2012 Consumer Electronics Show

Ford EVOS-  Electric Concept Car

Earlier this month I was given the opportunity to go to the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES for short) in Las Vegas.  For those of you who are not familiar, the CES is the show where most of the big name brands roll out their new technologies and updated models of their product suites.  It is the show where you can glimpse into next generation technologies and find trends in mainstream consumer products.  It is the show where everything from $10 headphones to $10,000 personal home servers are on display for all to see.  It is quite simply THE Show.

It is the largest convention of the year in Vegas.  There are nearly 2500 companies presenting, over 15 miles of booths and aisle ways, in 5 huge convention halls.  It over runs the entire Las Vegas convention center and spills over in to The Venitian and The Las Vegas Hilton.  Throughout the whole town surly yet appreciative cabbies line up by what seems like the hundreds just to move the 159,000 industry affiliated attendees from place to place.  Maybe next year they will invent teleportation, but as it stands now it is a huge mangled mess of droves, flocks, and gaggles of people.  All bustling about to see "the next big thing".

The difficulties associated with attempting to take it all in are fairly obvious.  There is simply too much to see in 4 days.  And I am sure there are some fascinating stuff that I just wandered by in a mid-afternoon daze of over-stimulation and malnourishment.  But I will do my best to cover some of the highlights and give you a few thoughts.  First off, some mechanical issues, the CES is simply too large to cover in one blog post, so I am going to cut it up in to a couple different bite sized entries.  Second, I am not an industry technician, so I don't have all the specs, requirements, and analysis of "This" vs "That".  What I do have is a four day experience seeing myriad competing technologies and thoughts and observations of what I saw.   So, without further ado...  Let's get to it!


2012 CES General Thoughts

As I was preparing to go to the CES I was warned by others who had gone in past years that it is big, and it is crowded.  "Check, big and crowded, got it!"  They would give me a knowing glance and repeat themselves.  Big and crowded.  So I was totally prepared for big and crowded.  I've been to big events before, and I am no stranger to crowds.  I've got this covered no problem.

These are monitors, not TVs...  40" monitors

The words "big" and "crowded" are woefully under-descriptive when discussing the CES.  The CES is so big it makes the Las Vegas Convention Center seem small and inadequate.   The LVCC encompasses 3.2 million square feet. And the CES makes it look small.  In fact it doesn't completely fit there.  After my first day of walking nearly 5 miles, I made the executive decision to can the loafers, and go with tennis shoes the rest of the week (fyi- sport coat, collared shirt, slacks or jeans and tennis shoes is a popular look at the CES, it almost felt like a uniform).

This brings me to my initial thought: The CES is Big.  This was its largest show to date.  There were over 159,000 people in attendance.  Understand, the CES is not open to the public.  Everyone there, in one way or another, is related to the consumer electronics industry.  Presenters, manufacturers, buyers, sellers, industry analysts, media, sponsors, financiers, and even bloggers all interacting and creating this complex fabric of relationships, commerce and industry which seemed entirely designed to step on my feet.

Which brings me to my second thought: Nerds Can Be Very Rude.  As I mentioned, it was crowded.  Not cattle car crowded, not Japanese subway crowded, there was plenty of elbow room and entire aisles of nothing but open space, but often there were crowds and crowds of people.  You know, crowded.  And several times within these crowds there was bumping and foot-stepping.  Most of which is understandable, but at least give me a look as if you are pretending you are sorry.  Just act like you noticed that you almost knocked me into the $12,000 3D television, please.  Another popular move, that must have been taught at some seminar that I missed because there were many people doing it,  was what I started to call the "Usurper" also known as "Better Door Then a Window".  This is a special move where, if I am reading something or looking at a particular item you come stand right in front of me and start reading the same thing.  Just pretend I hadn't been there for some time before, and simply take my spot.  It was a very popular move.

But really who can blame them.  Every few feet was the promise groundbreaking do-dads, and life changing gizmos.  I have to admit, it was easy to get caught up in all of the hoopla, And I might have nudged a few that I didn't notice.  So I don't begrudge my follow dorks, but in the future some semblance of apology would be nice.  I am sorry to anyone I might have bumped or stepped on, I will do better to notice next time I am at CES.

Like I said, it was crowded.

Other than it being big and crowded, my main thought was this: Technology is Amazing.  The CES is mostly a hardware show, there is quite a bit of programming that goes into the operation and function of these new technologies to be sure, but it is mainly a hardware show.  With the advent of Apps, software has largely surpassed hardware in terms of popular recognition and day to day effect on a persons life.  Smart phones and tablets are platforms for so many functions that used to require individual machines.  I personally use my phone as an alarm clock, watch, and camera, all of which used to be their own separate component.  And my phone also connects to the Internet, sends and receives emails and texts, links to social networks, manages my schedule, allows me to play games, and oh yeah, lets me make phone calls, all wirelessly.  And that's all before I pick up the iPad...  we'll be here a while if I listed everything that thing is capable of.  So you need these components to gain access to all of the wonderful things that Apps allow us to do.  Hardware is still where everything starts.

I will get more into the gadgetry and advancements I saw in a later post.  But one major theme I noticed was that everything is blending together.  The lines are blurring as functionality of every device increases.  Streaming content on a computer monitor is in many ways more economical and easier to navigate.  So, monitors are now coming out that look much more like the new flat screen TVs and nearly the size.  In response the TV manufacturers are pushing 3D TVs, and are quick to note that the pixilization of a computer will never be able to compete with the clarity of today's TVs.  And so goes the perpetual dance of "Why I'm Better".

In the not to distant future you will be using your tablet as a remote, not only for your TV and audio visual components, but for your computer, appliances, household equipment like lighting and heating, and even your car.  It is hard to say exactly what platform we are trending toward.  That will all depend on adoption, public perception, cost and pricing, innovation, ease of use, distribution channels, and so on.  But this is the way we are headed.

Only a decade ago I used to marvel at the idea of pausing live TV broadcasts.  Now I rarely even watch live TV, nearly everything is a digital recording or being streamed in one fashion or another.  I don't watch less TV, I just watch it more efficiently when it fits my schedule.  Everything is getting streamlined like that.  And it is hard to know what is the next best thing, or even what is the current best thing, but we are just at the tip of the iceberg.  Technology certainly is amazing, and it is doubling and redoubling at mind-bending speed.

I hope I get to go to next years CES, deal with the crowds and the miles of booths, so I can see the difference a year can make.  As Ferris Bueller said "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it."

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