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Apocalypse CES!
January 7, 2008
Naked and hung-over, I lie on dank and damp sheets, in a pool of my own sweat. The ceiling fan blades above me whirl and whine like helicopter rotors. I throw off the thin top sheet and stagger to the window. I slip my thumb and forefinger between the slits of the Venetian blinds and pry apart two dusty slats. A sharp ray of sunshine pierces the dirty window and temporarily blinds me. As the flash fades from my vision, the scene outside renders itself like a developing Polaroid, a city sprawling on the desert floor in valley between the mountains.
Vegas.
Shucks.
I'm in Vegas.
Every time I think I'm going to wake up back on the show floor. When I was home after my first CES it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. When I was home, all I could think of was getting back onto the show floor. I've been here a day now. Waiting for a story, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute the PR Cong perch in their booths they get stronger.
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a story, and for my sins they gave me a convention hall filled with them.
Saturday night, it was CES Unveiled, a preview of gadgets to come. Yesterday, I and a couple of thousand of my fellow errand boys (and girls) sent by grocery clerks spent 14 hours going up river – or, more appropriately, the canal – at the Venetian at the annual series of Press Day events. I love the sight of lectern teleprompters in the morning. A half hour to 40 minutes for each company, then hurrying out during the Q & A to get on the next snaking line to hopefully get a seat at the subsequent set of PowerPoint slides and corpspeak. LG, Pioneer, Toshiba, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Monster, Sony, an almost endless stream of corporate executives spouting sales figures and hope for a successful 2008 with occasional glimmers of news. LG and Samsung playing dueling mobile digital video standards. Pioneer announcing that OLED isn't viable and displaying a 9mm thin plasma due in 2009 instead, and Sony showing OLED is viable with a slew of 11-inch, 3mm-thin models and a prototype 27-inch skinny display. Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba all announcing the founding of a joint TV recycling program. I wanted to eliminate their commands with extreme prejudice.
The musty air was temporarily dissipated by Monster's Noel Lee nearly hysterical presentation of his $400 Beat headphones. Designed by hip-hop legend Dr. Dre, they're sure to be the must-have head bling this spring.
Finally we reached the end of the river, Digital Experience at Caesar's Palace. We floated gently past the limp bodies of glassy-eyed bloggers, drooling either from a digital overdose or unadulterated exhaustion. Like zombies we amble aimlessly around arrays and aisles filled with contraptions, many of dubious utility, unintuitive operation or just plain vaporware, intermittently feeding on finger food and sipping liquid sustenance.
I stumble back to my hotel room. Naked and hung-over, blogging, always blogging. And the show hasn't even started yet.
The horror. The horror.
Posted by Stewart Wolpin on January 7, 2008 | Comments (2)
