Coming to you from the CES press room, where everyone says "hi" to the folks at Huffington Post. (Wave, guys. The Huffingtonians are here. Hey, you in the back, put down that muffin.)
There have been reports that the show will be more sparsely attended this year because of the world economy, though that's being slighly misinterpreted. The case is more that a number of big vendors won't have booths on the show floor, but are taking rooms in the hall or displaying at their hotel suites. We'll see what happens once the show doors officially open in about 5 minutes. Last night's big Digital Experience from Pepcom was very well attended by vendors and the press attendance seemed just about as crowded, though perhaps slightly less.
I did notice at that the Press Day press conferences yesterday, a bunch of vendors had fewer "giveaways." I overheard a couple of reporters commenting about how at the Sony event they just gave away shopping bags. Samsung, which usually has had little promotional items, this year had nothing. Though Casio did have a nice promo -- just not far too few bags. Whether this was all related to the economy, or just a corporate decision about giveaways, who knows?
The Casio press conference was odd. Last year's evoked admiring oooooohs as they introduced a truly-fascinating new high-speed technology for digital cameras that did some remarkable things and advanced the industry. But it was only available in a $1,000 "pro" model. This year, they had incorporated it into one of their credit card-sized consumer cameras. As the mention of this, there was noticeable interest in the room -- but Casio only mentioned for about 30 seconds, ignored it and moved on to the "Big, Groundbreaking Announcement!!" It was an interesting technology that allowed for "moving composite" photographs, basically pictures that moved a little. But interesting as it was, it was mainly a gimmick. Two-thirds of the way through the press conference, people started leaving in droves. It's a technology that one day might develop into something major, but right now, it's cute, something to use on electronic birthday cards, or an e-business mailing to catch one's attention. What everyone wanted to know far more about was that camera! It's the FS-10, so if you're interested, do a search and perhaps you'll come up with more that got mentioned at the press conference. THAT was the story, and they let it slide.
At Pepcom's Digital Experience event last night, it's the small things that always impress me. Products that do basic, simple things in clever, inventive helpful ways. For example, Skyla has a simple but very clever digital picture frame that has a slot to slide in old "hard copy" photographs. It scans them and digitizes them -- and then installs them into the digital frame for viewing. Very easy and very clever. And Griffin introduced the upcoming (in April) Power Jolt Reserve, a car-charger for an iPod...but...it has a removable battery that charges simulataneously, and you can remove it and have a spare battery to carry with you. I think they said it holds six hours of power. None of these things are Major Products, just good innovation for basic needs.
As for the rest of the show, it's far too early to tell what the theme will be. At the moment, it appears to be ease and convergence. Companies seem to be trying really hard to simplify their technology so that things start to become as simple to use as a landline telephone. And do all these while overlapping with other technolgies (such as Samsung's teaming with Yahoo! for their "Cinematic Internet", using a remote control to let you access widgets to run for favorite Internet features.)
It's also become even more clear (as if was necessary) why last year's Writers Guild strike took place. The convergence of the Internet, TV and movies is not only ever-more pronounced, it's becoming a mature industry. All while the Hollywood companies insisted the technology was new-fangled and needed three years to study. This also explains why SAG has been fighting its own uphill battle. The technology is here, and it's sweeping all over the place.
Anyway, the doors are about to open, so I'm heading off into the magic wonderland of Disneyland for adults. (Or technogeeks...)
CES, Consumer Electronics Show, technology, Las Vegas Electronics Show, Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, gadgets, gadgets show, Las Vegas,