The 2009 Consumer Electronics Show

I'm still feeling it, to tell you the truth. See last year I was feeling it too, but you know, this year I had other obligations and couldn't make the show, So Jonathan went by himself, and I'm sure he loved

being able to run across all those different show floors. Right. So, the the Consumer Like DRAVE showcases this big industry showcase in which all these uh these different manufacturers and companies come to Las Vegas to show off the new products for the next year, hoping to get buyers interested in it, hoping to get a lot of press coverage. Um, it's just this big, big convention and when I say big, it's I mean it's huge. C the c e A which puts on cees. Uh. They claim that the size

was one point seven million square feet. That's a few square feet, Yeah, quite a few and all the space that's in between them where you have to walk from right and it takes place in in the Uh. There's several hotels where they have exhibitor space. There's the Nation, there's the Sands Convention Center, there's the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the bulk of the big big names are. Um, there's the Renaissance Hotel, there's the Las Vegas Hilton. And

then there's some hotels, you know, some some exhibitors. They they booked space and hotels around the strip. Uh you know that way they get around paying for show floor space at the event itself, and then they try and lure people into these hotels to take a look at their stuff. And that did the couple of those two wanted to win, and some other places. Um. But yeah,

it's a big show. And one of the big stories, I don't know if you were thinking about talking about this, was that, uh, everyone was wondering if it was really going to be as big as it used to be well. I had been wondering that myself. If you are a regular listener in the podcast, I was projecting in our two thousand nine predictions that the trade shows would start to shrink some in the economic down term. So I was wondering myself if it was going to be as

large now. If if you were part of a large team of people covering the show, you may very well have noticed that it was smaller. There were there seemed to be fewer attendees, although when I say fewer, the floors were still really crowded. Don't get me wrong. It's just that you actually had some space to breathe once in a while, which normally isn't the case. Also, there were entire sections of the show floor that were unoccupied where people who had or companies that had reserved space

pulled out. And um, so there were there wasn't a section I think it was in the North Hall that was completely curtained off because there were no exhibitors to to exhibit there. Um, they just kind of squished everyone else closer in and in a massive game of booth tetris um. But from a from a the perspective of a single person covering the event. It's still huge, So saying that it's smaller than it used to be, that's probably true, but it's still ginormous to use a fake word.

But yeah, so, I mean it's it's not hurting as badly as you'd think. All right, let's talk about some of the stuff that you saw. Um, I think you were saying that one of your favorite favorite pieces of technology you saw was Panasonic three D television. Yeah. Now, this was the buzz at the event. There were a few major um uh exhibits that got more attention than anyone else, and this was one of them, and deservedly so. So Panasonic had this booth that spanned the entire width

of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Um, it was. It was not very deep, but it was extremely wide. In fact, in order to get past Panasonic, you had to hug essentially a wall on one side or the other of the convention center because you couldn't go through um because I had a back to it. But in the middle of this was this theater, and inside the theater they were doing demos of this three D plasma home theater system,

which is still on the concept stage. It's not it's not going to be commercially available anytime really soon, so it won't be working over money for that in stae July probably not. UM. No one would really give me a uh. No one would nail down a date for me. But the technology was phenomenal. I I got in line, I think I might have actually crashed it. Um crashed in the sense of I got in line when I

shouldn't have. UM. I didn't realize this till later, but they were actually they actually had a booth where they gave out tickets for people to go and see this, so that they would have a specific time to come in and see it. I did not realize this. I didn't see the ticket booth because I came from the other side of the booth. And uh. And so I just got in line and no one asked me for a ticket. So I just walked on and sat down. They had one space available that they let me sit in.

And uh. It was a really effective demonstration, in fact, the most convincing three D that I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a bit. UM it was. It was really beautiful, gorgeous high definition. It was just it was a fantastic demo. They could not have done better. Did you have to wear any special I gear or anything like that. If you're gonna be looking at this in your home, you're still gonna have to wear glasses. And and they they're not the red and blue glasses. It's

the polarized glasses. So it's not not like you're you know, looking like you came straight out of you know, the UM And like I said, it was really really effective stuff. It was probably my favorite thing that I saw while I was at CES. Well, three DS seemed to be a trend this year. Oh it was huge. Yeah, Panasonic wasn't the only person or person corporation to showcase three D uh. There were several other companies that did, including Navidia had their three D glasses thing. It's called G

Force glasses. Um. Those are USB powered or charged anyway, and they actually have a shutter speed, so the polarization there's actually a shutter. Now. The shutter opens and closes at a speed that's far too fast for you to to consciously um realize, you know, you can't see it, but it's happening at a sixty hurts refresh rate, so it's shuttering on and off sixty times per second for each eye. They actually call it a hundred and twenty hurts because it's for each I right, But it was

very very convincing. They had a rock band or no, I guess it was guitar hero game going, so you could actually see the notes coming toward you and all the all the the little digital performers, you know, like they were actually on real stage. It was kind of neat and um I got a chance to play at

another booth. I played Left for Dead, which is of course as zomb survivalist game, and it was in a It was set in a wooded uh level in the game, and it was phenomenal if and when you start going through those trees, it looks very convincing like you're really going through a forest. I mean it, it feels pretty cool. And now I don't think I can play that game without the three D anymore. So, do you need any special equipment other than the than the headgear? You have

to have a special monitor. Yeah, it depends on the depends on the tech, which one you're you're looking at. Most of these require a special monitor. Just like if you wanted to have three D television, you would need a special TV. You need one that was three D ready. So for instance, the Mitsubishi Laser View is a three D ready television. Most TVs would not be able to display the information properly, so you wouldn't get the real the effect. Um. So, yes, you do need special equipment,

whether it's a computer monitor or a television. Sounds expensive, Yeah, well it's not cheap, but you know, it's really really cool, so you gotta you know, it's the trade off, it's and of course, just like any technology, the earlier, the early adopters will will purchase it, and f enough of them purchase it, that drives the price down and then the rest of us can get our grubby little hands

on it. Um. Another one of the trends that I saw and following other sites in their coverage of CS this year is one of your favorite words, and it's maybe the first time that I've uttered this word on our podcast, convergence. Convergence was huge. Um. Yeah, So there's a couple of different things that are converging into a single form factor. Really, one, I would argue smartphones and netbooks are really getting closer and closer to becoming a

single device. So you're gonna put the keyboard up to your mouth and type of your tongue something. I mean. The point being that smartphones are getting more and more complex, and netbooks are you know, kind of these scaled down notebook computers. But a lot of the netbook manufacturers are looking into using the cellular network as a means of transmitting information. So instead of using WiFi, you're using the

three G network or even the edge network. And um, and so, yeah, your your computer is turning into more of a phone device. Your phone is turning more into a computer device. Eventually they're going to meet uh. And then the same thing you could say is going on with television. There was lots and lots of interactive TV displays. Um. One of the stories I heard was that Yahoo had kind of pulled out of C E S, but yah who was still everywhere because everyone had Yahoo widgets on

their interactive TVs. I remember when that was called confabulator, and they offered the widgets for your Mac. Of course, now dashboards there and Vista has widgets. So and as a matter of fact, I saw some of that on and C S two thousand and eight. They were starting to put in you know, you can put in your own news tickers or little widgets. But it seems like widgets are everywhere now and it's you know, it's interesting. It'll be interesting to see if it really takes off.

It's something that I would like to use. I would love to have a little option to be able to check my weather or you know, see the traffic or whatever just by looking at not having to wait for a newscast or anything like that. Um but you know, you gotta make it as easy as possible to use, and you've got to make it as easy for the cut for the consumer to to see the value in it for it to really take off. So right now, I think a lot of people are still thinking of

it as well. This is neat, But would I really use it right right? Another trend I saw mentioned a lot was wireless technology. And of course we've been talking about things like Bluetooth and WiFi, but they were talking about wireless everything. Um I saw a wireless charger. You know, battery chargers are sort of everywhere now, you know, just drop your cell phone on a pad and it charges for you and even even for your car. Some of that and showing up now, there was there's a lot

of wireless chargers there were, of course. I also got to play with Microsoft Surface. Yeah, the the interactive table exactly, and that that has the multi touch capability where it can sense multiple points of contact with your fingers or hands or whatever, and you can manipulate stuff. But it also has this technology that allows it to interact wirelessly with appropriate devices. So let's say you have I don't know, a Microsoft Zoon for example, and you put your Zoom

down on the surface. You could theoretically synchronize your zoom to the surface without ever connecting any wires or cables or anything. Or if you had a uh A camera that had the wireless capability, you could place the camera on the surface and automatically pull the pictures from your camera to the surface. Again, you don't need any wires or anything. It just all happens as soon as you as soon as it makes contact. That's a really cool technology.

It's something that we're not going to see in homes or anything for several more years because right now the surface is still prohibitively expensive. It's around ten thousand dollars. This is something you see in like commercial displays, less and less likely to see it in a home unless you're you know Bill Gates. Well, um, it's funny because yeah, you mentioned that that you didn't even see the Microsoft

surface in the Microsoft area. No, I didn't see it there, but you didn't talk to Microsoft and they had someone some big stuff. Of course. Uh, Windows seven Beta was supposed to be released around then, and they had it was this big thing. Um, of course you were on the show floor, but they only were limiting it to two point five million downloads and having having to open it up, and they had some problems with the whole

downloading process as well. As I recalled, there was Yeah, this was stuff that I was hearing while I was at the show. Um didn't really affect me because I had a physic old copy of Windows seven Beta in my hand. But you actually saw Window seven. I did. I did. I saw a demo by one of the people who made Windows seven. Yeah, it was a personal one on one demo and it was it was pretty impressive. I mean they were They didn't come out and say this is to try and correct the mistakes of Vista.

The way the way he worded it was that Microsoft listened to their customers, took into account the things they liked versus what they didn't like and used that to design Windows seven, so, you know, kind of dancing around the issue of the whole Vista perception problem thing. And I didn't really ask about that because I was very interested in the technology, not not you know, covering up something or whatever. Um, but it was very it was

a very neat demo. I actually really did like what I saw, and hopefully we'll be able to start testing out our own copy of Windows seven Beta very shortly and and kind of take it for a spin. Yeah, that'll be fun. Yeah. Um. And you also like media Room media Room. Media Room was so neat. Okay, So media Room is this this technology Microsoft has developed that allows them to work with cable content providers like a T and T for example, was the one that that

I got to see. And this would allow you to do things like let's say you you get home and you realize that you just missed the first ten minutes of whatever your favorite show is, and you didn't set your DVR, you have no way of of watching that. Well, this service would actually let you go back to the beginning of that program and watch it all the way through. It has a lot of DVR capabilities in it, but

there's no DVR. It's just part of the service. I mean, you do have a box that is the Media room box, but it's not it's not a traditional DVR, and it has so much many more capabilities. For example, let's say that you produce a show and you have some great bloopers from that show. You know, it's like you know Sitcom. Let's say, and there's there's great bloopers. Usually you have to wait around for some sort of special or DVD

or whatever. But for subscribers to the service, it's possible for the content provider to add in clips of bloopers and you would just push a little button on your remote and pull up a menu, and you could go through and see what additional content is available for that show, and if it's a blooper, you could watch the blooper right then and there. Or you could even link web

content to the device. So let's say you're watching one of our programs, how Stuff Works program you're watching the one on coffee, and then you think, I'd like to actually know a little bit more about coffee. I wonder if there is any more information. You push the button, you pull up the menu and you could go and read excerpts from our coffee article if we were working with the media room software and all of that. So this is all very early on. There's already about two

million customers worldwide using this software. Um, but it's you know, it's still in its early stages. But I think it has pretty amazing potential. I was blown a a by the demo. Yeah, yeah, that sounds impressive. UM, let's see other different things. I remember you mentioned the Lenovo screen, which is the think pads. Yes, this was a monster of a laptop. Guys, you would not want to put this on your laptop because you would probably crush your legs.

But it is technically a portable computer. Um. It is rather heavy, it's rather large. But there's a retractable second screen stored behind the main screen of the laptop. It's on the right hand side. You push a little, you push the screen in and it pops out just like kind of a you know, like a click click off type thing, and it increases your screen by about your screen uh landscape, I guess by about Yeah. The press release that I read said the main screen is seventeen inches,

which is already pretty big. It's already then you're adding another ten point six inches smaller screen so you can you can put information off to that side screen if you like, and work from your main screen. And that way you you have you can reference things that are on the the secondary screen and you know while you're working. Um, and it means that you don't have to purchase a second monitor. I mean a lot of people do use workstations where they have a second monitor and they can

you know, they drag and drop stuff left and right. Um, this saves you the trouble of doing that. Um. But again, it is a it is a big machine. Not I loved it. I saw this and I immediately thought I want one. But um yeah, but yeah, a little You don't want to carry it around on the show floor. No, No, this would be one of those things where I would want to leave that at my desk here and then maybe get one of the cool netbooks. I saw while I was in CES, and there were a lot of netbooks.

Netbooks were huge this year. Yeah yeah, well, um, speaking of huge, actually small, that's what I was thinking. I was gonna ask you about the l G watch phone. Yeah, that's another one of those like the Panasonic three D. That was one of those things that everyone was talking about. And the l G Watch phone is yeah, it's a phone, it's a watch. It has a speaker on it, you can talk into it, It's got a little touch screen interface.

It's really cool. Now. LG was really careful with this thing. Um, they had two different types of people who could wear the watch who were part of the l G booth. There were the spokespeople who could actually talk about it,

and then there were the mutes. And the mutes were for people who, let's say that you have a camera crew with you and you want to shoot some footage and you want to talk about and you want this person to hold up their arm, but you don't want to have that chatty chatty kind of thing going on. That's what the mutes were for. They were just to stand there, look pretty and be a showcase for the watch. They were just models essentially. Essentially. It was cool. It

has some pretty impressive specs. Um, you know, it does include Bluetooth. But what I thought was really funny is that LGS saying that it has such excellent noise cancelation that you're not even supposed to have to put it up to your mouth to talk. It should cancel out everything that's not you for three feet. Yeah, it's interesting to get our hands on one of these and see if that's really I would love to. I don't know that.

I don't know that Dolt would be handing them over anytime soon, but I would love to get my hands on one there. Actually. Noise cancelation was another big thing, just with phones in general. Yeah, there was a lot of discussion about phones that had multiple microphones in the phone to help with noise cancelation, to try and uh so that you know, in theory, you could just be in a noisy place like I don't know, the showroom floor of C e S and still carry on a

normal conversation without having to scream your head off. Yeah, there was there was one booth in particular where they would blast noise at you and hand you a phone and I'll let you call other people and you could you know, they could hear you. You could show off the fact that and then you'd walk out and your ears would be ringing and you want to go and

lay down for a while. Well. Um. One of the other things that I thought was really cool was the fact that you mentioned that they were sort of reaching out to kids and to older adults with technology. You actually had specific um exhibits targeted towards those groups. Yeah, they had two areas. They had an area specifically for products aimed at kids, and they had another one for

products aimed at the elderly. And then there were other booths that also had technology that fit these categories, but they were not displaying in those designated areas. But it was interesting because what we have here is, you know, you've got the baby boomer population that's continuing to age, funny how that happens, and they're pretty tech savvy, you know, for the most part. But their parents, the generation you know that came before them, they're not as tech savvy.

And so it's sort of the the gadgets that will allow the this generation, this older generation too, maintain a sense of independence and reduce a sense of isolation. And uh so that was really the focus of the gadgets for them. I thought that was really really interesting. I actually talked with a couple of people about their design philosophies and it was you know, it was one of those times where he kind of felt good after you walked out of a booth because you really, you really

felt that the people designing these things. Yeah, I mean there's a market for it, so otherwise I wouldn't do it. But they felt that they genuinely believed in what they were doing and that what they were doing was helping people stay connected with parents and grandparents. Well, it just goes to show you that not everybody needs the latest and greatest feature set. They just need something that works well with the you know, minimum of difficulty. Yeah, sure,

you know, so it's just easy access. Um. There's tons more we could talk about, but I have one pressing question for you. The big rumor since Apple is pulling out of Macworld, right, do you think that the Apple will be a You know, they did introduce the Pippin at A c S in the past, so well, you know, it was one of those rumors that was making the showroom floor. Um, and and ce A apparently, I you know, I should actually check and see if this was true.

I mean I had heard, I will say, I heard a rumor that C. E A said, yeah, Apple is going to be here as an exhibitor next year. UM. I don't know how much stock to put into that because for one thing. You know, it's you know, they could always back off and say, oh, they pulled out, But if they get that initial rush of Apple fanboys all clamoring to be part of ce s, it's just better for the show. Um. So I don't know. I'm skeptical.

I'm skeptical. I think that uh, if let me put it this way, if Steve Jobs is still in charge, I don't think it will happen because I think Jobs is satisfied with doing events his way. So to do Apple events at at venues that Apple arranges there, they have complete control of the situation. I don't see him giving that up. Now. If Jobs is not in control,

fair game. Yeah, well, uh, I don't know. I think it's possible that they may decide to do something non computer related, and like if they decided to do an iPhone and iPod showcase, you might see some kind of presence or you know, there's they're looking for the next big thing. They might come out with something entirely different. And of course, just because somebody says it's going to happen or not gonna happen, doesn't mean it's actually go that way either. So we'll have to wait another few

months before we will find out for sure. That's uh, I don't know. I guess I don't really have any other questions for you right now, where we've got some articles coming out before too much longer on on some of these things, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled on how stuff works dot com for those yep. Yeah, and you can check out stuff everything from smartphones to netbooks. We have information on all of this stuff already, and of course it's just gonna increase over the next few weeks.

So you can find all of that stuff at how stuff works dot com and we'll talk to you again really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you