CES 2007
This was the first year I attended the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show as press, and the experience was preferable to when I go anywhere else as press. The consumer electronics industry is dying, so there's a lot of money spent on people like me so we can keep that bubble looking fat and juicy with potential.No sooner had I registered, in fact, that I got the World's Most Excellent Computer Bag. It was orange and shaped like a backpack, so visiting school groups up and down the Vegas strip would ask me what my MySpace page was.
One of the keynotes I attended was that of Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell. Alas, he was not as dynamic as I'd heard he was, or maybe I should remember that public speaking is not the strong suit of computer professionals so their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.
Dell's speech consisted mostly of techie platitudes, save for his company's new program of planting a tree in a protected forest for every computer a consummer buys, offsetting the computer's emissions.
The rest of the presentation featured Dell inviting various guests onstage for awkward scripted intervies in which the subject extolled the use of Dell products.
No mention was made of the "Dude, you got a Dell" kid's drug bust. No mention was made that at a convention of avid tech buyers, no oone could complete a cell phone call.
The weirdest thing was when Mike Myers as Dr. Evil showed up. Dell and Myers performed a skit in which Myers needed to back up his computer. It might have been funny half a decade ago when that character meant something. As it was, I was happy that Myers would be cashing a huge check for his appearance.Dell probably could have made the stage look much busier while saving on his talent fees and maintaining the relevance level by getting Freddie, Jason, and the other Michael Myers instead.
The CES was spread over two locations, the Sands Convention Center and the Las Vegas Convention Center. I spent more time at the Sands , checking oout the smaller foreign distribution booths. That is where the signage really paid off for me.
I also approved of the coordinated suits of some of the exhibitors.
"Earth Wind And Fire are probably wondering where their outfits are," I cautioned these gentlemen.
This bank of laundry and refrigeration equipment was shiny and impressive but provided no information about how to clean and prepare a corpse.
This man shoots like I type. I would repopulate the earth faster than this guy, I think, if it came down to it post-apocalypse.
CES provided its press rooms with box lunches and wireless Internet access as well as couches on which to watch Steve Jobs' iPhone announcement. Apple doesn't come to CES. Instead, Mac World was held concurrently in San Francisco and the ten or so people who had Mac laptops at CES gathered around CNN to watch the announcement.Someone left his or her PowerBook power adapter on the couch next to me. I looked around for a couple of days for its owner to no avail. So now I have an extra, which is very useful.
My wife says it's stealing.
Labels: CES, coverage, faulty technology, places, vegas
posted
by Marty Barrett at Tuesday, January 09, 2007
0
comments
links
to this post
