CES 2007 Trip Report
by Mike StanleyEach January, the Consumer Electronics Show takes over Las Vegas for a week. Lines get long, traffic slows to a stop, and the media descends in hordes.
If you've ever visited my web site before, you know that I preach the benefits of continuing education for engineers. I lump CES into that category simply on the basis that it exposes engineers to a broad variety of products and techniques. It's been at least five or six years since I last made it to the show, so in October I made reservations at an off-strip hotel and scheduled a couple of days vacation to take in the show. I mention this for two reasons:
- If you wait any longer, you will not be able to get a hotel room. The entire town gets booked; and
- If you wait that long, the only affordable rooms remaining are likely to be off-strip. Which makes getting around more difficult. If you can get a room on-strip, you will have access to the Monorail and CES shuttles.
The last time I was at CES, the first plasma displays were starting to be shown. I still
recall my amazement looking at those first small displays, no thicker than a piece of
glass, displaying the most gorgeous pictures. This year, flat panel displays were
EVERYWHERE. My personal favorite was the 108 inch (YES! NINE FEET!) display at the Sharp
display. But I must admit, after the first hour, you do tend to go into flat panel overload.
Nerds like toys, and we like them even better if we can claim they are educational. So one
of the first things I sought out were the robotics vendors. The little two wheeled Bot you
see here is a concept design that was being demonstrated by Ted Larson
(www.tedlarson.com)of OLogic, an embedded systems research and development company. Like an enraged bull, this little
guy seeks out and charges anything in the color red.
Matthew Fisher of KumoTek showed me Robovie-M, developed in Osaka Japan, represented at the show by Mr. Teruo Sasaki.
Our next entrant is Spyke by Erector. Spyke is a surveillance BOT
that is controlled from your computer via WiFi. He is equiped to watch and listen, can act as a VoIP phone,
music player or automated guard. He can activate an alarm or send you a picture by email when movement is detected.
When his batteries are low, he will automatically return to his charging station for a "fill up".
Las Vegas would not
be Las Vegas without lots of beautiful women. These ladies were traveling as a group across the showroom floor
handing out "Prescriptions" for a new product. I forget which one. Maybe that company wants to reconsider how
they spend their marketing dollars next year...
I've never been mechanically adept, but anyone would enjoy the concept vehicles displayed at the CES
mobile electronics (in-car technology) exhibits.
I also briefly visited the Microsoft area.
Windows Vista and related projects featured prominently. Vista is more than
an operating system, it's a control and communications system that could someday run your home.
That starts right where many
people spend a large part of the day - in front of the television. Vista adds features to change the way
you view TV. One interesting product they showed is a TV remote that allows you to channel surf without
annoying others in your family - on the 2" miniature display built right into the handset. Once you've
settled on a channel, THEN you can switch the main set.
Another vendor that really got my attention was Holografx. They have a product, targeted at advertisers, that creates 3-D images in mid-air. No mist, no 3-D goggles, just an image that appears to float right in front of your eyes. My pathetic attempts to create a movie of the effect don't do it justice. Visit their website to learn more.
Other things worth noting? Electronic picture frames were everywhere. I expect prices to come down as a result. Koncept displayed their award winning LED lighting products. ABBYY Software House was handing out free copies of their PDF Transformer and FindReader OCR products. bigC was showing their electronic microscope products. One version drives a TV display directly, the other plugs into the USB port of your PC. I liked them so much that I bought one.
Overall, my impression this year was of a show that featured products that were mostly evolutionary enhancements of ideas that have been around for a while: smaller packages integrating features previously not bundled together, bigger displays, and so forth. I'm beginning to think that presenting a presence at CES is a requirement for entry into the marketplace. It seemed as if every company in the world had at least one booth on the show floor (some had several). There were areas dedicated to specific market segments, as well as areas devoted to vendors from specific geographic regions such as Korea, Taiwan and mainland China.
My advice for next year: book your flights and hotel in the 1st half of the year. Get a hotel on the strip so you can take advantage of the CES shuttles and Monorail. Wear your most comfortable clothes, take lots of business cards and small bills (for tips). Attendance to the CES floor is free if you are in the industry and register early. Once there, get yourself out of bed and to the show early. The crowds get worse in the afternoon. Also, allow yourself extra time travelling to and from the various venues. And a final plea to the organizers of CES - I beg you, please, please add more seating on the show floor. Oh my aching feet!