Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: and today I've got a special treat I am joined
Speaker 1: by Ashley A. Skepta. Please tell me I didn't butcher
Speaker 1: your name? Yea. Ashley is my buddy from c NET
Speaker 1: and she and I are survivors of the Great War
Speaker 1: known as c E S two thousand fifteen. We can
Speaker 1: be beaten down, but never defeated. No, never, never. Uh So, Ashley,
Speaker 1: I've asked you on the show so that we can
Speaker 1: kind of talk about some of the stuff that was
Speaker 1: unveiled at c E some of the big themes that
Speaker 1: happened during the show. And this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: real discovery for me personally because I was confined to
Speaker 1: a very small, relatively speak section of the show and
Speaker 1: didn't get out nearly as much as I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So I was in the same boat. So I got
Speaker 1: to see via all of my colleagues out reporting what
Speaker 1: they were looking at. That's kind of how I was
Speaker 1: to except for me, it wasn't colleagues. It was peers
Speaker 1: because no one else from how stuff works was there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but it was it was still you know,
Speaker 1: one of those events where every single year that goes
Speaker 1: by you can identify some big trends that happened at CES.
Speaker 1: So for a few years ago, like example, a few
Speaker 1: years ago, it was three D, right, that was the
Speaker 1: big thing, and unfortunately that has gone away. Yes, people
Speaker 1: have finally given up on pushing three D. I think.
Speaker 1: I think listening to the consumers say I don't want
Speaker 1: that for two or three years, finally got the message
Speaker 1: through just such a hassle. I mean, it's it really
Speaker 1: blows my mind that anybody ever thought that was going
Speaker 1: to be a really lucrative business model, because I can't
Speaker 1: think of a single person who's like, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to buy this three D TV, and I also want
Speaker 1: to buy these two pairs of glasses that run on
Speaker 1: battery power, and oh I'm going to need four of
Speaker 1: them because you have a family of four. Like, there
Speaker 1: is not a universe in which people enjoy that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the only use case I really could see
Speaker 1: was for gamers who had, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: disposable income and they want they wanted to have the
Speaker 1: ultimate gaming you know, console set up to console. Even
Speaker 1: then it's like buy a monitor. Yeah, you know, Steam,
Speaker 1: get your get your video card. I'm the same way,
Speaker 1: I think the same way. It's to me, it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where the benefit was not enough
Speaker 1: to outweigh the hassle that I have a hard time
Speaker 1: just finding my remote control. Yeah, unless these glasses laying
Speaker 1: around and you know, like the four K televisions are
Speaker 1: so nice that they are. The picture quality is so nice.
Speaker 1: It almost gives a feeling of three D because you
Speaker 1: honestly look like you could just reach right in and
Speaker 1: grab whatever's on the screen. That's true. That's so many
Speaker 1: people have described it as being three D like I mean,
Speaker 1: I even even Wally Fister, the cinematographer I got to
Speaker 1: talk to. He said, when you get to this level
Speaker 1: of clarity that's essentially three D, you get the illusion
Speaker 1: of depth. I mean, nothing is coming out at you,
Speaker 1: but everything looks like it has real presence, like you
Speaker 1: could like like like it is just a pane of
Speaker 1: glass between you and the hobbit or whatever. Right, It's
Speaker 1: it's just like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden that was all you know,
Speaker 1: that the candy bar was there, and it looked real
Speaker 1: and then they reached down ground is it's like it
Speaker 1: feels like that a little bit. Yeah, yeah, And then
Speaker 1: Mike TV of course following along and we can have
Speaker 1: a whole discussion justin Willy Wonka, and I'm somewhat tempted
Speaker 1: to because CS is exhausting. But but four KTVs, that's
Speaker 1: definitely one of the big themes that went through this year.
Speaker 1: Every major television producer was putting their four K sets
Speaker 1: on display, and all of them, of course claiming that
Speaker 1: their sets are more better than everyone else's. It's in
Speaker 1: four K and my four K, so you can four
Speaker 1: K while you four K. That's right, that's right. I
Speaker 1: mean I was there and uh and one of the
Speaker 1: things that I saw beyond the four K was beyond
Speaker 1: four K, we're already talking about the next generation, whether
Speaker 1: that is quantum dots, yep, using the quantum dot approaching,
Speaker 1: trying to get to a point where we've got eight
Speaker 1: K resolution. And I know a lot of people might
Speaker 1: be saying, like that sounds crazy because we don't really
Speaker 1: have that much four K content yet except on sites
Speaker 1: like YouTube or Netflix. But the truth is that Japan
Speaker 1: is going to try and start broadcasting eight K signals
Speaker 1: by the end of two thousand sixteen. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: other thing is is like maybe this is sort of
Speaker 1: maybe this is kind of like a jump between you know,
Speaker 1: seven twenty eight. So it's like maybe four K is
Speaker 1: the seven twenty of this generation, right right, It's it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where again, the other part of
Speaker 1: this is that it allows us to have larger screens
Speaker 1: without depreciating the quality of the image on those screens.
Speaker 1: So when you get to a point where the manufacturing
Speaker 1: costs are low and we see the prices of the
Speaker 1: television sets come down as well as adoption rates go up,
Speaker 1: it means that we can all create that crazy home
Speaker 1: theater experience that normally only hip hop artists were able
Speaker 1: to do. So yeah, yeah, or you know Bill Gates,
Speaker 1: which is super nice. I mean, just there have been
Speaker 1: so many great advances in how we consume content over
Speaker 1: the last even you know, five years. I always it
Speaker 1: blows my mind that the iPad is just five years
Speaker 1: old in February. That's always the thing that kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me that it's been so much so fast, right,
Speaker 1: I Mean I made a prediction, a famous prediction just
Speaker 1: before the year before the iPad came out that if
Speaker 1: it did come out, it was going to fail. So
Speaker 1: it just shows how I have my finger on the
Speaker 1: pulse of technology. Well, you know, sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: fail to move forward. That's true. And also, to be fair,
Speaker 1: no tablet in the history of tablets had ever now
Speaker 1: it's true, it's true, had ever been popular or gained
Speaker 1: any kind of mainstream acceptance. Um. And then of course,
Speaker 1: you know, when the name came out, people you know,
Speaker 1: regarded that with lots of derision. I Pad, how stupid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Well we were all proven wrong on that one.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that because it's it's led to an
Speaker 1: interesting world, especially really pushed the development of mobile applications
Speaker 1: and mobile devices. And also I would argue that the
Speaker 1: success of the tablet and the rise of the mobile
Speaker 1: device also gave rise to another big trend at CS wearables.
Speaker 1: Oh man, there were so many they had wearables for dogs.
Speaker 1: They did. I could not believe it's I mean, we
Speaker 1: were barely getting getting into or we barely scratched the
Speaker 1: surface on human wearables. Now we got dog wearables. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that that. We're seeing lots of experimentation in this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think where you see the maturity as
Speaker 1: far as wearables go is in the health and fitness
Speaker 1: field obviously. Oh yeah, that's where they really got their start.
Speaker 1: I'm wearing a a fitness tracker right now because I
Speaker 1: mean I'm a sheep. Also, I really like them. I
Speaker 1: think it's really cool. I love the idea of quantifying
Speaker 1: my activity so that I can look at and make
Speaker 1: an assessment as to whether or not I'm doing well
Speaker 1: or maybe I need to push myself harder. I always
Speaker 1: need to push my self harder, by the way. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but this is that's definitely the realm where we're
Speaker 1: really seeing wearables take off now. Granted, in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: I don't know, did you ever get over to uh
Speaker 1: the Sands, you know, I was so bummed I did
Speaker 1: not make it over to tech West. So, for for
Speaker 1: anybody listening, C E S has just continued to grow exponentially.
Speaker 1: And there was a I remember a few years ago
Speaker 1: there was a point where Microsoft decided they weren't coming anymore,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people started predicting like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is the death of CS, like it's gonna start getting
Speaker 1: smaller and we're going to have these you know, one
Speaker 1: off events like Samsung and and Apple do everyone's going
Speaker 1: to start doing those. There's no point now and completely
Speaker 1: the opposite of that. I mean, it has grown exponentially
Speaker 1: in the last few years to the point where now
Speaker 1: all of the startups and all the weird kind of
Speaker 1: quirky stuff three D printing and drones and just all
Speaker 1: kinds of things are over in the same convention center.
Speaker 1: So they're using the Las Vegas Convention Center, Mandalai Bay, uh,
Speaker 1: the Sands, the Venetian. I mean, it's huge. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: there's also some companies that'll set up in suites and
Speaker 1: hotels around the streets because they don't they don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to dish out the money they would need to
Speaker 1: put down to have a booth. Well, maybe they don't
Speaker 1: even need a booth. Maybe we just say, well, we
Speaker 1: just want to invite select members of the press and
Speaker 1: industry buyers to come to our suite and see what
Speaker 1: we have happening. That's true. I did get a chance
Speaker 1: to experience the Nintendo we you for the one of
Speaker 1: those meetings. It was before they had really started to
Speaker 1: unveil it and had just only talked about a little
Speaker 1: bit to the press, and so it was a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago when I got to do that. But
Speaker 1: that that's you know, that was a rare event for me.
Speaker 1: Usually I'm not on those lists. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: I got on that one, but it was awesome. I
Speaker 1: need to find out how to get on those lists.
Speaker 1: I there's some sort of secret society that I need
Speaker 1: to find out how to get it, like the Skulls,
Speaker 1: but it's like for tech. I need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get into that. Yeah, I'm usually only invited
Speaker 1: to the ones like here's a new thumb drive. Well
Speaker 1: this is I'm not gonna I'm not gonna poo poo
Speaker 1: your thumb drive. But we made these computer cases and
Speaker 1: they're super fascinating. You should come see them. Here's here's
Speaker 1: a here's a smartphone case for a brand that you
Speaker 1: don't own. Well, thanks fantastic. But getting back to the wearable,
Speaker 1: some of the crazy ones I saw. I went to
Speaker 1: c E S unveiled and I saw the Belty. Everybody
Speaker 1: loved Belty this year. I think Belty was this year's
Speaker 1: haptic feedback fork. Oh yeah, the happy fork. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a happy knife now too. If you didn't
Speaker 1: see that, there's happy fork and happy spoon or knife
Speaker 1: or I don't know whatever. It is so ridiculous. These
Speaker 1: are These are some of the more kind of quirky things.
Speaker 1: The ring that there was a ring of really bulky
Speaker 1: ring with a little button in the bottom that you
Speaker 1: pressed and you cold gesture and things like that. It's
Speaker 1: very strange of The ring is one of those, uh
Speaker 1: from why I understand it had a very contentious kickstarter campaign,
Speaker 1: one of those where uh, it got funded and then
Speaker 1: it was a really long delay between when when the
Speaker 1: funding happened and when anything else was happening. I can
Speaker 1: kind of sympathize with people who backed the ring because
Speaker 1: I have backed two different smart watches and one regular
Speaker 1: but cool watch, and none of the three have been
Speaker 1: finished yet. So that was that was more than a
Speaker 1: year ago when I backed them, So I totally get it.
Speaker 1: But I think it's definitely like one of those situations
Speaker 1: right well. So a good example of this is um
Speaker 1: Indie Goog had a very controversial crowd fund called the
Speaker 1: He'll Be I don't know if you're familiar with this
Speaker 1: this one. I'm not familiar with. This is the one
Speaker 1: that claims that it can measure your glucose based on
Speaker 1: like your skin, Like it's it's so weird, like sweat
Speaker 1: you can measure your glucose. This has been kind of
Speaker 1: a holy grail in Diabee d S Technology, blood sugar
Speaker 1: level healthcare forever. And this company is owned by like
Speaker 1: a Russian cake shop owner. Like it's all very shady.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is very very shady, and and all
Speaker 1: of the science having to do with this is like
Speaker 1: kind of bad, shaky science that doesn't really make a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. So I think, And they've raised
Speaker 1: you know, over a million dollars and and it's so
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it seems so clearly a rip
Speaker 1: off but a scam. But I just, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just don't know. And they were at c E S
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, yeah, here's our device, but
Speaker 1: you can't use it. This is just what it looks like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I've seen some of that. Like it's really interesting
Speaker 1: that that's the world we're in now, because again kind
Speaker 1: of a look back at what it's like to go
Speaker 1: to c S a few years ago. The only companies
Speaker 1: that you would see at c S. If you were
Speaker 1: in the main convention center, you would see lots of
Speaker 1: big name companies and maybe a few distributors as well,
Speaker 1: but those be the only ones you'd see. If you
Speaker 1: go to the Venetians and sands, you'd see smaller companies,
Speaker 1: or you would you were interested in um Audio hardware,
Speaker 1: which was often featured at the Venetian where you would
Speaker 1: go to a suite and they had more control over
Speaker 1: the environment because it's very noisy at c e S,
Speaker 1: so so it's hard to set up like a high
Speaker 1: fidelity experience on the c e S floor. But you
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot of independence out there. You saw,
Speaker 1: you know, there were areas where there'd be lots of
Speaker 1: tiny companies that had very small booths and they would
Speaker 1: just be jam packed, usually ones, a lot of them
Speaker 1: from Asia, for example. But these days now we're in
Speaker 1: the era of crowdfunding where we're seeing independent projects that
Speaker 1: have crowdfunding backing, they don't have like the backing of
Speaker 1: a giant corporation, actually actually have a significant presence at
Speaker 1: c e S, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: almost wonder, you know, it's like, especially with a crowdfund
Speaker 1: it's like, are you using the money that we just
Speaker 1: gave you for a booth? Like, like, I have concerns here,
Speaker 1: like especially the ones that are just have these like
Speaker 1: giant booths and you're just like, you know, I gave
Speaker 1: you a hundred dollars to give me, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: and now you're here with you know, a skateboarding ramp
Speaker 1: and you know, confetti cannons and T shirt guns and
Speaker 1: I'm a little concerned about where my kick starter funds
Speaker 1: are going to. Yeah it might be like you're not
Speaker 1: such a great tech company, but you're an amazing marketing company. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and I just yeah, it's very weird to sort of see.
Speaker 1: But tech West was really cool because it was a
Speaker 1: lot of those companies, a lot of hey, we were
Speaker 1: on Kickstarter, Like three Doodler was there, um, and they
Speaker 1: had a successful Kickstarter. They unveiled the newest like version
Speaker 1: of their three D pen, their three D printing pen,
Speaker 1: which looks a lot better than the original first jan version,
Speaker 1: which is really cool. But yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: really I always like going to see yes and seeing
Speaker 1: those which is like the success stories. You're like, gosh,
Speaker 1: like okay, there they are like I backed this on Kickstarter,
Speaker 1: or I saw this on Kickstarter and I told my
Speaker 1: friends about it. And now they're a successful company and
Speaker 1: they're super excited to be here. Uh they love being
Speaker 1: there and they like being in the position that they're
Speaker 1: in because they have a little bit of name recognition,
Speaker 1: which is always nice. But then on that same note,
Speaker 1: there's still you know, fresh, and they're still they have
Speaker 1: stars in their eyes about you know, making it big,
Speaker 1: and it's just they're so enthusiastic about being there. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I really love about cs is,
Speaker 1: especially over in Tech West. Now there's so much enthusiasm
Speaker 1: and so much excitement over there. I mean that place
Speaker 1: was buzzing all week long. Yeah, it's cool. I spend
Speaker 1: most of my time there and uh so I got
Speaker 1: to see a lot of these little companies. There are
Speaker 1: some big companies over in Tech West as well, because
Speaker 1: that was where they put some of their zones. C
Speaker 1: e s will also create zones that have related products
Speaker 1: kind of grouped together to make it easier to see them.
Speaker 1: That was really smart. It is really smart. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work for the big companies because they're just too big.
Speaker 1: They don't want to split up their their presence. So
Speaker 1: like for wearables, for example, one guy I ran into
Speaker 1: had this great saying. He essentially said, uh, every everyone
Speaker 1: here has a wearable. Every booth here has got something
Speaker 1: in it that's gonna be a wearable or it's gonna
Speaker 1: be used in wearables. You know, It's pretty much true.
Speaker 1: So you could go to the Big Boots and see
Speaker 1: examples of that, but you could also go to tech
Speaker 1: West and see companies that were specifically oriented around a
Speaker 1: particular product or a group of products. Um same sort
Speaker 1: of thing with three D printing. That was huge over
Speaker 1: at tech West, and you know, one of the one
Speaker 1: of the most impressive displays of three D printing. It's
Speaker 1: been a long time coming. I mean we I remember
Speaker 1: when I went to my first c E S maybe
Speaker 1: it was even my second one. I saw a maker
Speaker 1: Bot for the first time and it was one of
Speaker 1: the early early models, and I think it was the
Speaker 1: only three D printer that was on the floor that year,
Speaker 1: and it really blew me away. And now there's just
Speaker 1: an entire section of tech West dedicated to it, full
Speaker 1: on section, and they had not only you know, three
Speaker 1: D printed jewelry and three D printed objects, toys, things
Speaker 1: like that. But they also had three D printed food,
Speaker 1: which it's like three D printed chocolate and three printed candies,
Speaker 1: and that just blows my mind. I mean they also
Speaker 1: they had the full three D scanner where you could
Speaker 1: go in scan yourself and get a print out of yourself.
Speaker 1: I know it was tough for me because I showed
Speaker 1: up and they looked at me and said, we don't
Speaker 1: have enough plastic. So I just turned around and walked.
Speaker 1: But then I went straight to the fitness trackers and
Speaker 1: they said we can help you. Don't worry, it's all okay.
Speaker 1: Another big trend, obviously, one of the things that you
Speaker 1: see a lot of at c S, which is kind
Speaker 1: of funny considering that it comes so close to the
Speaker 1: Giant to show that happens in Detroit is there's a
Speaker 1: lot of car technology on display, and this year, one
Speaker 1: of the big ones I covered for Forward Thinking the
Speaker 1: announcement that Toyota is has released all of its fuel
Speaker 1: cell vehicle patents more than five thousand, six hundred though
Speaker 1: the worldwide to be used royalty free, license free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's absolutely a brilliant savvy move on the part
Speaker 1: of Toyota for multiple reasons. One is that if you
Speaker 1: want to bring around a world where hydrogen is a
Speaker 1: legitimate fuel source for vehicles, you can't depend on one
Speaker 1: company to make that change. It's just too big. You
Speaker 1: can't hold all your right And you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people have pointed out Elon Musk did something very
Speaker 1: similar by releasing the patents related to the Tesla, and
Speaker 1: that too was a really brilliant move in my mind,
Speaker 1: it's great to have both of these technologies moving forward.
Speaker 1: I mean, in many ways they're competing, but if you
Speaker 1: look at a battery operated vehicle and a fuel cell
Speaker 1: operated vehicle, they're both electric cars. It's just one is
Speaker 1: getting its electricity from a storage chemical stored battery, another
Speaker 1: one is getting its electricity from a hydrogen fuel cell,
Speaker 1: and and it's good to have both. It maybe that
Speaker 1: in the long run one ends up winning over the other,
Speaker 1: but I think having both is incredibly beneficial, particularly if
Speaker 1: we maintain the demand that the electricity that is going
Speaker 1: to power our vehicles ultimately comes from a clean source.
Speaker 1: That's the big challenge with both of those types of
Speaker 1: technologies right well, and especially with gas prices coming down
Speaker 1: quite a bit, it's they I know that. I believe
Speaker 1: I read they started selling them the Hummer again. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: which is a little disappointing, but I mean at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's sort of one of those
Speaker 1: things where it's going to be it's a challenge. It's
Speaker 1: always a challenge because when this is an expensive people
Speaker 1: don't think about needing economical cars or clean cars. And so,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, the reason why the Volkswagen Beetle
Speaker 1: was so popular, uh in the seventies is because of
Speaker 1: the gas shortages, people needed these like economical cars. They
Speaker 1: started they stopped driving those giant boats that we remember
Speaker 1: from the fifties and the sixties, and they started moving
Speaker 1: towards smaller cars. So that's how we kind of started
Speaker 1: getting smaller cars. And now we're moving towards these sort
Speaker 1: of eco friendly vehicles, uh, you know, emission free and
Speaker 1: all this great stuff. And man, there was so much
Speaker 1: awesome stuff that I saw at CS that how to
Speaker 1: do with vehicles. I mean, the concept car for Mercedes,
Speaker 1: the f O was unbelievable. It looks like it's something
Speaker 1: out of a science fiction film. It looks like it
Speaker 1: came right out of minority report. You just get in.
Speaker 1: It's got these four captains chairs. You could swing around
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty degrees. It's self self driving, I mean,
Speaker 1: and of course you know they're like, this is for you,
Speaker 1: this is we're way out in the future. But I
Speaker 1: mean it's okay. I think of it this way. I
Speaker 1: remember two thousand like it was yesterday, So it's now,
Speaker 1: that's another fifteen years of like, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be here like tomorrow. That's I am perfectly on
Speaker 1: board with the autonomous car revolution. Yeah, that that was
Speaker 1: one of those concepts. I saw the pictures afterwards. I
Speaker 1: never made it out to the North Hall, which kills
Speaker 1: me because I wanted I wanted to do a walk
Speaker 1: through and really see. The North Hall, by the way,
Speaker 1: is where all the automakers have their their booths. You
Speaker 1: tend to have major automakers have booths there, and then
Speaker 1: all the like super loud boomy based stereo companies, and
Speaker 1: then in a whole bunch of like phone accessories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's exactly where you want to show off your
Speaker 1: phone accessories, next to the gigantic wall of sound that's
Speaker 1: just playing bass at you. Yeah. Of course, Uh, one
Speaker 1: thing I didn't see a lot of this year. But again,
Speaker 1: it could just be that I didn't have a chance
Speaker 1: to really walk the floor. But I'm hopeful that perhaps
Speaker 1: I'm I'm right. I didn't see a lot of booth
Speaker 1: babes there weren't. You know. There's a there's a list
Speaker 1: going around after the show is over. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw it. Uh. It was a list of
Speaker 1: companies that had them, and I want to say none
Speaker 1: of the major companies had them at all, which was
Speaker 1: really that made me very happy. Yeah, so so booth babes,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, these are women who are
Speaker 1: hired to try and entice people into a booth. Usually
Speaker 1: they typically are are dressed in revealing or sassy or
Speaker 1: sexy clothing of some sort and uh and they they
Speaker 1: tend to be uh kind of treated as like these
Speaker 1: this is an added decoration to our booth. It is
Speaker 1: like a decoration. It's really depressing, it really is. I
Speaker 1: sat next to a lady who old such a role
Speaker 1: on a on a bus a shuttle bus once and
Speaker 1: we had a really good conversation and she was genuinely
Speaker 1: an interesting person, and it hurt me because I thought
Speaker 1: she doesn't have any opportunity to actually engage in meaningful
Speaker 1: conversation because that's not what her role is. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad to see that that trend is starting to fade away. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. I'm glad that it's it's finally people are
Speaker 1: starting to realize, like it's much better to have knowledgeable
Speaker 1: people in the booth because most of the people there
Speaker 1: are not, especially in Vegas. It's like it sounds weird.
Speaker 1: It's like they're not there to pick up chicks, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's that's fine, and that's you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to, if you think that will bring people
Speaker 1: into your booth, like whatever, But what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do when none of them can talk intelligently about your product?
Speaker 1: Like then they just leave. So so they get their
Speaker 1: picture and they leave, and it's just it's kind of that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of that fast food sort of feeling of
Speaker 1: content like out of booth, that you go to a
Speaker 1: booth and they might draw you in with something, but
Speaker 1: if somebody can't actually talk to you about a product,
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna leave. You're gonna get you're gonna
Speaker 1: a quick picture of whatever it is that you were
Speaker 1: looking at whether it's a person or some gimmick, uh,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, and then you're gonna split because nobody
Speaker 1: there can actually tell you about anything. So I'm really
Speaker 1: glad to see that they're really going out of their way.
Speaker 1: Like at l g UM, everybody was so knowledgeable and
Speaker 1: well trained, and they knew exactly where to direct you
Speaker 1: if you weren't sure about something or if you had questions.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were very good. Like I was, I
Speaker 1: was very impressed with lg I mean, all the big ones,
Speaker 1: Sony Samps Song, I mean, they're all very very good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Tells Booth was really great. I mean all of
Speaker 1: the major players had a lot of super knowledgeable people
Speaker 1: who were friendly and also just really had an enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for the product that they were discussing or whatever they
Speaker 1: were assigned to talk about. So that was great. It
Speaker 1: was really nice to see that. Yeah, that's nice. I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds it may sound to my listeners here
Speaker 1: that we're crowing about something really simple, But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: it's not always like that. At c E S. There
Speaker 1: are times where you go there and the person who
Speaker 1: you're talking to clearly doesn't know they might know like
Speaker 1: a tiny laundry list of features that the product has,
Speaker 1: but they can't really answer any deeper questions or or
Speaker 1: they'll still get a little list. They'll hire people who
Speaker 1: are who do that for a living. I mean it's
Speaker 1: in booth guys or girls, and then they don't really
Speaker 1: train them deeply on product. They just say here are
Speaker 1: the main bullet points hit and and here's a real
Speaker 1: quick overview of how the product works. Well. The problem
Speaker 1: with that is is some people really take that to heart,
Speaker 1: and you get you can always get some really good
Speaker 1: people who have been hired in and who have been
Speaker 1: just trained for you know, half a day on a product,
Speaker 1: who are really into it and they're excited about it.
Speaker 1: But then you also can get the people who are not,
Speaker 1: who are just you know, there for a paycheck and
Speaker 1: they say, well, oh and here's the phone or here's
Speaker 1: the TV or the washer and dryer or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, it's really nice, and that's it. That's
Speaker 1: all you get because they didn't bother paying attention during training,
Speaker 1: right right. Uh. Another big kind of theme that was
Speaker 1: running through this is one that I am really excited about,
Speaker 1: while also I get a little uh nauseated by it's
Speaker 1: it's virtual reality. I love virtual reality. I love it
Speaker 1: in concept. In practice, there are times where I definitely
Speaker 1: get a little loopy and uh feel a little weird.
Speaker 1: I think that my main disconnect is if I play
Speaker 1: anything that has a first person perspective and it has
Speaker 1: a very convincing immersive world, and I turned my head
Speaker 1: and everything is fine, that's cool. The problem I get
Speaker 1: is as soon as I start to move, if I
Speaker 1: have to use a controller to move, then the disconnect
Speaker 1: from using the controller versus my head looking around as
Speaker 1: if I'm standing up because my body is staying still,
Speaker 1: but the input I'm getting through my eyes and my
Speaker 1: ears is that I'm moving. That's what my stomach says. Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: I gotta take a quick break here, Yeah, and we'll
Speaker 1: recons Yeah, there was you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of virtual reality at the show this year. So not
Speaker 1: only was Oculus there with a huge booth, I might add, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess getting bought by Facebook gave him a little
Speaker 1: bit of spending money, well, spending cash. Yeah. They had
Speaker 1: a huge booth full of great demos, fantastic demos, with
Speaker 1: the newest version of the Rift the Rift headset. So
Speaker 1: the it's Chris, It's not. Let's see Chriscent Bay. Is
Speaker 1: that the newest one, Christopher Cove Crescent Bay. Um, So,
Speaker 1: Crescent Bay is the one with the headset to three
Speaker 1: you know, three D sound as well as the actual
Speaker 1: virtual reality headset. And it was so good, so fantastic.
Speaker 1: And then Razor came out with os VR, so open
Speaker 1: source virtual reality, including a headset and also just software
Speaker 1: so you don't have to use the headset with the
Speaker 1: software vice versa. You could use one or the other
Speaker 1: or both. That was fantastic. A lot of open sourcing
Speaker 1: has been happening recently, which makes me very happy. And
Speaker 1: then um, and then we saw, you know, we we
Speaker 1: know that Sony's working on Project Morpheus. Wasn't at CS,
Speaker 1: but it exists. And then Samsung's got their Milk VR,
Speaker 1: which is sort of a separate service, and then they
Speaker 1: have the Gear VR, which is the headset that you
Speaker 1: can use with a Note three or a Note a
Speaker 1: Note Edge, the Galaxy Note Edge. Yeah, they also had
Speaker 1: that on display at the Oculus booth. If you weren't
Speaker 1: if you weren't willing to wait in the very long
Speaker 1: line to try out the rift. You can just wait
Speaker 1: in the very short line to try out the Samsun one,
Speaker 1: which is what I did because I was on a schedule.
Speaker 1: But yeah, seeing that this is finally becoming something that's
Speaker 1: actually within the realm of the consumer reach is really exciting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I remember the era when the term
Speaker 1: virtual reality was first bandied about in the late eighties
Speaker 1: early nineties, and I remember the backlash that the industry
Speaker 1: suffered when it didn't quite measure up to our expectations. Um,
Speaker 1: when are when we when we thought we'd be plunged
Speaker 1: into a digital world and it turned out we would
Speaker 1: be shooting a polydectyl uh monster. Yeah. I remember those
Speaker 1: at like the county fair. Yeah, where you'd go and
Speaker 1: you'd pay like five dollars or ten bucks and then
Speaker 1: you got five minutes inside this VR sort of. It
Speaker 1: was like a little platform that had corners and then
Speaker 1: you put on the headset. Was very weird and very terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the headset was suspended by cables because it was too
Speaker 1: heavy to just put on. Yeah. Now we used to
Speaker 1: have one of those that are our local mall and
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, you would pay for a five minute
Speaker 1: experience and if you were to pay for more than
Speaker 1: five minutes, you were either a glutton for punishment or
Speaker 1: you had an iron stomach. Because and also everybody in
Speaker 1: the line hated you because it was everybody. There was
Speaker 1: always a huge line, right because because it was new thing. Well,
Speaker 1: now that new thing is finally getting to a point
Speaker 1: where we can actually see a time when we'll have
Speaker 1: it in our own homes. And uh, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people out there who have
Speaker 1: the developer kits, who have been playing around with it
Speaker 1: for a while. I didn't do that because my philosophy
Speaker 1: is that developer kits are primarily for developers, and I
Speaker 1: should wait, um, because I want to have the experience
Speaker 1: that's going to be most suited for consumers as possible.
Speaker 1: I say that I'm also the owner of a pair
Speaker 1: of Google glass so apparently I can't always hold myself
Speaker 1: to that, but um, but yeah, it was great seeing
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff on display and seeing it's so
Speaker 1: close to being a mainstream product. Um. One of the favorite,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things that I encountered. I didn't
Speaker 1: get to visit them when they had it all set up,
Speaker 1: but I actually ran into the team that was behind it.
Speaker 1: While I was on the plane going to c S
Speaker 1: was a company, a little group called Serenetti and Serenetti
Speaker 1: had created a cooking robot. I told you about this
Speaker 1: when we met up at SO. The idea behind this
Speaker 1: is that you've got a robot that cad, stir and
Speaker 1: cook food. Uh. It's it's got a robotic arm that
Speaker 1: can actually rotate and stir the food properly, specifically meant
Speaker 1: for lots of different types of stuff like uh like
Speaker 1: foe or pad tie, that kind of thing. And all
Speaker 1: you do is you put the ingredients in the robot,
Speaker 1: and the robot adds the ingredients at the right time.
Speaker 1: It continues to look after the food as it's cooking.
Speaker 1: Does it all automated, so it cooks your whole meal
Speaker 1: for you. And what I thought was brilliant about this
Speaker 1: approach was that as I was talking to the creators,
Speaker 1: they were mentioning that their business plan wasn't to just
Speaker 1: sell the robot. That if that were all it was,
Speaker 1: then that would be a real challenge. Their business plan
Speaker 1: is to set up a subscription based service where you
Speaker 1: subscribe to get meals that the robot can cook, so
Speaker 1: you get the ingredients, You load the ingredients into the robot.
Speaker 1: The robot cooks your meal, and what you're paying for
Speaker 1: really is the subscription to the food service. And these
Speaker 1: are high school students, genius. What are we doing? What
Speaker 1: are we doing with our lives? I don't know, Ashley,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be millionaires. Like it's like a robot. It's great.
Speaker 1: I could add two of those kids together and they
Speaker 1: still wouldn't be as old as I am. And they're
Speaker 1: gonna be millionaires. I feel so deeply unsuccessful when I
Speaker 1: hear that these stories. I'm just like, well, uh, it
Speaker 1: was a good try, right, had a good run, had
Speaker 1: a good run. I'm just gonna give up. Yep, you
Speaker 1: need me, I'll be in the bar if you need
Speaker 1: my robot makes my dinner. I'll be doing that. My
Speaker 1: my bartender is drinking next to me because he's out
Speaker 1: of a job now is making us both drinks and
Speaker 1: making us dinner. Yeah. There were some other things that
Speaker 1: were on display at CES that got some buzz. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was a computer from HP, the HP stream Mini,
Speaker 1: this tiny, little hundred eighty dollar computer that just has
Speaker 1: basic outputs that looks like it's gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: a super desktop killer for a lot of consumers who
Speaker 1: just want to have you know, your basic PC operations.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily want to have it as you know,
Speaker 1: this will be like their home computer that lives at
Speaker 1: home as opposed to a laptop. I really like the
Speaker 1: design of it. I didn't get a chance to play
Speaker 1: with it at all, but I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: I thought the fact that Parent has an in dash
Speaker 1: system it. Yeah. You know, this is a company that
Speaker 1: I almost always associate with their their drones and their robots,
Speaker 1: but they do have an entirely separate branch that develops
Speaker 1: technology like this. So yeah, this is an in dash
Speaker 1: uh operating So they called it an infotainment system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it includes like you know, the various apps, the
Speaker 1: phone app and music apps, things like that dash cam control. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. I'm curious how distracting it is to
Speaker 1: a driver who's wanting to operate such a thing, but
Speaker 1: that is pretty neat. They did say it would be
Speaker 1: compatible with both car Play and Android Auto, so you'll
Speaker 1: be able to interact regardless of whether you have iOS
Speaker 1: or Android. Uh, You'll be able to interact with it
Speaker 1: by voice, so sirie, you'll be able to give Siri
Speaker 1: commands or um Android Audibilla talked to Google now, which
Speaker 1: I think is great, And honestly, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know why any automaker or even third party um
Speaker 1: third party company would make any in Dash anything that
Speaker 1: is not cross platform compatible. Right, Don't don't take that
Speaker 1: proprietary approach where you're trying to lock people into an ecosystem,
Speaker 1: because that's just a recipe for failure. Well, cars are
Speaker 1: such a long term commitment for most people that it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to do it that way, because
Speaker 1: what if you switch from iOS to Android, or what
Speaker 1: if you know, you upgrade next year and your Android
Speaker 1: phone isn't supported by that in Dash system, Like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't anything that, It's just it's a it's a much
Speaker 1: better idea. I was just talking about this to somebody
Speaker 1: who is very excited about cross platform because of that.
Speaker 1: He likes to switch back and forth between iOS and Android,
Speaker 1: so which I would find incredibly nerve wracking and anxiety inducing,
Speaker 1: but um, he loves it, and so for him, he's like,
Speaker 1: this is great because I don't have to feel like
Speaker 1: I'm locked into a certain type of phone while I
Speaker 1: own this this car, right, Yeah, this is the same
Speaker 1: argument I make for all the smart appliances that only
Speaker 1: we'll talk to other smart appliances from that same company.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, I totally get it, totally understand why
Speaker 1: manufacturers do this, but it's not a great experience for
Speaker 1: consumers because it means that we are locked into one
Speaker 1: manufacturer's form of appliances, even if we really like one,
Speaker 1: but we would prefer a different manufacturer for something else,
Speaker 1: Like oh, I love the dishwasher from this company, but
Speaker 1: I really like the washer and dryer from this other company.
Speaker 1: But I want all my stuff to talk to each other.
Speaker 1: It's really challenging. We've got a lot of companies that
Speaker 1: are trying to come out with um platforms that can
Speaker 1: allow for some cross communication that it requires a lot
Speaker 1: of jerry rigging really to make sure that things that
Speaker 1: are designed to speak with one language can talk to
Speaker 1: something that's designed to speak with a different language. That
Speaker 1: being said, the smart home was another huge trend at
Speaker 1: CES this year, probably the biggest I've ever seen it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: every year, I mean, smart home just gets crazy. Whole
Speaker 1: automation is Oh boy, it's gonna be ups in the
Speaker 1: next maybe five years or so, because it's going to
Speaker 1: be kind of an arms race between all these companies,
Speaker 1: as you were just saying, to like not necessarily lock
Speaker 1: you into an ecosystem, but to make products that you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to buy over anything else, Right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen this really changed dramatically over the years.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that long ago when you could you could
Speaker 1: do home automation, but it meant spending a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money getting contractors in there. There were very specific
Speaker 1: companies that were in the business, and they were not
Speaker 1: necessarily named brands that the average consumer would be aware
Speaker 1: of because it was a very very niche market. And
Speaker 1: now you've got big companies that are offering up all
Speaker 1: sorts of components. Some of them are offering up entire systems,
Speaker 1: so it will affect multiple things in your house, like
Speaker 1: your locks and your lights, your windows, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: climate control, all that kind of stuff. There are other
Speaker 1: ones that are you know, their focuses on a specific
Speaker 1: piece of that that, but they can work within a
Speaker 1: larger network. It's an exciting time because now again the
Speaker 1: average consumer can actually look into it and if you're
Speaker 1: only interested in automating your locks, you could totally do that. Like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go and invest in a ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollar renovation of your home to get it automated.
Speaker 1: Now you can get these bits and pieces. Um, I
Speaker 1: have Internet controllable lights, so I could turn my lights
Speaker 1: on anywhere in the world. It's amazing. Uh, but that
Speaker 1: was one of those things that I got from C. E. S.
Speaker 1: H two years ago, and that was an early implementation
Speaker 1: of it. Now we're starting to see things like the
Speaker 1: Hugh lights, which give you way more options than what
Speaker 1: I had. Um. But it's exciting because now we've got
Speaker 1: like we're the Internet of Things has become something more
Speaker 1: than just a buzzword. We're actually starting to see some
Speaker 1: examples of that. What I'm really excited to see is
Speaker 1: after that five years of craziness that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: seeing the software side reaching a point where our houses
Speaker 1: are no longer waiting for us to send a command
Speaker 1: to them in order for them to do something like
Speaker 1: dem the lights or adjust the climate control. Our houses
Speaker 1: will be anticipating what our needs are before we're even
Speaker 1: aware of it, and adjusting themselves for us so that
Speaker 1: we can live in Star Trek. Yeah. Yeah, and well
Speaker 1: we've already seen a little bit of that with like Nest.
Speaker 1: So it's it learns your patterns. It kind of knows,
Speaker 1: you know, when you come home and when you need
Speaker 1: you know, when you get up, and there's like, I know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of inner connectivity with Android home um
Speaker 1: and also home Kit, which is iOS uh. They like
Speaker 1: one of the examples they have given was, okay, so
Speaker 1: you have your you know, your wearable and when you
Speaker 1: wake up, it realizes you wake up, and then it
Speaker 1: sends a message to your thermostat to like turn up
Speaker 1: the heat, and so I think that will kind of
Speaker 1: be It's sort like I'm really I hate the phrase,
Speaker 1: but Internet of Things like it definitely is that. Um
Speaker 1: That's what I always think of when I think of
Speaker 1: Internet of Things. It's just all these different devices and
Speaker 1: gadgets and installations working together to sort of make your
Speaker 1: life more comfortable without you even needing to tell it
Speaker 1: to do so, which is always my favorite part of technology.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if I could have anything in the world,
Speaker 1: it would be you know, my question is when will
Speaker 1: we live the Jetsons? And so this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: always is very reminiscent for me of the Jetsons and
Speaker 1: oh Man, like finally, someday I'm gonna be able to
Speaker 1: get on a conveyor belt and it's gonna dress me
Speaker 1: and brush my teeth, wash my hair and style it
Speaker 1: for me, and then Rosie the Robot's gonna have my
Speaker 1: breakfast ready to go. I want to live in that world.
Speaker 1: Although the the styling of the hair sounds particularly painful
Speaker 1: in my case, I don't think that would work so well.
Speaker 1: But they just put a beautiful sheen. It just wax
Speaker 1: it a little bit, just to send you out in
Speaker 1: the world, little polish to the dome, just like when
Speaker 1: you brush your teeth and you get that little like
Speaker 1: being in the commercials. I'll just I'll just you know,
Speaker 1: it's me and Mr Clean all the way. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: that's I want to live in that world. I want
Speaker 1: to get to that point. I think we're we're definitely
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot more examples of competing standards. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a messy, messy uh five years, Like, it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be it's not gonna be smooth sailing the
Speaker 1: whole time. I think it's gonna be worthwhile once we
Speaker 1: get to the other side of that. But it does
Speaker 1: mean that we're going to have some time to really,
Speaker 1: you know, slog through some some unpleasantness I think in
Speaker 1: the in the short term. So, Ashley, was there anything
Speaker 1: at c e S that you saw? You know, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I've only brought up some broad categories. But was there
Speaker 1: anything you saw that really you just thought, now that's
Speaker 1: either crazy or that's awesome or crazy awesome or anything
Speaker 1: like that. One thing in particular, well two, Okay, so
Speaker 1: there are two things in particular that I really liked,
Speaker 1: which was the first one was at Panasonic. They have
Speaker 1: this beauty bar like mirror. It was I keep calling
Speaker 1: it the magic mirror. They have this mirror where you
Speaker 1: would sit down and it would scan your face and
Speaker 1: tell you, oh, you look dehydrated or these you know,
Speaker 1: you have bags in your eyes. You need to like
Speaker 1: supplement your diet with these things to like help your
Speaker 1: skin be better. And then you are able to actually
Speaker 1: do in real time because you would see this like
Speaker 1: sort of smaller reflection of yourself in the mirror. You're
Speaker 1: able to see uh, makeup and facial hair, and it
Speaker 1: was it just very well done. The facial tracking was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I really wish I had seen that. I also would
Speaker 1: love if I were designing that, I would definitely go
Speaker 1: with like the stereotypical uh overbearing mother. I do Santa
Speaker 1: with glad ass where she just insults you at every turn.
Speaker 1: Be effective. Um. So there was that and I love that,
Speaker 1: and that was great. We have a couple of videos
Speaker 1: about that on c net. And then there was the
Speaker 1: other thing I really enjoyed, which definitely was it had
Speaker 1: no purpose other than having people see it and go
Speaker 1: oh like, which is the flexible television? Did you see this?
Speaker 1: That was not what I thought you were going to say? Yes,
Speaker 1: there was this l G, and I think a couple
Speaker 1: one or two other boots had flexible twos, but LG
Speaker 1: in particular was the one that I saw. They had
Speaker 1: a TV that would flex from flat to curved. There
Speaker 1: was a four K TV. It was stunning. It was
Speaker 1: just so weird and cool and you just looked at
Speaker 1: it and everybody. I had to do tours at CS,
Speaker 1: so I was taking through these groups of tours and
Speaker 1: that was the thing where everybody just went oh like wow.
Speaker 1: It was that moment. Yeah, whenever I've led a tour
Speaker 1: myself in the past, and you whenever you have to
Speaker 1: do this sort of thing, whenever you get the chance
Speaker 1: to lead people on a tour, there does become this
Speaker 1: moment of I have got to find the one breath
Speaker 1: taking thing on this floor so that that if all
Speaker 1: else fails, they'll be that moment. And if I can
Speaker 1: end as close as I can to that, everyone will
Speaker 1: think it's the most amazing tour ever. Exactly, I'm giving
Speaker 1: away our secrets here now. The thing I thought you
Speaker 1: were gonna say, so I was totally wrong. But what
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say was the Intel
Speaker 1: spider dress. See, I loved that too. It had no
Speaker 1: purpose beyond just looking really cool. Yeah. So for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, first of all, I can't believe you
Speaker 1: didn't see any news on this because it was one
Speaker 1: of those things that was so eye catching. It did
Speaker 1: exactly what it was supposed to do, which is it
Speaker 1: drew attention and it got people talking about it. But
Speaker 1: it was a three D printed dress, as I recall,
Speaker 1: is like an outfit that had actuators that had these
Speaker 1: little spider arms at the shoulders. They look like spider
Speaker 1: appendages that can extend outward and look all scary. Is
Speaker 1: literally looked like a loot drop from World of Warcraft.
Speaker 1: It looked like you know Tier three, uh, Tier three
Speaker 1: shadow priests shoulders. It was that was that was exactly
Speaker 1: what it looked like. It was so cool as all
Speaker 1: white and then they had these glowing kind of nodules
Speaker 1: in there, and then they had proximity sensors in the
Speaker 1: chest area, so as soon as somebody would get close,
Speaker 1: these actuators would like lash out and keep people at bay,
Speaker 1: and then and then as soon as people backed away
Speaker 1: would the actuators would relax and kind of retract in
Speaker 1: and calm down. And uh man, it was just so cool.
Speaker 1: It was more of a like a bodice with a
Speaker 1: with a silver skirt um, but the bodice and the
Speaker 1: shoulders were all three D printed and it was run
Speaker 1: off the intel Edison chip and it was so so
Speaker 1: cool to see in person. Yeah, it looked to me
Speaker 1: like hr Geiger and the Parisian fashion consultant had had
Speaker 1: had drinks and thought, hey, wouldn't this be cool? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was really really arresting. Um kind of design. You
Speaker 1: definitely need to go check it out if you have
Speaker 1: not seen it, Just do a search for Intel Spider dress.
Speaker 1: It will pop right up. Uh. It was really and
Speaker 1: of course the models that they had wearing it, they
Speaker 1: had their hair swept up in a very dramatic up
Speaker 1: due that that made it look very sci fi sci
Speaker 1: fi and I fully fully approved of it because I thought, well, this,
Speaker 1: this feels like I'm in a deleted scene of Dune
Speaker 1: or something. It was fantastic. I loved it. It was
Speaker 1: so cool to see. So for those people who have
Speaker 1: not been to C E S, So how many times
Speaker 1: have you gone? Ashley? This is my fifth year. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was my eighth year. Uh so can you put
Speaker 1: into words what it feels like on that last day
Speaker 1: when you've just finished your last um, last appointment or
Speaker 1: last uh you know, the last thing that you had
Speaker 1: to do before you are done with C E S.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's like going on a Vegas bender,
Speaker 1: except instead of alcohol, instead of getting wasted on alcohol
Speaker 1: and partying, you're wasted on technology and exhaustion. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what CS is like. I Uh, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I managed to do it this year, but somehow I
Speaker 1: actually managed to avoid catching the C E s crud
Speaker 1: that goes around usually. I did not catch it either,
Speaker 1: and I was very happy about that. I think this
Speaker 1: is the first year where I didn't feel like I
Speaker 1: had a cold for the week following C E S.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've just come into contact with so many people,
Speaker 1: and the show is so huge. It's hard to explain
Speaker 1: to someone who has never been how big this is.
Speaker 1: But the Las Vegas convention centers, it's like nearly two
Speaker 1: million square feet just for the convention center, and then
Speaker 1: you've got the other places like the Venetian, the Sands.
Speaker 1: Just getting from place to place. Yeah, I explained to
Speaker 1: people this. I say, uh, so, you know how gross
Speaker 1: your phone is and they're like yeah, And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're pretty much the only person who touches your phone
Speaker 1: and it's disgusting. They say yeah. I'm like, now, imagine
Speaker 1: handling a phone that's been touched by forty people in
Speaker 1: the last five hours. That's how people get sick at
Speaker 1: C E S. So my advice to people who always
Speaker 1: go to any convention where you're touching stuff controllers like
Speaker 1: E three controllers or devices or anything that has to
Speaker 1: do with human touch or people are around it a lot.
Speaker 1: Always wash your hands the second you leave a booth.
Speaker 1: Always telling like, the second leave booth, just go wash
Speaker 1: your hands. It is a two minute detour and literally
Speaker 1: makes the difference between not getting sick and getting really
Speaker 1: really sick. Yeah. The weird thing about CS is it's
Speaker 1: one of those conventions where there's a line for the
Speaker 1: men's room, but not of the ladies. That's my favorite part.
Speaker 1: That's what I like about being a nerd in technologies.
Speaker 1: Whenever I go to a convention, there's never a line
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. Well, John, why do you think I
Speaker 1: got into this industry? I was just about to say, like,
Speaker 1: it's it's good that you are able to identify the
Speaker 1: real positives of a particular career path. Uh so so
Speaker 1: readily because I didn't make I didn't get obviously, I
Speaker 1: didn't give any thought to that, and then there I
Speaker 1: am stuck in line. Um. Yeah, this was a fun conversation. Actually,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me on the show. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just to kind of give an overview of
Speaker 1: what C was like. I know we didn't dive into
Speaker 1: a lot of different product details, but really I just
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of give listeners an idea of what
Speaker 1: the general tone was, what it was like. It seemed pretty, uh,
Speaker 1: pretty together this year. I didn't have any problems. It
Speaker 1: seemed like everything seemed to run fairly smoothly from my perspective,
Speaker 1: which was nice. I didn't have any issue was checking
Speaker 1: in anywhere I got, you know, everyone seemed to get
Speaker 1: through things. I did make the mistake once again of
Speaker 1: getting between the press and free food, which you would
Speaker 1: think at this point I would be able to avoid.
Speaker 1: But don't ever do that, He'll say, you'll lose your arm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I just don't have enough peripheral vision. So sometimes
Speaker 1: I think I'm safe and the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm right in front of a buffet table and
Speaker 1: that was that. That was that, That was it unveiled
Speaker 1: for sure. I remember that very well. I too. They
Speaker 1: made this terrible mistake of putting this dessert buffet table
Speaker 1: right in the middle of a very small corridor with
Speaker 1: a lot of startup stuff in it, So journalists were
Speaker 1: like rushing the table. Not a lot of things were
Speaker 1: being covered in that area, but it was just it
Speaker 1: was a real mess. Yeah, that that particular area was
Speaker 1: where some of the really kind of niche weird stuff
Speaker 1: was sitting and uh and just imagine that You've got
Speaker 1: the narrow sort of hallway area of a larger room,
Speaker 1: like the bigger part of the room is just behind you,
Speaker 1: and you've got your in this narrow hallway, the center
Speaker 1: of which is dominated by a table covered in food,
Speaker 1: surrounded by piranha like press members who are starting. And
Speaker 1: all you want to do is get to the end
Speaker 1: of that hallway, do a loop and come back because
Speaker 1: there's no exit out that side. You are you are
Speaker 1: committed once to go down there. And yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was really depressing. Yeah, so but we
Speaker 1: survived once again. We live to fight, Live to fight
Speaker 1: another c e s and we didn't even get sick.
Speaker 1: We didn't even get sick. Yeah, I don't even know
Speaker 1: why I'm complaining. I'm just being I'm just being ridiculous. Ashley.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find your work? Well, I
Speaker 1: am always on Twitter, so the big social media person
Speaker 1: and Twitter is my number one social media network. So
Speaker 1: I'm at Ashley a skeather there. And then if you
Speaker 1: want to see the daily geek talk show that I
Speaker 1: host with kill Anonymous, it's called Tomorrow Daily and you
Speaker 1: can actually instead of going to sne net and kind
Speaker 1: of looking through all the different categories, which can be
Speaker 1: a little tough to find, you can go very easily
Speaker 1: to Tomorrow Daily dot com and it will take you
Speaker 1: right to our show page. UM and if you if
Speaker 1: you want to check us out on YouTube, you can
Speaker 1: do that too, or on the s net uh s
Speaker 1: net channel there and of course iTunes and UH and
Speaker 1: we do a video version of the podcast as well.
Speaker 1: It's it's audio or video. We film it everyday Monday
Speaker 1: through Thursday. It's a great time. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. I'm all about positivity and and have you know,
Speaker 1: just basically leaving with a smile on your face. So
Speaker 1: if you've if you've left and you had a good
Speaker 1: time after watching the show, that's mission accomplished for us.
Speaker 1: So come have fun with us. It's Tomorrow Daily dot
Speaker 1: com and UH and and feel free to drop me
Speaker 1: a line on on Twitter. Awesome. And Ashley really is
Speaker 1: a great person. She had me on on a show
Speaker 1: very long time ago. This has been a long time
Speaker 1: coming having her on tech stuff. One of the sharpest
Speaker 1: people I know and tech journalism. I always love talking
Speaker 1: to you. Thank you again. And guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any questions or you have suggestions for future episodes, you
Speaker 1: can always reach me, text stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, or drop me a line on Facebook. For Twitter,
Speaker 1: the handle there is tech Stuff hs W and we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again. Really South for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, does it have stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com