Full Report
CES Main Conference

Central Hall - Part 1
January 8th-11th, 2007

* product carried by Audio Federation

Copyright © Audio Federation, Inc.. All rights reserved.
All pictures in this report are freely copyable and distributable.

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Well, here we are again. It is Wednesday, the 3rd day, at about 3:00 pm or so. As you can see from the sky, some weather is moving in, and it actually, kind of, snows 'Las Vegas style' late Friday.

Out across of the bus and taxi drop off zone we have these tents. I haven't been in one of these tents - but have lots of fun just imagining what goes on in these 'Press Tents', in Las Vegas, after the show is over for the day. When taking the bus back to the Venetian around 5:45, we passed by the Yahoo! tent, farther down to the right, which had a BIG party goin' on. Sometimes it sucks to be us.

Intel was well represented banner-wise outside and inside the hall. AMD on the other hand... Though come to think of it, why does a CPU processor manufacturer need to show at CES?

A display of notebook / laptop computers.

Panasonic Toughbook 30. It is hard to see, but there is a showerhead inside this compartment spraying water on this hapless laptop, that seems to be still functional. Impressive display, actually.

Not sure if this is for livingroom use or not, since it would occupy the entire space of many [not that there isn't a large contingent out here who wouldn't complain, not a bit]. The car is seemingly life-size and the computer chassis at the back just serves to add to the ambiance of Extreme Tech at Play here. Of course, who wouldn't want a 15 foot screen instead of those dinky flat panels, I can't imagine.

Well, time to walk around. Many of these photos are just taken to give the feeling of being there, and the feeling of 'there are a lot of companies here that I never heard of'.

In the Microsoft booth.

Microsoft gets the 'Best Booth Carpet' award. Bouncy bouncy plush plush nicey nicey of sore tired feet.

This was the only reference to the XBOX I saw at the show.

Microsoft's Apple-anti-matter.

Never heard of Motorola's MotoMusic. But they do everything else, so...

Microsoft's booth extended from that Orange banner waaaaay, down at the end there to the Zune booth here in the near field. Not as large as the LG or Panasonic exhibits, but respectable. And more densely packed with different things, many in partnership with other companies, unlike most other exhibits.

HandStands - iPod accessories.

The LG Exhibitssss. Of all the exhbits, this made me feel like I wasn't in Kansas, I wasn't on Earth, I wasn't in the real world anymore, but on the set of Star Trek [one of the movies, not the lamo sets of any of the series] or something.

Across from part of the LG exhibit was thge quite respectable InFocus exhibit.

An InFocus retail display.

One of LG's big displays was about their hybrid Blu-ray / HD DVD drive.

The LG drive writes and reads Blu-ray and reads HD DVD. Hmmmmm... does this give one format an advantage maybe? Is HD just harder to write or is it some political stumbling block - and if the latter is it HD or Blu-Ray or LG who is encouraging the stumbling? I guess I personally don't care, but if HD turns out not to be writeable in my next PC, guess which format I will be using? I already have the Sony BDP-S1, but that is for fun.

The LG drive is designed for PCs, of course.... but here is a display to make sure we all know it.

Loosing track of all the claims of being 'firsts' - who cares. Hard to tell the quality unless the play something I am familiar with. Let's just say it doesn't suck.

LG had a 3D monitor that would swap back and forth between playing 2D and 3D versions of the same clip.

The 3D worked pretty well. You kind of have to screw your eyes up a little, or maybe it is just relaxing them - so used they are to 2D displays.

This animation of a motorcycle crash, kind of a Tron-cycle... but not, is sending the cycle into the screen towards the viewer.

Like I said, the 3D effect is neat, although it may become tiring. All the clips in these demos were very BRIGHT. Almost shiny, which added a 'make believe' aka 'fake' aspect to the whole thing. Not sure if it is endemic to the 3D technology, to the use of cheasy animation, to the use of standard dealership practices of turning the contrast ALL THE WAY UP, or what.

LG makes the drive for the consumer entertainment as well as the personal computer market. Hey, this is a show, it takes 20 or 30 feet to say this.

The LG exhibit goes on and on and on....

Across the way, we've come to the end of the InFocus booth.

Now we have someone soap-boxing about LG FULLHD, aka 1080p, plasma screens, as opposed to everybody's HD or HD 'ready ' screens we've had for years that were not really HD at all.

TI was here - similar exhibit to that at CEDIA.

The Jasco exhibit

Rounding a corner we see a LOT of people watching this singer at part of the Panasonic exhibit..

Not sure exactly what the purpose of this was, but I'll describe it and maybe you can figure it out. The singer is singing a danceable tune - closer to Madonna than Hip-Hop - and the people on the flat screens behind him are dancing to the music. At first I thought this was happening in real-time - but now I think that is no longer likely, and certainly not necessary.

I don't know. Anyone who picks up a mic gets a large audience at this show - so maybe this stage being larger meant a larger audience and that is all there is to it.

More photos of the singer and fancers.

Outside the hall. Needed some water. There is this problem that, after the show ends, it will be cold outside, but does one want to carry a coat around all day just so they don't get pneumonia afterwards? Choices choices....

The Panasonic booth is long. Very long.

Casio was there. We are nearing 5:00 pm and closing time.

Audiovox was there.

Audiovox was really there.

Audiovox was there in force.

Jensen was there. We'll come back to HD Radio...

Acoustic Research was there.

Visteon was there promoting HD Radio.

The Sharp mountain was there.

Pioneer was there. This guy was a DJ making Techno music, or rather some watered-down old people's version of techno, IMHO. Anyway, it was pretty good, loud and not too badly distorted. I'll bet he was using that Sony device pictured above his head to make the music... and video to go along with it.

See those two monitors above his head, they were playing video, but he would shale the video, make it go backwards and forwards a little bit, change it up, stuff like that in tempo with the music. Cool. Hope it takes off. But we need better video content, I think, to make this aspect compelling - though I have no idea of what it might be.