The CES Experience

favorite time of year. Senior writer Jonathan Strickland, you will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

The reason I am picking on Jonathan today UM is because today we're going to talk about UM, the event formally known as the Consumer Electronics Show, but I think it's it bears throwing that name in there for people who aren't as familiar with the acronym which the organization behind it wants us to us when we talk about

it CES. Yeah, and uh, And when this episode goes live will be while I'm in Las Vegas at the two thousand and twelve c e S. We're recording this in December, but by the time this goes live, I should be if I if I've counted my calendar correctly, I should be in Vegas as you're listening to this if you downloaded it the day it came out, right, So if you're listening to this right now and it's it's the second week of January, just remember Jonathan is

in Las Vegas and is exhausted and crying. Yes, and I'm not right, although he may be still crying because Chris does do that. But let's let's talk about Let's talk about the the show, it's background, and then I think we'll we'll concentrate on that in the first half of our episode and the second half. This is one episode of just the first section of our episode. The second section of our episode, we'll talk about what the

experience is like being at CES. But us both both of us have been, Yes, the fact that we we were both there at the most heavily attended c E s ever. Yeah. Yeah, the the show, um, may you may actually be familiar with it? Yeah, there are, there are a lot of people. Um, the consumer the organization behind c E s UM basically is right in thinking that a lot more people know about this show than

than they used to. Yeah, it's the Consumer Electronics Association that puts on the show, and that that's an organization of around two thousand companies that are in the consumer electronics industry. And these companies have formed this organization for

many reasons. Part of it is the organization conducts a lot of market research to kind of find out what consumers are interested in, what the trends are going to be, so that companies can kind of get a jump on things and start developing products that are going to really

appeal to people. You know that it's always a challenge figuring out what people are going to be interested in and and developing that because you know, most of these products have development cycles at last a couple of years, so to Yeah, so to be able to identify what a trend is going to be not tomorrow, but two years from tomorrow is a huge challenge. So that's part of what the c e A does. They also have

networking opportunities. UM I mean, obviously you've got a lot of these really important folks in various major companies and they all tend to know each other through organizations like the c e A and UH. It's also about education around things like legislation and regulation. There's a lot of these industries do have legislation and regulations surrounding them, so it's important for companies to be aware of that and to know what is and isn't cricket before they go

into developing a product. Well but I but ces is they're big, Like, that's the thing everyone knows them for. Beau ce S's just it's it's the public face of the organization and it's and it's become such a huge event, especially from its humble beginnings. Yes, yes, but in in essence, um, it's a trade show. UM basically a big open floor with booths where companies are showing off their products and there are people representatives from the company, not necessarily company employees.

Sometimes they're they're pr people that they've hired to talk, hired guns who come in and they've got fact sheets about all the different products that they have all memorized and they're happy to spout off. But if you ask them anything that's not in the fact sheet, then they give you an email. Here, take my card. Um, we'll

get into into what it's like. It's it's interesting to note um that this you know, we were in a gadget hungry world now in the in the two thousands, when the twenty one century, uh before that, you know, it's like the nineties were kind of like that. To the eighties. We had the Walkman, we had the the debut of the compact disc player, um, which we'll get

into in a minute. Um, you know, we we we live in an electronics crazy world, but the show goes back a little before that to a time when they're weren't um, you know, fifty different things plugged into our walls in our living room, uh, sucking down juice. They were. There were this organization and this event dates back into the nineteen sixties. Yeah, nineteen sixty seven in New York City.

That was the first CES, and back then electronics consisted of one radio and a television that didn't work yet not true. No, that's that's like that was a complete and well, the nineteen sixty seven part was true, but the rest was a lie. I did find a flicker set of photos from uh from early c e s s there was around in nineteen sixty seven. That's amazing the photos. However, Um, it's it's interesting, um to see people lined up at the registration booth um where you

can killt them wearing you wearing suits and ties. Yes, you know, because hey, you know they were members of the press and it was a trade show, you know, and it was a trade show, so you addressed up, yeah it was. And none of them were platify right right, Oh there you are, Perry. Uh. The so that that first show, there were two hundred exhibitors at that first show, and there were seventeen dollars and five hundred people attending

this show. And we should also point out that when we say people exhibitors, Yeah, if only I could go for half a day and I'd be done. Um, seventeen hundred attendees and and uh, the attendees were all industry related. You know, it's not open to the public. Why why why would you want to go? Yes, because I mean the idea, I mean I often ask myself that question. But now the uh, the yeah, But I mean it's their variations on different TV sets, different kinds of radio

stuff that's interesting. But for the most part, what this is for it's it's for the vendors, that the manufacturers to show off new products to retailers so that retailers will go and order the devices from the manufacturer and start selling them through their retail stores. That typical of

a trade show. That's what the four that's that's the main that's the big business that's going on at c E S. And then you have the press as well that covers C E S. And I think back in nineteen sixty seven, there probably weren't any bloggers, but it was all journalists, um so. And I'm assuming that a lot of them probably wouldn't have been interested in this because this isn't as interesting to the reader in nineteen

sixties seven, uh, the general reader as it would be today. Yeah. There, you know, the there did become kind of an interesting uh history at CES for new technologies to debut there, and we'll talk about those in a little bit. But when it first started, it was pretty it was it was fairly modest, and it was not the only big trade show out there either. I mean some you know, it's one of the ones that we hear about consistently today,

but it's not the only one. It was actually a spinoff of another trade show, the Chicago Music Show YEP, back in the day. But um uh, and then you know, you skip ahead by a valid decade unless you had do you had specific things you wanted to talk about.

In the early history of C e S, no, not necessarily, so I was thinking like back in around the c. E A decided to try something new and hold actually two trade shows per year, the summer right and the winter one was always in Vegas, and the summer one for the first first couple of decades was in Chicago. But then in nine c e A decided to try and experiment and move the summer city to different destinations and to kind of play that, play with that and

see how that went. Originally they were going to go to Philadelphia in I think, and then the problem was it was scheduled directly against uh, the E three UM event and E three the Electronic Entertainment Expo is another big trade show, UH. And that's so a lot of exhibitors were kind of expressed concerned about that because they really wanted to be and and retailers too they wanted to be at the other trade show as well. They'd

have to pick between the two. And if if you've got one show that has two shows a year and one that only has one show a year, well then that's easy. You you skip the one that has two. You can go to the other show and then you've got you you still have another chance to make it to the first one. So they tried that a couple of times. Uh in they decided, you know, this doesn't make any sense. We're just gonna do one show a year. It'll be that Winter show and it's gonna be in Vegas.

And that's how it's been since. So, um, you wanted to talk about some of the products, some of the technologies that have debuted at c e S. Yeah, we actually we actually have several um tech stuff episodes about some of the technologies that have that we're first shown off to people beyond the manufacturers at c E S. Yeah. Yeah, and um this is this is one of those those

things about the show. Um, well, we were going to talk about what it's like to go to the show, but if you go to to any of the booths, I mean, you're likely to see incremental changes and a product, the next version of a technology. Yeah, we've got the new camera which has a slightly faster um, you know, ability to do burst photography. Well a few years ago burst photography was new. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, movement I'd say, the stuff you encounter at ce S is just a

slight evolution on technology we've already seen. Yeah, but that one percent, and and you know they're there um variations on stuff. It'll be uh, you know, things that are slightly smaller than last year, or they come in different colors, or like the a camera that incorporates a button so that you can share photos on social networking sites more more readily. Yeah, that kind of stuff, like a new feature that's in a pre existing technology. Yeah, you know.

Or you'll go to a or will go to a press event and they'll we'll find out that, um, the TVs are not any particularly larger or or thinner than they were last year, but this time they're in blue because blue is the trendy color this year. But you will find this stuff that is brand new, and stuff that is that was previously unavailable to the public that will be including um and my first device was seventy that groundbreaking and when I mean groundbreaking, it's because it

was large and heavy. Video cassette recorder YEP YEP video cassette recorders or VCRs debuted at c e S was the first time anyone outside of the the industry got a chance to get a look at one of these, and um, and for those of you who don't remember, VCRs were a big thing. Yeah, yeah, and one of your your hits now this I have a list that came from c e S itself, The next of which was the laser disc player in four and that was that was pretty huge. Yeah, that LaserDisc players ended up

being more of a niche market. There was a like an enthusiast market that it was extremely popular. And um, I mean there's still devotees of the the Laser displayer out there today, but it never reached a kind of widespread adoption. And I'm going to do that thing that that Jonathan hates it when I do, I want to actually hold something up, especially gasses. Do you recognize this device that would be the first cheap digital watch from Texas Instruments. Yes, it made its its debut in the

in the mid seventies. I did recognize it. Yeah, that was if you listen to our Texas Instruments episodes then you know we actually talked about that about how d I helped bring in this era of of less expensive digital watches. Before that, they were all these luxury items that cost hundreds of dollars transistors. It's transistors speaking of something that has transistors in it. UM a device that I owned in the ninety seventies and this UH, it's interesting that you brought up E three in the mid

nineties because E three is much younger trade show. UM. If you wanted to show off the next device, you would have to take it to C E S because there wasn't a N E three UM when it showed up in ninety seven, and that would be Attris VCS a computer system. Other consoles also first debuted at c S,

including some that debuted after E three started. That includes Pong that's that was that was before E three, but any s that also debuted CS in in America, granted it had already been out in Japan, but made its American debut in uh a Winter c S show. And then UM also the Xbox Yeah. UM. Traditionally, there are several keynote speeches that take place at C E S. It's not all just out there on the trade show

floor where you're looking at booths. They also have sessions that they hold where they talk about trends and technology and and companies will have a press event where they will unveil the stuff that you would be able to see on the floor, but you'll get an early look at what it can do before you get to the floor. Well, Microsoft has had a keynote slot at cs for years and at one of these they unveiled the Xbox. So that was it wasn't any three thing that was before

Microsoft was big in games. Yeah, that was. It was a huge splash for Microsoft because you know, Microsoft had been involved in games on the computer side, but not so much on the console side. So this was definitely a pretty big move and it turned out to be a really successful one, which, you know, it's nice to be able to say that about Microsoft. Yeah, you're right.

I didn't mean to say that they weren't because they had done They had been releasing games for years, not on the scale that the Xbox, right, it was all it was all computer based, like Microsoft Light simulator type stuff, you know. But yeah, the other technologies that debuted at c S um well, will you talk about laser discs and VCRs. Let's stay on that topic. There was a big year because that was when the cam quarter and

Compact Disc player was shown off. C d S and then DVDs also debuted a C E S and as did UM Blu Ray. Yes, it also debuted at C E S. Yeah. Oh, and don't forget that earth shattering announcement from Sony the mini disc. Yeah. Very popular in other parts of the world, not so much in the United States. Um, you know, hi, hi d TV here in the United States, Um, you know, plasma TVs, um, you know, all kinds of stuff, and of course three D H d t V in the in the two

thousand nine Yeah. Yeah, So let's talk a little bit about Um, well, first of all, let's talk about two thousand h I've got one event in two thousand five. This was before we went in two thousand five. We have to talk about the the embarrassing moment for Bill Gates. Yeah, that that you know what, and doing the research for this, I wanted to look for products and and things that made their debut, and that one was mentioned in several and it kind of kind of feel terrible about it.

You know that so many people remember it. Sometimes stuff doesn't beep, that's the problem. So yeah, for that to happen to the company's founder and on a keynote speech, Yeah, here's here's what happened, because you know, we're dancing around it. So Bill Gates is up on stage and he is, uh, he's demonstrating a Windows Media Center to a crowd at c e S and as he's demonstrating it, the system crashes and he gets the blue screen of death. So

imagine being the CEO of a company. You're showing off your latest product on on a device that has had its share of jokes directed at it for its the you know, the fact that it does tend to crash, and that the when it does crash, you get this blue screen. For that to happen in public on the stage, that had to have been a little, uh, you know, a little bit embarrassing, and the press had a pretty good time with it. It still does. So anytime you see like a wrap up of big moments and c

e S, like Chris was saying, it tends to be included. Um, Um and I have one more big moment, uh in a similar vein that I think can can easily launch us into the second half of our podcast where we talk about what it's like to be at the show. Um, Jonathan and I. The only time that Jonathan and I attended c E S together. Was in two thousand eight. Yes, and there was another. Um. I hate to use the term epic fail, but this is this was painful and in its obviousness, Um, I know what you're going for,

but I want to hear it. We had an opportunity to be on the show floor early because we were members of the media, so we got a chance to kind of see. Now, most of the booths were kind of wrapped off so that you couldn't see it. But um, if you look at some of those old photo sets of old c E s is the boosts were very bland. It would be a white booth with the name of the company written on it. Well, okay, it was black and white, so it looks like a white booth with

a name in the company. Very very sober in comparison with today's where they have elaborate displays with speakers and all kinds of brilliant marketing materials. They might even bring overlays of stuff so that the cubicle doesn't look like so that the cube doesn't look like a cube, it looks like something else. Sure, sure, yeah, And in some cases, um, you know, you can't really see in it. Before they've started the show, and in some cases they can't hide

what's going on. So we're walking around the show floor and getting an idea of what what we're going to get an opportunity to see the next day. And on on one side we see Sony's enormous pirate ship of the Blu Ray display. Yeah. So yeah, they actually had a this this UH set essentially and it was because of Pirates of the Caribbean UH. And they had this

big pirate ship type set in the middle of their booths. Now, now, some of these booths are small, like some of them, Some of them are only a slightly larger than what you would find an office cubicle. Yeah, I mean their marketing. Marketing dollars don't grow on trees for some companies because they are paying for the square footage at this event and other other ones, especially you know, of course from the big companies are enormous, enormous booths, Panasonic, Sony, this

is taking place. Most of these booths are at the Las Vegas Convention Center, which has I think three and a half million square feet of space. Yes, and and and c e s. These days, it's not just one building, it's also in many other floors. Um, but anyway, you were saying, so the Blue Ray, the Blue Ray presence is there, and it was obvious, and then a couple rows over, it wasn't even that far. It was on the same show floor. It was the and this is again one of our very first podcasts that we did

back when we were five minutes long. HD DVD versus Blu Ray. Right, h D DVD was supposed to be at cs and the week before c e S there was a big stink because Warner Brothers announced that it was going to be exclusively Blu Ray from that moment on. And that was one of the few big movie studios that had still been backing h D d d D

at that point. H D DVD they which this from Toshiba. Right, had the Toshiba had decided to pull the h D DVD presence from c e S rather than have to endure a week long UH onslaught of questions about what are you going to do now? Yeah, yeah, and that was that was the thing they were. Um, there were rumors that there was something going to happen with h D DVD. UH. I guess in the weeks prior and then it happened right before they had the set in

place on the show floor and it essentially never opened. Um, and we didn't know. We got the announcement while we were there UM that they were they were going to do it, and then as we were there they said, yeah, we're done. Yeah, So that was pretty much the end of h D DVD. I had that down too. Yeah. That also was two thousand eight was a big year for UH for CS. We were a hundred and forty one thousand attendees, so up from that seventeen thousand, five

hundred previously just just a few more. Now. I actually wrote down the a couple of just little facts about every year from two thousand eight ton because we were you know, I attended all of those, So just a couple of little notes. So you covered h D DVD, which was one of the notes I had for two

thousand and eight. The number of attendees was another. And also I have what c net picked out as the best of CS because Senat is the official streaming partner of CE s or was in for those years and so s net always holds an awards um ceremony where what they do is their editors go and hit the floor and they all look at all the different tech out there, and then they get together and they decide what is the what is the best thing on the floor.

And I think it'll be interested to hear what one over some of these years, because they're not all good stories ahead. So two thousand and eight s NET Awards, this one is not bad. Is the Phillips Eco TV show. Yeah, this is a forty two in ten a d p h D TV that had a lot of energy saving technology built into it. Because two thousand eight, I think Chris can remember this to two thousand eight, I think

was the big trend was green technology in two thousand eight. Um, you can usually spot some pretty pretty prevalent trends each year at CS two. If you attend what we can talk a little bit about that as well. Two thousand nine, Um, that was the when the LG watch phone was on the show floor, which never came to the United States, but it made a huge hit at the show. Yeah, I got a lot of buzz because everyone's saying, Oh,

it's the Dick Tracy watching. It's got video and everything and his touch screen interface, and you know what, we don't have the l g Watch phone. But we do have the iPod Nano that has a lot of the same functionality, just not the phone part. Uh, so that's kind of interesting. But what one that year, Senets prize went to the Palm Pre Oh yeah, which is kind of sad. So justin short, Palm Pre from from from Palm never really took off. It very much impressed everyone.

Everyone thought that it was going to be a real uh competitor to the iPhone. Yeah. That was basically the debut of their brand new operating system. And then it just never got traction. It took about six months from CS before it even hit the market, and by then the buzzard died down, so it never really took off.

HP ended up buying Palm. Uh, the Palm phones began to disappear, webOS became a tablet only thing and then happened, and no one really was sure what was going to happen with webOS because they first HP was saying we're done with it, and they're like, no, we're not done with it, so we don't know if we're done with it. And now they're saying we're not done with it and we're moving it to open source. So that's been the journey of webo s since c E S two thousand nine. Yeah,

pretty crazy. And we did a whole episode on Palm, so you can listen to that if you want to know more about that company. The big thing I remember from twenty tenness seeing Intel's new Haleen processor running. I had written an article about the Nehleen processor and this time I got the chance to see it and I was very much impressed. The big win for that year was Panasonics three D h D t V. That's what Sena gave the award to. And of course three D

television still has not really taken hold. It just hasn't really gained that much attraction. There are a lot of televisions out there they have three D built into them, but we have not seen three D become a real powerhouse in home entertainment. Yeah. And and actually you you're mentioning, um uh, the Nehalen processor kind of reminded me to a lot of the stuff on the show floor. I mean, we've we've had many people, uh tell us that they think going to see e S would be a whole

lot of fun. And yeah, in some ways, getting the chance to see these gadgets and and and cool toys and be it. Yeah, that that part is kind of cool. But there's a lot of stuff where I mean, looking at a motherboard with an Ahleen processor. I mean what Intel does when they show that kind of thing off, um, is they show a computer running stuff that you know, they're talking about the the optimization, but if you look at the process there, I mean, it's it's a chip.

So there's there's a lot of stuff there that's just it's good and it's important, and it's it's nice to have in your next computer. You know, Oh man, look how fast that is. I'd like to have that, But you don't stay there all day and just marveling at it because it's the coolest thing. Every We can talk

about some of that, we can talk about some of that. Also, want to get to our personal experiences, because I've got a whole rant I could go off on, but not about Intel, though they're they're expected to show a new processor this year. Yeah. I saw sandy Bridge last year, and again that was very impressive. So that was something for last year being this year as we're recording it, but last year when you're listening to this even Yeah,

I saw, I saw Sandy Bridge and that was very interesting. Um. That was also it was a big year for tablets and smartphones last year. The Motorola Atrix, which was the smartphone that could dock with a laptop like docking device and it could power that laptop, so you were actually using the smartphones operating system in a laptop form factor. Uh, BlackBerry Playbook was there to play with. That was the first time I got my hands on one of those.

Um lots of different devices seen. That gave the award to the Motorola Zoom, which again just never really I mean, it hasn't done terrible and the it's not it's not it's not a failure or anything in the market, but I don't think it ended up making as big a splash as we thought back when we were at CES. Yeah, and part of that is just you know that that was sporting the new Honeycomb build of Android. Well within that same year, we've seen ice Cream Sandwich come out

or at least unveiled. Yeah. So I mean that's that's one of the issues with CS two is that sometimes the stuff that you see at the show that you think is gonna be like, oh my gosh, I can't wait for this to hit the market. It's gonna be the next big thing. Some of it, some of it never comes to market, and some of it will come to market and then just fizzle. Uh. Let me get my Let me get the one item that never came to market that just drove me crazy. I know what

this one is. The Lenovo you won? Oh, the Lenovo you won, which was a notebook computer where you could detach the screen from the base of the computer and it would become a tablet. And it actually had two different operating systems. When it was a notebook computer, it was running Windows seven. The original build I saw, when you detached the screen, it would switch to a Linux

based operating system. The second time I saw it, which was c S I can't remember if it was the first Timmer nine anyway, the second time I saw it, they had switched the tablet operating system over to Android. Uh. And in both cases they were hoping to aim for a summer release and it never happened. It did. There was some limited releases in China, but nothing in the

United States. And I this was the tablet device I really wanted because I wanted something that I could use as a full computer, or I could detach the screen and use that as a tablet, so that I could preload all the things I needed before detaching the tablet part, and then i'd have it to refer to on the tablet. That way, for all the heavy data processing type stuff or word processing word entrge kind of things. I could

use a keyboard instead of a touchscreen device. And um, and you know, I'm still uh still said that that never really came out. Um, but yeah, let's talk about what it's like when you go to c e S. We can cut We'll mostly be talking about from the

perspective of press, because that's what we are. We we haven't We've never exhibited at C E S. Yeah, so well it's uh, I can I can say that it's if you're interested in gadgets or you're a member of the media, it's the experience is not going to be terribly difficult because, um, you're gonna want to see as much of the show as you can. Now that the

show takes the better part of a week. Um, and you know, as as as I mentioned and Jonathan mentioned before, Um, it's quite a lot of square footage in terms of show space, Um, it's grown very, very large. There's even an outdoor section where they have mobile electronics and things car cars. Um yea that that was the first time I saw a Fiat five because Microsoft is showing off it's uh uh Sinc. Operating system, and they had a Fiat five there and I thought, wow, man, look at this.

They brought a Fiat overseas for just for this show. Um. A lot of the audio exhibitors are in hotel suites in one of the nearby hotels because you know, you don't want to you don't want to have to try and just and and show off your your high end audio equipment on a show floor that's just clamoring with noise. You need to have your own little area so that you've at least kind of blocked out most of the ambient noise so people can really hear what your stuff

can do. Yeah, to to quote Dr Seuss, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise, it's it's allowed environment. People are talking. There's media playing from from pretty much everywhere. Yeah, the central hall you get um uh, there's usually a few. The one the one audio areas you'll hear the most are from our are the the car sets, like the the the audio stereo systems that go into cars, those tend to actually be on the show floor and they tend to drown

everything else out. I know that when m Leo Report first got his This Weekend Tech table set up over at CS he was put directly across from an area where they had several of these exhibitors showing off these incredibly powerful stereo systems. And so through most of the twit footage of that first year, you hear doom, doom, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, like in the background, and like people are shaking when they're sitting there at the table. It was pretty intense.

They had in two thousand eight, one night when we went even had marine electronics. They had boats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh interesting. So some of these, some of these booths that you'll you would see are are wide and spread out and and in some cases it's that the company wants to make a big statement but doesn't necessarily have that much to show. Um. Sometimes it's that they need the space, Like the Parrot drone. The first time I saw that, you know, that's the it's got four

helicopter type blades. Yeah, quadricopter that's that's not bad UM and you can control it through and a mobile device. It was it used to just be UM iPhone, but they've expanded it a little bit since then. But that was really pretty cool UM and took up a lot of space, but it was it was it consistently drew crowds. Taser tends to have its own space. Last year, I saw them tasering people. That was kind of interesting. Yeah,

but it was I got a real charge out of it. Uh. And then there for every booth that you see that has really cool tech in it, they're about fifteen booths that have things like computer cases or smartphone cases or smartphone decals to put on stuff that's accessories for things that you already owned. So it's not as exciting. It's

definitely stuff that people want. So that's why it's at the trade show, because retailers are going to be looking around to see what's available and say, oh, you know what, I want my store to carry this line of smartphone case because I think that would really move UM. But as a as a member of the press or maybe just a member of the general public, if somehow you've found your way into cees. It wouldn't necessarily be like, oh my gosh, look at that smartphone case. Well, and

some of them manufacturers too, aren't necessarily cutting edge. You might see a headphone manufacturer there and they're not making uh the latest noise canceling headphones or that hey that would come in handy at zes or um uh you know, the the high end cans that you see, um, people paying three or more dollars. Where you'll see low cost headphones. Look,

we've made uh you know, earbuds with better response. Uh that retail for and and that's not gonna be exciting news necessarily, but it might be for retailers who are going, hey, I can I can offer a wider range of low cost stuff and selves in my store. Um. There are a lot of manufacturers from overseas who are showing off, um how they've been able to manufacture things in smaller packages and uh and for lower costs. Um, so you might be able to to fill out your low range

if you're looking for stuff to include in your store. Yeah, there's actually an entire section that's essentially from Asian um markets and it's all these really tiny booths filled with some of it's filled with some of the weirdest electronics you've ever seen. Like it's all the stuff that you would typically say wow that that clearly had to come

from Japan because it's just so unusual. But um, but also a lot of the other like the less expensive, the more affordable types of electronics, and not the cutting edge stuff, but the stuff that has been refined to a point where the price has really come down. UM. And then there are other sections of the floor where you're gonna you're gonna see the cutting edge, like the

tops stuff that's coming out the next year. UM. These are usually from the really really big companies, And once in a while a small company will will really throw you and you'll you'll go to some small booth and you're like, wow, the parrot drone in a way was

like that. A lot of people say, wow, that's really innovative. UM. But more often than not, you're going to see people talking about the big companies like Sony, Pana, sonic, Um, Toshiba, Toshiba, YEP, LG LG always has a really big presence there, Um, Intel, Microsoft, Uh. These are the companies that have some of the largest booth spaces on there, Like some of the booth spaces for some of these companies are the same as if you took ten of the other exhibitors together and put

them all in the same space. Oh yeah, I mean these places are are in a lot of cases, larger than a small retail store. Um. And and the the result of that is you can spend a whole day looking at a small section of the floor because need a few minutes to take in what it is you're looking at. So, I mean, you could spend a lot of time on your feet looking around, and it's it can be wearying, especially if you're carrying twenty pounds of

paper press kits or and six pounds of laptop. They don't they don't do the paper press kits as much anymore. But that was the year I went no, wait, there was a point. I remember Chris and I both at one point took out all the press kitts we had, and it was it was probably combined, it's probably at least fifty pounds of paper. Yeah, thankfully they don't do that anymore now as much. Now it tends to either be on a thumb drive or they give you a card that has a link to an online press scott

which is so much better. Also, it makes it way easier to get hold of things like images and stuff if you need to run an article, So that that fantastic. Keep that up the but it goes on for days. I mean you can after the first day or so, you can be quite tired. Yeah, the periods, and there's there's just a lot to see and a lot to do.

There are three main halls in the convention Center, the North Hall, Central Hall in South Hall, and South Hall is the one that I typically hit first, and they're most several of the big name companies are in South Hall. Central Hall has more of the big name companies, and I believe it's the Central Hall that has two floors, which makes that even more intimidating. And then the North Hall tends to have a lot of the vehicle stuff. Some of it's in the Central Hall, but most of

the vehicle stuffs in the North Hall. The stuff is not on display outside the convention center. Um and so you also they also will have special zones set up now at ces, so like they'll have a green zone area where they've got a lot of exhibitors who all specialize in green technology together. They'll have an educational zone, they'll have a senior citizen type zone, so technology that's specifically geared toward UM meeting the needs of elderly users.

So that's kind of interesting that you know, these different zones can be in various halls. It all depends on, you know, how c e S has arranged that particular year. Huh. Then you've got all the different UM ones that are in the the nearby hotels UM for example, the Venetian off often has its own the audio section. Also, the Venetian and Sands Expo Center tends to have a hall

display hall as well. It's a smaller one, doesn't have as many big names in it, but it's another it's another exhibitor hall, so it's not just the Las Vegas Convection Center, which is already huge. The Hilton tends to have several suites that people are using, the exhibitors are using.

Sometimes you have companies that don't rent space at c e S, but they show up and get a suite at a hotel and then they try and entice you to come over to the hotel so they can show off their stuff without actually being part of the CES there's that issue as well. And then they're all the parties. Okay, so people who have never been to ce S who are saying, wow, this sound like it's incredible. I kept and there are parties that sounds amazing. Let me tell

you what a c S parties like. So CES party, you will, you will eat well, and you will you could potentially drink as well. I don't drink, so that means nothing to me. Um. I mean I drink water, but I don't drink alcohol, so that means nothing to me.

But you go, you'll see some cool tech and then you try and talk over the sound of everyone else talking, plus the ambient music which is usually about three, three or four times louder that needs to be in order to explain who you are and and and find out more about this product. It's all business talk. It's not it's not fun stuff like it's not. It's not a part of you go to to have fun. It's a part of you go to the network to get a

little more information about stuff. It's still working. So it's not like, um, you know you're you're dancing the night away. It's not like that. Although maybe there are some of the CE S parties, and those are just the ones

I've never gone to. Uh So, now at this point I tend to I'll try go to a party now and then because it is a really good way to network with people, and it is a very good way, like if you if you write about how stuff works, like I do, it can be invaluable to get the business card of an executive so that you can contact that person and say, hey, I'm working on this article about the thing that you specialize in. Is there anyone at your company I could speak with so I could

get an expert on involved in writing this article. It's incredible.

But now I will often try and save the time after the show floor closes to getting together with some of my peers in tech journalism to sit down and just kind of talk about what we saw and kind of share knowledge, because there's a lot of that at C E S. It's nice, you know, you don't see a lot of at least in my experience, I don't see a lot of journalists kind of shutting themselves off from everyone else and not talking for fear of losing

the scoop. It tends to be a lot of people sharing their information and kind of you know, figuring out what are the trends, what what are was it that we're seeing? What does this mean for the upcoming year? And that, to me is is fascinating. That's one of the parts that I like the most about c e S. So sitting around in the old what used to be the Star Trek experience at the Hilton with with folks from the Twit network or from uh from Revision three

or from c Net. That's that's fantastic. I love that. But it's uh yeah, it's not all fun and games, that's for sure. Um No, it's a lot of work, it is, and it is probably it's one of the most physically tolling things I've had to do it. How stuff works, it's by the end of the day you you feel it, and then you get up and do it again. Here's here's a hint for any of you who are doing ce S for the first time this year. If you're listening to this, you might be too late.

So if it's the first time you're doing c S, will here's here's what you do. You need to know if you plan on doing something after the show floor closes and you go back to your hotel room to set stuff down so that you can go back out. Do not do not sit down and or lie down, because that's it. You're not moving again. I have made that mistake so many times. But I mean, oh, those chairs and beds just look so comforting after you've done on your feet all day long. It's a it's a

very interesting trade show. I don't think it's as phenomenal or magical as outsiders seem to think it is. I mean, but that's because I've covered it for four years now.

So um, if you if you were to experience it the way I try and explain to people as if you're a journalist, imagine walking into the world's largest shopping mall, but every single store just sells electronics, and it's your job to go into every single store and look at every single shelf, at every single device, and then you're going to write up what the best was when you're done. And the problem is that the devices are you know, it's none that they're bad, they're just not interesting. And

you have to do this through the entire mall. That's not fun. But there are fun elements to it. When you do stumble across that thing that that is debuting for the very first time at c e S. There is a level of excitement there that is, you know, it's hard. You can't dismiss that that is pretty pretty incredible to experience. Well, it should be, uh, should be interesting to your reports when you when you are able

to file, if you're not completely worn out. Yeah, I'm sure I'll blog some while I'm at c e S and then maybe maybe when I get back, we can talk a little bit about what it was I saw. Now, granted, by the time that podcast goes live, it'll be um well after c e S, but but I can I can at least talk about sort of the trends and you know, maybe what the field was like, because one thing we did not touch on. And I guess we

could end here because it is kind of interesting. Um is that you know, two thousand and eight most heavily attended CS at that point in a dy people. So you and I got to experience the most crowded it's ever In two thousand nine saw drop in attendance because that was when there was fear about recession. There was

a lot of economic uncertainty. Exhibitors pulled out of the show, attendees canceled, and so, uh, I think it was like around a hundred and ten thousand people showed up um in two thousand nine out and said, you know, a hundred thirty thousand people less than the previous year, on which it sounds like it's still a huge amount, but when you spread it over the entire event, it was noticeable that there were fewer people there, um fewer people there, and then two thousand and uh two ten there were

a few more, but it still was pretty it still wasn't at its old levels. And then last year it got back up two hundred forty thousand, so it's almost back to where it was in two thousand and eight. So I don't know what is gonna look like yet, because I while I'm there while you're listening, I'm not there while i'm recording, all right, But I'm sure I can report back, assuming that I still have any you know, ability to do. So I lost that toe on that

one year, that two thousand night. That's when I got in between a reporter iNTS some free food. Anyway, bad idea. Never do that in any circumstance, but especially at CES. Alright, so we're wrapping this up you guys. If you have any requests for episodes that you would like us to cover in the future, let us know. You can contact us on Facebook and Twitter are handled. There is tech stuff H s W and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check out

our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone FFP has arrived down a bit today on iTunes to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you