There has been a lot of local buzz about how the Consumer Electronics Show will impact the Las Vegas economy. Historically, this show does not attract a spendy crowd. Last year(when the economy was good), attendees were very vocal about room rates being jacked up sky high. They even suggested moving the show to another city that would appreciate their dollar rather than squeeze their wallets. This year, the crowd was expected to be down about 10%. Floor space for displays was to be down a little, but not significant.

My first impressions were that traffic was not a bit lighter getting to the convention center. My second impression was the girl at the Sahara valet said business was very slow for the convention. My third impression was as I arrived by monorail, the front lot which is generally used for portable buildings was almost empty. The outside was only about 10% as full as one might expect. Inside the 3 main buildings, the display booths were almost full to capacity. There were a few open segments. The convention center made good use of the space as a place to sit down and relax and enjoy a snack. In past years, there was a serious lack of places to sit down, so this was a welcome change.

Something missing from this years show was WOW factor. There was a lot less "Hey look what we came up with that might come to the market in 10 years", and there was a lot more "this is the next generation of this item that will be out in the next few months". There was a lot "green" items made of recycled items, things that could be recycled, and things that recharge from the sun. There were a lot of cell phones. There were a lot of TVs although it was not earth shattering since 1080p is the limit and we've been there a few years. There was a lot less combining your life's needs on a 10 foot TV screen, and a lot more combining your essential needs on a very small laptop or cell phone type device. There was a lot of live TV stages set up. Most notably was NBC and the Jeopardy game show. The lack of displays in the automotive section was very noticeable. I was shocked by the lack of GPS displays and even DVD displays for the car. Most of the floor was dedicated to audio.

I did enjoy the show and found a lot of items that caught my attention. The one item that I wanted to take home with me was a Sony lens for my DSLR camera. It was f/2.8 16-35mm Carl Zeiss lens. The rep let me try it on my camera. I liked it alot. One thing I could appreciate but not identify with was a few areas set up for musicians. Roland music company had a big area where musicians could practice. They had several electronic drum set ups, where the drummer could wear headphones and listen to his music. They had a few keyboard set ups too. And they had one electronic drum set up configured like the guitar hero game. The main display on the outside parking lot was a building used by Gibson, the guitar maker. They had about 50 of their guitars that you could pick from and take them to a work station where you plug them in, put on headphones, tune them, and play. They also had a few Baldwin pianos to play. And they had one glitzy Jackpot Piano, done up in a Las Vegas theme.

Some items you will see this year include a "charging mat". You plug this mat into the wall, and when you want to charge your camera, cell phone, game boy, iPod, or whatever, you just set it on the mat and it charges without having to plug the device in. With this device, you can charge several items at once and only use one electrical plug. You will also see a spy ball this year. It's a little ball about 8 inches around that comes from the robot technology field. You control it remotely and guide it to roll where ever you want it to go, and it takes pictures you can watch as it travels. They claim it's a good way to keep an eye on your house while you're away, watch the pets, watch the children, etc. While it appeared sturdy, I think the pets and children would win on this one. Cell phones will take huge leaps forward this year. Manufacturers are taking the best features from the iPhone and enhancing them. Palm has a model called a Pre, and I think it will set the bar for others to follow, leaving the iPhone behind. Blu Ray DVD is all the rage. Look for it to be more than a big box to set under your TV. Look for wifi memory cards to become mainstream. You take pictures or movies with your camera, and as you move into a free wifi area, your pictures are automatically uploaded to myspace or facebook or whatever, your videos are uploaded to YouTube, and you never see it happening. The camera can be turned off and in your purse of pocket, and your pictures are sent home or wherever you designated them to go.

CES was a lot of fun. If I had more days off work, I'd go back a couple of more days and I'm sure I would find a lot more goodies. My two days was adequate for me. I'm sure if you watch your local and national media, and tune into the Tech channels on your TV, you can see a lot more than I saw.

Can anyone attend this show or do you have to have certain credentials to do so?

Credentials, pre-registration, pre-approval, and IDs required.

How much is the registration fee?
What are the electronic products they will present?
What will be the snacks/meal at this show?
Thanks!


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Interesting JMT, I believe you've been going to this for quite a few years now?
I personally have been really turned off by most new and improved electronics. Sharon just bought a new camera (nikon s630), and I have no desire to learn how it works. However she has become "the mad snapper" with the thing. I'm sure it's not cutting edge anything, but it dose take nice action pictures.
Hey, it took me 10 months to take the ipod Sharon bought me out of the box and use it. LOL
Thanks for taking a look at the show for us all. I still enjoy your posts, it lets me know what I'm not going to buy! LOL

Lee, you're not going to like the new cameras. My new favorite camera is a digital SLR. I was just telling someone last night how I went from using my parents box cameras, to SLRs, to digital, to point and shoots, and now I've gone full circle back to a digital SLR. It must mean that I am old. They are sweet cameras, and using it is much like an old SLR.

And you can mark June 6 and July 27 as days to not go phone shopping. On June 6, the Palm Pre phone comes out. This phone was designed by some folks that were initially on the iPhone project and quit because Apple had too many rules and strict ways of how they wanted the iPhone to work. So they took their creative talents to Palm. It will be available on the Sprint system.

Somewhere around July 27, the next generation iPhone will come out. It's features are mostly rumors at this point. One rumor is OLED, which I saw at CES this year. Have you heard of futuristic TVs that are as thin as cellophane and can be sewn onto clothes moled around irregular shapes or even painted onto a wall? The iPhone may be a user of some of the early examples of OLED. Even in a solid flat phone, OLED should be a better image that doesn't heat up as much and uses much less battery.

I'm very curious about the Palm Pre. I like my iPhone, but Apple has a lot of technology and features of the device that they are not using. They are spoon feeding us features, a little at a time, just to keep us interested. So I'm interested to see what creative ideas Apple didn't want to put into their iPhone. It's a 50/50 shot on to what my next phone will be.