week of January, just remember Jonathan is
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas and is exhausted and crying. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I'm not right, although he may be still crying because
Speaker 1: Chris does do that. But let's let's talk about Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the the show, it's background, and then I
Speaker 1: think we'll we'll concentrate on that in the first half
Speaker 1: of our episode and the second half. This is one episode.
Speaker 1: It just the first section of our episode. In the
Speaker 1: second section of our episode, we'll talk about what the
Speaker 1: experience is like being at c S because both both
Speaker 1: of us have been. Yes, the fact that we we
Speaker 1: were both there at the most heavily attended ce S ever. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the show, um, may you may actually be familiar
Speaker 1: with it, Yeah, there are, there are a lot of people. Um,
Speaker 1: the consumer, the organization behind c E s UM basically
Speaker 1: is right in thinking that a lot more people know
Speaker 1: about this show than than they used to. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the consumer Electronics Association that puts on the show and
Speaker 1: that that's an organization of around two thousand companies that
Speaker 1: are in the consumer electronics industry. And these companies have
Speaker 1: formed this organization for many reasons. Part of it is
Speaker 1: the organization conducts a lot of market research to kind
Speaker 1: of find out what consumers are interested in, what the
Speaker 1: trends are going to be, so that companies can kind
Speaker 1: of get a jump on things and start developing products
Speaker 1: that are going to really appeal to people. You know
Speaker 1: that there's always a challenge figuring out what people are
Speaker 1: going to be interested in and and developing that because
Speaker 1: you know, most of these products have development cycles that
Speaker 1: last a couple of years. So yeah, so to be
Speaker 1: able to identify what a trend is going to be
Speaker 1: not tomorrow, but two years from tomorrow is a huge challenge.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what the c e A does.
Speaker 1: They also have networking opportunities. UM. I mean, obviously you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of these really important folks in various
Speaker 1: major companies and they all tend to know each other
Speaker 1: through organizations like the c e A and UH. It's
Speaker 1: also about education around things like legislation and regulation. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of these industries do have legislation and regulation
Speaker 1: surrounding them, so it's important for companies to be aware
Speaker 1: of that and to know what is and isn't cricket
Speaker 1: before they go into developing a product. Well but I
Speaker 1: but CES is they're big, Like, that's the thing everyone
Speaker 1: knows them for because c e S is just it's
Speaker 1: it's the public face of the organization and it's and
Speaker 1: it's become such a huge event, especially from its humble beginnings. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but in in essence, um, it's a trade show. UM
Speaker 1: basically a big open floor with booths where companies are
Speaker 1: showing off their products and there are people representatives from
Speaker 1: the company, not necessarily company employees. Sometimes they're they're pr
Speaker 1: people that they've hired to talk, hired guns who come
Speaker 1: in and they've got fact sheets about all the different
Speaker 1: products that they have all memorized and they're happy to
Speaker 1: spout off. But if you ask them anything that's not
Speaker 1: on the fact sheet, then they give you an email. Hey,
Speaker 1: here take my card. Um, we'll get into into what
Speaker 1: it's like. It's it's interesting to note, um that this
Speaker 1: you know, we were in a gadget hungry world now
Speaker 1: in the in the two thousands, when the twenty one
Speaker 1: century uh before that, you know, it's like the nineties
Speaker 1: were kind of like that. To the eighties. We had
Speaker 1: the Walkman, we had the the debut of the compact
Speaker 1: disc player, um, which we'll get into in a minute. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we we we live in an electronics crazy world.
Speaker 1: But the show goes back a little before that, to
Speaker 1: a time when there weren't um, you know, fifty different
Speaker 1: things plugged into our walls in our living room, uh
Speaker 1: sucking down juice. There were there were this organization and
Speaker 1: this event dates back into the nineteen sixties. Yeah, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven in New York City. That was the first CES.
Speaker 1: And back then electronics consisted of one radio and a
Speaker 1: television that didn't work yet not true. No, that's that's
Speaker 1: why that was a complete and well, the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven part was true, but the rest was a lie.
Speaker 1: I did find a flicker set of photos from uh
Speaker 1: from early c e s s there was around in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven. That's amazing the photos. However, Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting, um to see people lined up at the
Speaker 1: registration booth um where you can kunt them wearing yeah,
Speaker 1: wearing suits and ties, you know, because hey, you know
Speaker 1: they were members of the press and t show, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was a trade show, so you dressed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And none of them were were clatify
Speaker 1: right right, Oh there you are, Perry. Uh. The so
Speaker 1: that that first show, there were two hundred exhibitors at
Speaker 1: that first show, and there were seventeen dollars five hundred
Speaker 1: people attending this show. And we should also point out
Speaker 1: that when we say people exhibitors, Yeah, if only I
Speaker 1: could go for half a day and I'd be done. Um,
Speaker 1: attendees and and uh, the attendees were all industry related.
Speaker 1: You know. It's not open to the public. Why why
Speaker 1: why would you want to go? Yes, because I mean
Speaker 1: the idea, I mean I often ask myself that question.
Speaker 1: But now the uh, the well yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's their variations on different TV sets and different kinds
Speaker 1: of radio stuff that's interesting. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: what this is for it's it's for the vendors that
Speaker 1: the manufacturers to show off new products to retailers so
Speaker 1: that retailers will go in order the devices from the
Speaker 1: manufacturer and starts selling them through their retail stores of
Speaker 1: a trade show. That's what they're four. That's that's the
Speaker 1: main that's the big business that's going on at c
Speaker 1: E S. And then you have the press as well
Speaker 1: that covers C E S. And I think back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, there probably weren't any bloggers, but it
Speaker 1: was all journalists, um so. And I'm assuming that a
Speaker 1: lot of them probably wouldn't have been interested in this
Speaker 1: because this isn't as interesting to the reader in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, uh, the general reader as it would be today. Yeah. There,
Speaker 1: you know, the there did become kind of an interesting
Speaker 1: uh history at CES for new technologies to debut there,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about those in a little bit. But
Speaker 1: when it first started, it was pretty it was it
Speaker 1: was fairly modest, and it was not the only big
Speaker 1: trade show out there either. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of the ones that we hear about consistently today,
Speaker 1: but it's not the only one. It was actually a
Speaker 1: spinoff of another trade show, the Chicago Music Show back
Speaker 1: in the day. Interesting but um uh. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you skip ahead by a bout a decade unless you
Speaker 1: had do you had specific things you wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about in the early history of c e s um, No,
Speaker 1: not necessarily. So I was thinking, like back in around
Speaker 1: the c e A decided to try something new and
Speaker 1: hold actually two trade shows per year in summer, right,
Speaker 1: and the winter one was always in Vegas, and the
Speaker 1: summer one for the first first couple of decades was
Speaker 1: in Chicago. But then in n e A decided to
Speaker 1: try and experiment and move the summer city to different
Speaker 1: destinations and to kind of play that, play with that
Speaker 1: and see how that went. Originally they were going to
Speaker 1: go to Philadelphia in I think, and then the problem
Speaker 1: was it was scheduled directly against uh, the E three
Speaker 1: UM event and E three the Electronic Entertainment Expo is
Speaker 1: another big trade show, UH. And that's so a lot
Speaker 1: of exhibitors were kind of expressing concern about that because
Speaker 1: they really wanted to be and and retailers too they
Speaker 1: wanted to be at the other trade show as well.
Speaker 1: They have to pick between the two. And if if
Speaker 1: you've got one show that has two shows a year
Speaker 1: and one that only has one show a year, well
Speaker 1: then that's easy. You you skip the one that has two,
Speaker 1: you can go to the other show, and then you've
Speaker 1: got you you still have another chance to make it
Speaker 1: to the first one. So they tried that a couple
Speaker 1: of times. Uh in they decided, you know, this doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. We're just gonna do one show a year.
Speaker 1: It'll be that Winter Show and it's gonna be in Vegas.
Speaker 1: And that's how it's been since. So, um, you want
Speaker 1: to talk about some of the products, some of the
Speaker 1: technologies that have debuted at c e S. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: actually we actually have several um tech stuff episodes about
Speaker 1: some of the technologies that have that we're first shown
Speaker 1: off to people beyond the manufacturers at c e S. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, this is this is one of those those
Speaker 1: things about the show. Um, well, we were going to
Speaker 1: talk about what it's like to go to the show,
Speaker 1: But if you go to to any of the booths,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're likely to see incremental changes in a product,
Speaker 1: the next version of a technology. Yeah, we've got the
Speaker 1: new camera which has a slightly faster, um you know,
Speaker 1: ability to do burst photography. Well a few years ago,
Speaker 1: burst photography was new. Yeah. Yeah, So I'd say the
Speaker 1: stuff you encounter at ce S is just a slight
Speaker 1: evolution on technology. We've already seen but that one percent,
Speaker 1: and and you know they're there um variations on stuff.
Speaker 1: It'll be uh, you know, things that are slightly smaller,
Speaker 1: you know than last year, or they come in different colors,
Speaker 1: or like the a camera that incorporates a button so
Speaker 1: that you can share photos on social networking sites more
Speaker 1: more readily. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Well, the new
Speaker 1: feature that's in a pre existing technology. Yeah. Or you'll
Speaker 1: go to a or we'll go to press event and
Speaker 1: they'll we'll find out that, um, the TVs are not
Speaker 1: any particularly larger or or thinner than they were last year,
Speaker 1: but this time they're in blue because blue was the
Speaker 1: trendy color this year. But you will find this stuff
Speaker 1: that is brand new, and stuff that is that was
Speaker 1: previously unavailable to the public that will be including UM
Speaker 1: And my first device was groundbreaking. And when I mean groundbreaking,
Speaker 1: it's because it was large and heavy. Video cassette recorder
Speaker 1: YEP YEP. Video cassette recorders or VCRs, debuted at c
Speaker 1: e S was the first time anyone outside of the
Speaker 1: the industry got a chance to get a look at
Speaker 1: one of these and um, and for those of you
Speaker 1: who don't remember, VCRs were a big thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of your your hits now this I have
Speaker 1: a list that came from C E S itself, The
Speaker 1: next of which was the LaserDisc player invent four and
Speaker 1: that was that was pretty huge. Yeah, that was. LaserDisc
Speaker 1: players ended up being more of a niche market. There
Speaker 1: was a like an enthusiast market that it was extremely popular.
Speaker 1: And um, I mean there's still devotees of the the
Speaker 1: laser displayer out there today, but it never reached a
Speaker 1: kind of widespread adoption. And I'm going to do that
Speaker 1: thing that Jonathan hates it when I knew I want
Speaker 1: to actually hold something up, especially glasses on. Do you
Speaker 1: recognize this device that would be the first cheap digital
Speaker 1: watch from Texas Instruments. Yes, it made its its debut
Speaker 1: in the in the mid seventies. I did recognize it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was If you listen to our Texas Instruments episodes
Speaker 1: then you know. We actually talked about that about how
Speaker 1: t I helped bring in this era of of less
Speaker 1: expensive digital watches. Before that, they were all these luxury
Speaker 1: items that cost hundreds of dollars. Transistors transistors, speaking of
Speaker 1: something that has transistors in it, um, a device that
Speaker 1: I owned in the nineteen seventies and this uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting that you brought up E three in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties because E three is much younger. Trade show. Um,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to show off the next device, you
Speaker 1: would have to take it to C E S because
Speaker 1: there wasn't an E three UM when it showed up
Speaker 1: in N seven, and that would be ATRIS VCS Video
Speaker 1: Computer System. Other consoles also first debuted at c S,
Speaker 1: including some that debuted after E three started. That includes
Speaker 1: Pong that's that was that was before E three, but
Speaker 1: any s that also debuted c S and in America,
Speaker 1: granted had had already been out in Japan, but made
Speaker 1: its American debut in uh A Winter c S show.
Speaker 1: And then um also the Xbox Yeah. UM. Traditionally, there
Speaker 1: are several keynote speeches that take place at C E S.
Speaker 1: It's not all just out there on the trade show
Speaker 1: floor where you're looking at booths. They also have sessions
Speaker 1: that they hold where they talk about trends and technology
Speaker 1: and and companies will have a press of event where
Speaker 1: they will unveil the stuff that you would be able
Speaker 1: to see on the floor, but you'll get an early
Speaker 1: look at what it can do before you get to
Speaker 1: the floor. Well, Microsoft has had a keynote slot at
Speaker 1: cs for years and at one of these they unveiled
Speaker 1: the Xbox. So that was it wasn't any three thing
Speaker 1: that was before Microsoft was big in games. Yeah, that was.
Speaker 1: It was a huge splash for Microsoft because you know,
Speaker 1: Microsoft had been involved in games on the computer side,
Speaker 1: but not so much on the console side. So this
Speaker 1: was definitely a pretty big move and it turned out
Speaker 1: to be a really successful one, which, you know, it's
Speaker 1: nice to be able to say that about Microsoft. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. I didn't mean to say that they weren't
Speaker 1: because they had done They had been releasing games for years,
Speaker 1: not on the scale that the Xbox, right, it was
Speaker 1: all it was all computer based, like Microsoft Light simulator
Speaker 1: type stuff. You know. The other other technologies that debuted,
Speaker 1: it's yes, Um, well you're talking about laser discs and VCRs.
Speaker 1: Let's stay on that topic. There was a big year
Speaker 1: because that was when the cam quarter and Compact Disc
Speaker 1: Player was shown off c d S and then DVDs
Speaker 1: also debuted at c e S and as did um
Speaker 1: Blu Ray. Yes, it also debuted at CES yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: and don't forget that earth shattering announcement from Sony the
Speaker 1: mini disc. Yeah. Very popular in other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: not so much in the United States. Um you know,
Speaker 1: hi hi d F TV here in the United States,
Speaker 1: Um you know, plasma TVs, um, you know, all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff, and of course three d H D t
Speaker 1: V in the in the two thousand nine Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about Um. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, let's talk about two thousand. Uh. I've got
Speaker 1: one event in two thousand five. This was before we went,
Speaker 1: but in two thousand five, we have to talk about
Speaker 1: all the the embarrassing moment for Bill Gates. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that you know what, and doing the research for this,
Speaker 1: I wanted to look for products and things that made
Speaker 1: their debut, and that one was mentioned in several and
Speaker 1: it kind of kind of feel terrible about it. You
Speaker 1: know that so many people remember it. Sometimes stuff doesn't
Speaker 1: be that's the problem. So yeah, for that to happen
Speaker 1: to the company's founder and on a keynote speech, here's
Speaker 1: here's what happened, because you know, we're dancing around it.
Speaker 1: So Bill Gates is up on stage and he is
Speaker 1: uh uh He's demonstrating a Windows Media Center to a
Speaker 1: crowd at c e S and as he's demonstrating it,
Speaker 1: the system crashes and he gets the blue screen of death.
Speaker 1: So imagine being the CEO of a company. You're showing
Speaker 1: off your latest product on on a device that has
Speaker 1: had its share of jokes directed at it for its
Speaker 1: the you know, the fact that it does tend to crash,
Speaker 1: and that the when it does crash, you get this
Speaker 1: blue screen. For that to happen in public on the stage,
Speaker 1: that had to have been a little, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit embarrassing, and the press had a pretty
Speaker 1: good time with it, and it still does. So anytime
Speaker 1: you see like a wrap up of big moments and
Speaker 1: c e S like Chris was saying, it tends to
Speaker 1: be included. Um, Um and I have one more big moment,
Speaker 1: uh in a similar vein that I think can can
Speaker 1: easily launch us into the second half of our podcast
Speaker 1: where we talk about what it's like to be at
Speaker 1: the show. Um, Jonathan and I. The only time that
Speaker 1: Jonathan and I attended c e S together was in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. Yes, and there was another Um. I
Speaker 1: hate to use the term epic fail but this is
Speaker 1: this was painful and in its obviousness, Um, I know
Speaker 1: what you're going for, but I want to hear it.
Speaker 1: We had an opportunity to be on the show floor
Speaker 1: early because we were members of the media, so we
Speaker 1: got a chance to kind of see. Now, most of
Speaker 1: the booths were kind of wrapped off so that you
Speaker 1: couldn't see it. But um, if you look at some
Speaker 1: of those old photo sets of old c e s s,
Speaker 1: the boosts were very bland. It would be a white
Speaker 1: booth with the name of the company written on it. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: it was black and white, so it looks like a
Speaker 1: white booth with a name in the company, very very
Speaker 1: sober in comparison with today's where they have elaborate displays
Speaker 1: with speakers and all kinds of brilliant marketing materials. They
Speaker 1: might even overlays of stuff so that the cubicle doesn't
Speaker 1: look like so that the cube doesn't look like a cube,
Speaker 1: it looks like something else. Sure, sure, yeah, And in
Speaker 1: some cases, um, you know, you can't really see in
Speaker 1: it before they've started the show, and in some cases
Speaker 1: they can't hide what's going on. So we're walking around
Speaker 1: the show floor and getting an idea of what what
Speaker 1: we're going to get an opportunity to see the next day.
Speaker 1: And on on one side we see Sony's enormous pirate
Speaker 1: ship of the Blu Ray display. Yeah. So yeah, they
Speaker 1: actually had a this this UH set essentially and it
Speaker 1: was of pirates of the Caribbean. Uh. And they had
Speaker 1: this big pirate ship type set in the middle of
Speaker 1: their booths. Now, now, some of these booths are small,
Speaker 1: like some of them, some of them are only as
Speaker 1: slightly larger than what you would find an office cubicle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean their marketing. Marketing dollars don't grow on trees
Speaker 1: for some companies because they are paying for square footage
Speaker 1: at this event and other other ones especially you know
Speaker 1: of course from the big companies are enormous, enormous booths Panasonic.
Speaker 1: So this is taking place. Most of these booths are
Speaker 1: at the Las Vegas Convention Center, which has I think
Speaker 1: three and a half million square feet of space. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and and c e s these days. It's not
Speaker 1: just one building, No, it's in many other floors. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you were saying, so the Blue Ray, the
Speaker 1: Blue Ray presence is there, and it was obvious and
Speaker 1: then a couple rows over. It wasn't even that far.
Speaker 1: It was on the same show floor. It was was
Speaker 1: the and this is again one of our very first
Speaker 1: podcasts that we did back when we were five minutes long.
Speaker 1: HD DVD versus Blu Ray. Right, h D DVD was
Speaker 1: supposed to be at CS and the week before c
Speaker 1: E S there was a big stink because Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: announced that it was going to be exclusively Blu Ray
Speaker 1: from that moment on. And that was one of the
Speaker 1: few big movie studios that had still been backing h
Speaker 1: D DVD at that point. H D DVD they which
Speaker 1: was from Toshiba, right had the Toshiba had decided to
Speaker 1: pull the h D DVD presence from c e S
Speaker 1: rather than have to endure a week long uh onslaught
Speaker 1: of questions about what are you going to do now? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was that was the thing they were. Um,
Speaker 1: there were rumors that there was something going to happen
Speaker 1: with h D DVD. UH, I guess in the weeks prior,
Speaker 1: and then it happened right before they had the set
Speaker 1: in place on the show floor and it essentially never opened. UM,
Speaker 1: and we didn't know. We got the announcement while we
Speaker 1: were there, um that they were they were going to
Speaker 1: do it, and then as we were there they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're done. Yeah, So that was pretty much the end
Speaker 1: of h D DVD. I had that down too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That also was two thousand eight was a big year
Speaker 1: for UH for cs There were a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: one thousand attendees, so up from that seventeen five hundred previously,
Speaker 1: just just a few more. Now. I actually wrote down
Speaker 1: the a couple of just little facts about every year
Speaker 1: from two thousand eight to because we were you know,
Speaker 1: I attended all of those, So just a couple of
Speaker 1: little notes. So you covered h D DVD, which was
Speaker 1: one of the notes I had for two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: The number of attendees was another. And also I have
Speaker 1: what c net picked out as the best of CSA
Speaker 1: because c is the official streaming partner of c E
Speaker 1: S or was in for those years, and so c
Speaker 1: net always holds an awards um ceremony where what they
Speaker 1: do is their editors go and hit the floor and
Speaker 1: they all look at all the different tech out there,
Speaker 1: and then they get together and they decide what is
Speaker 1: the what is the best thing on the floor, and
Speaker 1: I think it'll be interested to hear what one over
Speaker 1: some of these years, because they're not all good stories.
Speaker 1: So two thousand and eight s NET Awards, this one's
Speaker 1: not bad. Is the Phillips Eco TV show. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a forty two in ten a d p H
Speaker 1: d t V that had a lot of energy saving
Speaker 1: technology built into it. Because two eight, I think Chris
Speaker 1: can remember this to two thousand eight, I think was
Speaker 1: the big trend was green technology in two thousand eight. Um.
Speaker 1: Now you can usually spot some pretty pretty prevalent trends
Speaker 1: each year at C has to do you attend what
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about that as well.
Speaker 1: Two thousand nine, UM, that was the when the l
Speaker 1: G Watch phone was on the show floor, which never
Speaker 1: came to the United States, but it made a huge
Speaker 1: hit at the show. Yeah, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: buzz because everyone's saying, oh, it's the Dick Tracy watch.
Speaker 1: Except's got video and everything, and it's a touchscreen interface.
Speaker 1: And you know what, we don't have the LG watch phone,
Speaker 1: but we do have the iPod Nano that has a
Speaker 1: lot of the same functionality, just not the phone part.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's kind of interesting. But what one that
Speaker 1: year Senets prize went to the Palm Pre, which is
Speaker 1: kind of sad. So justin short, Palm Pre from from
Speaker 1: from Palm never really took off. It very much impressed everyone.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought that it was going to be a real
Speaker 1: uh competitor to the iPhone. Yeah, that was basically the
Speaker 1: debut of their brand new operating system. And then it
Speaker 1: just never got traction it. It took about six months
Speaker 1: from CS before it even hit the market, and by
Speaker 1: then the buzzard died down, so it never really took off.
Speaker 1: HP ended up buying Palm. Uh. They Palm phones began
Speaker 1: to disappear, webOS became a tablet only thing, and then
Speaker 1: happened and no one really was sure what was going
Speaker 1: to happen with webOS because they first HP was saying
Speaker 1: we're done with it, and they're like, no, we're not
Speaker 1: done with it, So we don't know if we're done
Speaker 1: with it. And now they're saying we're not done with
Speaker 1: it and we're moving it to open source. So that's
Speaker 1: been the journey of webOS since c E S two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. Yeah, pretty crazy. And we did a whole
Speaker 1: episode on Palm so You can listen to that if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about that company. The big
Speaker 1: thing I remember from twenty tenness seeing intels ne Haleen
Speaker 1: processor running. I had written an article about the Newhalen
Speaker 1: processor and this time I got a chance to see it,
Speaker 1: and I was very much impressed. The big win for
Speaker 1: that year was Panasonics three D h D t V.
Speaker 1: That's what Senate gave the award to. And of course
Speaker 1: three D television still has not really taken hold. It
Speaker 1: just hasn't really gained that much attraction. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of televisions out there that have three D built
Speaker 1: into them, but we have not seen three D become
Speaker 1: a real powerhouse in home entertainment. Yeah, and and actually
Speaker 1: you you're mentioning, um uh, the Nehleen processor kind of
Speaker 1: reminded me to a lot of the stuff on the
Speaker 1: show floor. I mean, we've we've had many people, uh
Speaker 1: tell us that they think going to see e S
Speaker 1: would be a whole lot of fun. And yeah, in
Speaker 1: some ways, getting the chance to see these gadgets and
Speaker 1: and and cool toys and talk to Yeah that that
Speaker 1: party is kind of cool. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff where I mean looking at a motherboard with an
Speaker 1: a Haleen processor. I mean what Intel does when they
Speaker 1: show that kind of thing off, um, is they show
Speaker 1: a computer running stuff that you know, they're talking about
Speaker 1: the the optimization, but if you look at the processor,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a chip. So there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff there that's just and it's good and
Speaker 1: it's important, and it's it's nice to have in your
Speaker 1: next computer. You know, Oh man, look how fast that is.
Speaker 1: I'd like to have that. But you don't stay there
Speaker 1: all day and just marveling at it because it's the
Speaker 1: coolest thing. Every is cool. Can talk about some of
Speaker 1: that also going to get into our personal experiences because
Speaker 1: I've got a whole rant I could go on, but
Speaker 1: not about Intel though they're they're expected to show a
Speaker 1: new processor this year, right. Yeah, I saw sandy Bridge
Speaker 1: last year, and again that was very impressive. So that
Speaker 1: was something for last year being this year as we're
Speaker 1: recording it, but last year when you're listening to this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw I saw sandy Bridge and that was very interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: That was also it was a big year for tablets
Speaker 1: and smartphones last year. The Motorola Atrix, which was the
Speaker 1: smartphone that could dock with a a laptop like docking device,
Speaker 1: and it could power that laptop, so you were actually
Speaker 1: using the smartphones operating system but in a laptop form factor. Uh,
Speaker 1: BlackBerry Playbook was there to play with. That was the
Speaker 1: first time I got my hands on one of those,
Speaker 1: um lots of different devices seen. That gave the award
Speaker 1: to the Motorola Zoom, which again just never really I mean,
Speaker 1: it hasn't done terrible and the it's not it's not
Speaker 1: it's not a fair you're or anything in the market,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it ended up making as big
Speaker 1: a splash as we thought back when we were at CES. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and part of that is just you know that that
Speaker 1: was sporting the new Honeycomb build of Android. Well within
Speaker 1: that same year, we've seen ice Cream Sandwich come out
Speaker 1: or at least unveiled, So I mean that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the issues with CS two is that sometimes the
Speaker 1: stuff that you see at the show that you think
Speaker 1: is going to be like, oh my gosh, I can't
Speaker 1: wait for this to hit the market. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: the next big thing. Some of it, some of it
Speaker 1: never comes to market, and some of it will come
Speaker 1: to market and then just fizzle. Uh. Let me get
Speaker 1: my let me get the one item that never came
Speaker 1: to market that just drove me crazy. This is the
Speaker 1: Lenovo you won. The Lenovo you won, which was a
Speaker 1: notebook computer where you could detach the screen from the
Speaker 1: base of the computer and it would become a tablet.
Speaker 1: And it actually had two different rating systems. When it
Speaker 1: was a notebook computer, it was running Windows seven. The
Speaker 1: original build I saw, when you detached the screen, it
Speaker 1: would switch to a Linux based operating system. The second
Speaker 1: time I saw it, which was c S. I can't
Speaker 1: remember if it was the first time or nine. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the second time I saw it, they had switched the
Speaker 1: tablet operating system over to Android. Uh. And in both
Speaker 1: cases they were hoping to aim for a summer release
Speaker 1: and it never happened. It did there was some limited
Speaker 1: releases in China, but nothing in the United States. And
Speaker 1: I this was the tablet device I really wanted because
Speaker 1: I wanted something that I could use as a full
Speaker 1: computer or I could detach the screen and use that
Speaker 1: as a tablet so that I could preload all the
Speaker 1: things I needed before detaching the tablet part and then
Speaker 1: i'd have it to refer to on the tablet. That way,
Speaker 1: for all the heavy data processing type stuff or word processing,
Speaker 1: word intrigue kind of things, I could use a keyboard
Speaker 1: instead of a touch screen to vice and Um and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still uh still said that that never
Speaker 1: really came out. Um, but yeah, let's talk about what
Speaker 1: it's like when you go to c e S. We
Speaker 1: can We'll mostly be talking about from the perspective of
Speaker 1: press because that's what we are. We we haven't we've
Speaker 1: never exhibited at c S. Yeah. Well it's uh, I
Speaker 1: can I can say that it's if you're interested in
Speaker 1: gadgets or you're a member of the media, it's the
Speaker 1: experience is not going to be terribly difficult because, um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to see as much of the show
Speaker 1: as you can. Now that the show takes the better
Speaker 1: part of a week. Um. And you know, as as
Speaker 1: as I mentioned and Jonathan mentioned before, Um, it's quite
Speaker 1: a lot of square footage in terms of show space. Um,
Speaker 1: it's grown very, very large. There's even an outdoor section
Speaker 1: where they have mobile electronics and things. Car cars, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was the first time I saw a Fiat
Speaker 1: five hundred because Microsoft was showing off it's uh uh Sinc.
Speaker 1: Operating system and they had a Fiat five there and
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, man, look at this. They brought a
Speaker 1: Fiat overseas for just for this show. Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of the audio exhibitors are in hotel suites in one
Speaker 1: of the nearby hotels because you know, you don't want
Speaker 1: to you don't want to have to try and just
Speaker 1: and and show off your your high end audio equipment
Speaker 1: on a show floor that's just clamoring with noise. You
Speaker 1: need to have your own little area so that you've
Speaker 1: at least kind of blocked out most of the ambient
Speaker 1: noise so people can really hear what your stuff can do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to to quote Dr. Seuss, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise,
Speaker 1: it's it's allowed environment. People are talking. There's media playing
Speaker 1: from from pretty much everywhere. Yeah, the central hall, you get,
Speaker 1: um uh, there's usually a few. The one the one
Speaker 1: audio areas you'll hear the most are from our are
Speaker 1: the the car sets, like the the the audio stereo
Speaker 1: systems that go into cars. Those tend to actually on
Speaker 1: the show floor and they tend to drown everything else out.
Speaker 1: I know, that when Leo Report first got his This
Speaker 1: Weekend Tech table set up over at CS he was
Speaker 1: put directly across from an area where they had several
Speaker 1: of these exhibitors showing off these incredibly powerful stereo systems.
Speaker 1: And so through most of the twit footage of that
Speaker 1: first year, you hear doom, doom, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't,
Speaker 1: like in the background, and like people are shaking when
Speaker 1: they're sitting there at the table. It was pretty intense.
Speaker 1: Had in two thousand eight one night when we went
Speaker 1: they even had Marine Electronics stand boats. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh interesting. So some of these, some of these booths
Speaker 1: that you'll you would see are are wide and spread
Speaker 1: out and and in some cases it's that the company
Speaker 1: wants to make a big statement but doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: that much to show. UM. Sometimes it's that they need
Speaker 1: the space. Like the Parrot drone. The first time I
Speaker 1: saw that. You know, that's the it's got four helicopter
Speaker 1: type blades. Yeah, quadricopter. That's that's not bad UM and
Speaker 1: you can control it through and a mobile device it
Speaker 1: was it used to just be UM iPhone, but they've
Speaker 1: expanded it a little bit since then. But that was
Speaker 1: really pretty cool UM and took up a lot of space,
Speaker 1: but it was it was it consistently drew crowds. Taser
Speaker 1: tends to have its own space. Last year, I saw
Speaker 1: them tasering people. That was kind of interesting. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it was I got a real charge out of it.
Speaker 1: For every booth that you see that has really cool
Speaker 1: tech in it, they're about fifteen booths that have things
Speaker 1: like computer cases or smartphone cases or smartphone decals to
Speaker 1: put on, like stuff that's accessories for things that you
Speaker 1: already own. So it's not as exciting. It's definitely stuff
Speaker 1: that people want. So that's why it's at the trade show,
Speaker 1: because red tailors are going to be looking around to
Speaker 1: see what's available and say, oh, you know what, I
Speaker 1: want my store to carry this line of smartphone case
Speaker 1: because I think that would really move UM. But as
Speaker 1: a as a member of the press or maybe just
Speaker 1: a member of the general public, if somehow you've found
Speaker 1: your way into see yes, it wouldn't necessarily be like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, look at that smartphone case. Well, and
Speaker 1: some of them manufacturers too, aren't necessarily cutting edge. You
Speaker 1: might see a headphone manufacturer there and they're not making
Speaker 1: uh the latest noise canceling headphones or that Hey, that
Speaker 1: would come in handy at ces or um Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the high end cans that you see, um people
Speaker 1: paying three or more dollars. Where you'll see low cost headphones. Look,
Speaker 1: we've made uh you know, earbuds with better response uh
Speaker 1: that retail for and and that's not gonna be exciting
Speaker 1: news necessarily, but it might be for retailers who are going, hey,
Speaker 1: I can I can offer a wider range of low
Speaker 1: cost stuff and selves in my store. Um. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of manufacturers from overseas who are showing off
Speaker 1: UM how they've been able to manufacture things in smaller
Speaker 1: packages and uh and for lower costs. UM, so you
Speaker 1: might be able to to fill out your low range
Speaker 1: if you're looking for stuff to include in your store. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's actually an entire section that's essentially from Asian um markets,
Speaker 1: and it's all these really tiny booths filled with some
Speaker 1: of it's filled with some of the weirdest electronics you've
Speaker 1: ever seen. Like it's all the stuff that you would
Speaker 1: typically say wow that that clearly had to come from
Speaker 1: Japan because it's just so unusual but um, but also
Speaker 1: a lot of the other like the less expensive, the
Speaker 1: more affordable types of electronics. Sample, not the cutting edge stuff,
Speaker 1: but the stuff that has been refined to a point
Speaker 1: where the price has really come down. UM. And then
Speaker 1: there are other sections of the floor where you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna see the cutting edge, like the top stuff
Speaker 1: that's coming out the next year. UM. These are usually
Speaker 1: from the really really big companies. Once in a while,
Speaker 1: a small company will will really throw you and you'll
Speaker 1: you'll go to some small booth and you're like, Wow,
Speaker 1: the parrot drone in a way was like that. A
Speaker 1: lot of people said, Wow, that's really innovative. UM. But
Speaker 1: more often than not, you're going to see people talking
Speaker 1: about the big companies like Sony, Pana, sonic, Um, Toshiba, Toshiba, YEP,
Speaker 1: LG LG always has a really big presence there, Um, Intel, Microsoft, Uh.
Speaker 1: These are the companies that have some of the largest
Speaker 1: booth spaces on there. Like some of the booth spaces
Speaker 1: for some of these companies are the same as if
Speaker 1: you took ten of the other exhibitors together and put
Speaker 1: them all in the same space. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: these places are are in a lot of cases larger
Speaker 1: than a small retail store. Um and and the the
Speaker 1: result of that is you can spend a whole day
Speaker 1: looking at a small section of the floor because you
Speaker 1: need a few minutes to take in what it is
Speaker 1: you're looking at. So, I mean, you could spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time on your feet looking around, and it's
Speaker 1: it can be wearying, especially if you're carrying twenty pounds
Speaker 1: of paper press kits or and six pounds of laptop.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't do the paper press kits as
Speaker 1: much anymore. But no, wait, there was a point. I
Speaker 1: remember Chris and I both at one point took out
Speaker 1: all the press kits we had and it was it
Speaker 1: was probably combined, it's probably at least fifty pounds of paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thankfully they don't do that anymore. Now. It tends to
Speaker 1: either be on a thumb drive or they give you
Speaker 1: a card that has a link to an online press scott,
Speaker 1: which is so much better. Also, it makes it way
Speaker 1: easier to get hold of things like images and stuff
Speaker 1: if you need to run an article, So that that fantastic.
Speaker 1: Keep that up the but it goes on for days.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can after the first day or so,
Speaker 1: you can be quite tired. Yeah, periods, and there's there's
Speaker 1: just a lot to see. There are three main halls
Speaker 1: in the convention Center, the North Hall, Central Hall, in
Speaker 1: South Hall, and South Hall is the one that I
Speaker 1: typically hit first, and they're most several of the big
Speaker 1: name companies are in South Hall. Central Hall has more
Speaker 1: of the big name companies, and I believe it's the
Speaker 1: Central Hall that has two floors, which makes that even
Speaker 1: more intimidating. And then the North Hall tends to have
Speaker 1: a lot of the vehicle stuff. Some of it's in
Speaker 1: the Central Hall, but most of the vehicle stuffs in
Speaker 1: the North Hall, the stuff that's not on display outside
Speaker 1: the convention Center UM. And so you also, they also
Speaker 1: will have special zones set up now at CES, so
Speaker 1: like they'll have a green zone area where they've got
Speaker 1: a lot of exhibitors who all specialize in green technology together.
Speaker 1: They'll have an educational zone, They'll have a Senior citizen
Speaker 1: type zone, so technology that's specifically geared toward UM meeting
Speaker 1: the needs of elderly users. So that's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: that you know, these different zones can be in various
Speaker 1: halls that all depends on you know, how c S
Speaker 1: is arranged that particular year. Uh, then you've got all
Speaker 1: the different um ones that are in the the nearby hotels.
Speaker 1: Um for example, the Venetian off often has its own
Speaker 1: the audio section. Also, the Venetian and Sands Expo Center
Speaker 1: tends to have a hall display hall as well. It's
Speaker 1: a smaller one, doesn't have as many big names in it,
Speaker 1: but it's another It's another exhibitor hall, so it's not
Speaker 1: just the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is already huge.
Speaker 1: The Hilton tends to have several suites that people are using,
Speaker 1: the exhibitors are using. Sometimes you have companies that don't
Speaker 1: rent space at c S, but they show up and
Speaker 1: get a suite at a hotel and then they try
Speaker 1: and entice you to come over to the hotel so
Speaker 1: they can show off their stuff without actually being part
Speaker 1: of the CS. So there's that issue as well. And
Speaker 1: then they're all the parties. Okay, so people who have
Speaker 1: never been to ce S who are saying, Wow, this
Speaker 1: sounds like it's incredible. I can't and there are parties
Speaker 1: that sounds amazing. Let me tell you what a c
Speaker 1: S parties like. So CES party. You will, you will
Speaker 1: eat well, and you will you could potentially drink as well.
Speaker 1: I don't drink, so that means nothing to me. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean I drink water, but I don't drink alcohol,
Speaker 1: so that means nothing to me. But you go, you'll
Speaker 1: see some cool tech and then you try and talk
Speaker 1: over the sound of everyone else talking plus the ambient
Speaker 1: music which is usually about three, three or four times
Speaker 1: louder that needs to be in order to explain who
Speaker 1: you are and and and find out more about this product.
Speaker 1: It's all business talk. It's not it's not fun stuff
Speaker 1: like it's not. It's not a part of you go
Speaker 1: to to have fun. It's part of you go to
Speaker 1: to network to get a little more information about stuff.
Speaker 1: It's still working. So it's not like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're dancing the night away. It's not like that.
Speaker 1: Although maybe there are some of those ce S parties
Speaker 1: and those are just the ones I've never gone to.
Speaker 1: Uh So now at this point I tend to I'll
Speaker 1: try and go to a party now and then because
Speaker 1: it is a really good way to network with people,
Speaker 1: and it is a very good way. Like if you
Speaker 1: if you write about how stuff works, like I do.
Speaker 1: It can be invaluable to get the business card of
Speaker 1: an executive so that you can contact that person and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm working on this article about the thing that you
Speaker 1: specialize in. Is there anyone at your company I could
Speaker 1: speak with so I could get an expert on involved
Speaker 1: in in writing this article. It's incredible, But now I
Speaker 1: will often try and save the time after the show
Speaker 1: floor closes to getting together with some of my peers
Speaker 1: in tech journalism to sit down and just kind of
Speaker 1: talk about what we saw and kind of share knowledge,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of that at c e S.
Speaker 1: It's nice, you know, you don't see a lot of
Speaker 1: at least in my experience, I don't see a lot
Speaker 1: of journalists kind of shutting themselves off from everyone else
Speaker 1: and not talking for fear of losing the scoop. It
Speaker 1: tends to be a lot of people sharing their information
Speaker 1: and kind of, you know, figuring out what are the trends,
Speaker 1: what what are was it that we're seeing? Was this
Speaker 1: mean for the upcoming year? And that, to me is
Speaker 1: is fascinating. That's one of the parts that I like
Speaker 1: the most about c es SO. Sitting around in the
Speaker 1: old what used to be the Star Trek experience at
Speaker 1: the Hilton with with folks from the Twit network or
Speaker 1: from uh from Revision three or from c Net. That's
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. I love that. But it's uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not all fun and games, that's for sure. Um No,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work. It is, and it is
Speaker 1: probably it's one of the most physically tolling things I've
Speaker 1: had to do it. How stuff works, it's by the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you you feel it, and then
Speaker 1: you get up and do it again. Here's here's a
Speaker 1: hint for any of you who are doing ce S
Speaker 1: for the first time this year. If you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: you might be too late. So if it's the first
Speaker 1: time you're doing c S will be Here's here's what
Speaker 1: you do. You need to know. If you plan on
Speaker 1: doing something after the show floor closes and you go
Speaker 1: back to your hotel room to set stuff down so
Speaker 1: that you can go back out, do not do not
Speaker 1: sit down and or lie down, because that's it. You're
Speaker 1: not moving again. I have made that mistake so many times.
Speaker 1: But I mean, oh, those chairs and beds just look
Speaker 1: so comforting after you've been on your feet all day long.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a very interesting trade show. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's as phenomenal or magical as outsiders seem to
Speaker 1: think it is. I mean, but that's because I've covered
Speaker 1: it for four years now. So um, if you if
Speaker 1: you were to experience it the way I try and
Speaker 1: explain to people as if you're a journalist, imagine walking
Speaker 1: into the world's largest shopping mall, but every single store
Speaker 1: just sells electronics, and it's your job to go into
Speaker 1: every single store and look at every single shelf, at
Speaker 1: every single device, and then you're going to write up
Speaker 1: what the best was when you're done. And the problem
Speaker 1: is that the devices are you know, it's not that
Speaker 1: they're bad, they're just not interesting. And you have to
Speaker 1: do this through the entire mall. That's not fun. But
Speaker 1: there are fun elements to it. When you do stumble
Speaker 1: across that thing that that is debuting for the very
Speaker 1: first time at c e S, there is a level
Speaker 1: of excitement there that is, you know, it's hard, you
Speaker 1: can't dismiss that is pretty pretty incredible to experience. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that. Look back now, if you are
Speaker 1: at CS in two thousand fifteen, you might actually see
Speaker 1: me there. Be sure to swing by the Sharp Booth,
Speaker 1: where I'll be exploring how display technology has become so
Speaker 1: important in our lives. And as always, if you have
Speaker 1: a suggestion for a future episode, or you just want
Speaker 1: to write in and say hi, my address is tech
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: contact me on Facebook, Twitter or tumbler. I've got the
Speaker 1: handle of tech stuff hs W. We'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. For more on this and bausands of
Speaker 1: other topics, does it stuff works dot com. The Best
Speaker 1: Love