CES 2012
CES – the Consumer Electronics Show – happens every year in early January in Las Vegas.
The orthodoxy of reportage dictates disclosure of awe-inspiring stats, so here goes:
“An independent audit, performed by Veris Consulting Inc., verifies all attendance, and the numbers for 2011 are in! More than 2,700 exhibitors showcased their latest products on more than 1.6 million net square feet of exhibit space, with a total of 149,529 in attendance. CES attracts the “who’s who” of the technology and related industries, including 40,335 senior level executives from the entertainment, wireless and consumer electronics industries. Also in attendance were more than 12,000 retail buying organizations and nearly 30,000 final purchasing decision makers.” There are also over 6,000 press and bloggers (a distinction that will soon vanish).
It’s massive. Too big really but then this is the US and Vegas, that sprawling homage to epic fakery where nothing is too large, too bright or too loud. Dubious sportswear of the elasticated variety is de rigueur as is staying up late, eating and drinking too much and behaving in an overtly bloke-ish manner (lots of beer, high-fives and hollerin’) or tottering around on vertiginous heels poured into a pencil dress maybe two sizes too small. Stags and hens without any impending nuptials. Although they obviously have those in Vegas. TF stumbled into a gay ‘wedding’ at a pop-up chapel at The Cosmopolitan (which is nowhere near as classy at it thinks it might be). It was a tad embarrassing although the happy couple were too wrapped up in vowing to notice. Same sex unions aren’t legal in Nevada, so it was purely symbolic. Anything goes in Vegas; just not officially sanctioned homosexuality. Or jaywalking, whatever that is.
By happy accident CES coincides with the annual adult entertainment exhibition and awards. Reclusive geeks and porn. Is there a connection? But that’s the ‘beauty’ of a trade show such as this; teeming hordes of reclusive tech-trolls burrow out into the open for their annual dose of sunlight and Vitamin D and see a virtual world made real. They realise they are not alone. It’s quite sweet, really although somewhat unnerving in an ‘I can’t be really sure but I think some of you might be Morlocks,’ kind of way.
It’s reckoned that 20,000 new products will be launched over the next few days. Seeing them all is impossible; writing about them even more so. Those who scribble about consumer technology for a living – be they representatives of established magazines or websites, or simply feverishly committed bloggers – go at CES hammer and tongs. They batter away at their laptops, hunched over on the floor in hallways at The Venetian or the Las Vegas Convention Centre, trying desperately to be first to get their insight and opinion out into the blogosphere. There’s pressure to do this because many rely on advertising to make their websites or blogs pay and the amount of money they can expect to accumulate from said advertising is linked to traffic – the number of readers or users who access their sites and read their stuff. So they write about everything.
A potential consequence of any lack of reflective, considered analysis is that the end-reader is swamped with info they might have neither the time nor the inclination to assimilate. And that represents Tech Fogey’s challenge for this week; tell you about the stuff that matters and makes sense and is genuinely interesting; winnow out the gems from the dross and be slightly sniffy about companies whose products have a near parasitical relationship with Apple; the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Let the madness begin.
