CES 2006 – In a Nutshell

<-- The view outside my hotel room.

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No snow this time around, the weather is just right for waiting in long shuttle bus lines to be herded off to the big event. Bigger event I should say, spilling over to the Sands and everything in-between. The crowds seem to have swelled proportionately with this added floor space. Last year all you heard was, “convergence” every time you turned around. This time out, most every vender is pushing the idea of mobilizing your media – music, movies or photos (see robot below). Wireless is still a big idea, but more of a given and less dazzling than before. There was a nice 15” wireless LCD HDTV that wowed me until I saw the price of $1000 – just not worth it at this point. It will come down. But again, the main theme was taking your media anywhere you want.








Yes, that is a freakin' awesome 15 foot robot made of stereo equipment.

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Sony’s Blu-Ray Disc format was heavily featured at Sony’s booth. There were large HDTVs with DVD running side by side with Blu-Ray playback. Now, I’m as excited as the next nerd about HD Disc playback, but honestly the difference was marginal at best. I couldn’t see any reason to spend $1000.00 on a Blu-Ray player and re-buy my movie catalog (mini-disc anyone?).

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On the other side of the media battlefield is Pioneers HD-DVD disc format, now formally endorsed by Microsoft. Much less hoopla it seemed for this. Again, side by side comparisons with regular DVD playback – still no Earth-shattering “I’ve gotta have this” reactions here. Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD blank disks are going to be ridiculously expensive. DVD9 disks just recently dropped below 8.00 and I still don’t think they are worth it. Every home has a DVD player now – with a boatload of movies. Many of which were repeat purchases from the VHS days. No one is in a big rush to re-buy their entire video library. 30GB or 15GB of blank space has some interesting applications – none that appeal to the average consumer. DVD9 would suffice for now. This battle will be very interesting.

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Then there was the Redlaser or Forward Versatile disc back in a corner where I took a wrong turn looking for the bathroom.

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On the games front, Sony’s booth focused heavily on the PSP. There were these dorky plastic spheres hanging from chains that you had to sit in to play PSPs. They also had a kiosk featuring the PSP web browser and demos of some up and coming games like Syphon Filter.











There was a large LCD playing a Blu-Ray movie on what was advertised as a PS3. I asked the Sony hack standing there if the movie was playing on a PS3. He said it was a simulation of what the PS3 will do. I asked if they had a working PS3 to show. He said no, but that the movie was playing off a dev kit. I look this hack in the eye and say, “you mean there is a Blu-Ray player behind the curtain, right?” and he ACKNOWLEDGES that there is NO PS3 playing the video. Sony – you suck ass! Meanwhile there are all these people watching a movie beneath a big sign that says “PS3 Blu-Ray Playback”. So lame. You could experience the same thing several other Blu-Ray player kiosks just around the corner. I asked the hack when we could see an actual PS3 in action, he said maybe by E3. Meanwhile there was a large LCD playing the Snake video from a few months back – drawing a good crowd.

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Microsoft spent a large chunk of their real estate on Windows Vista, their forthcoming operating system. Like everything else at the show, it was all about how easy you could find music and photos and tv shows. I asked one of the demo guys if these new features effectively kill off the “Media Center Edition” as Vista is pretty much the same thing. He told me that there would be no further MCEs released. Its all about the Media Extender now. I’m looking around at all these Windows PCs playing music and checking out photos and wondering why the hell would any company invest in upgrades – how is this going to help business? All I see is Windows Plus! on steroids emerging from puberty. So I ask the guy just that. He drops his super nice demo guy act long enough to tell me that there are a number of architectural and security-centric overhauls that have been done but it is not easy to market those things to consumers so they push the media part. To his credit, he sends me over to another MS station a bit down a ways where I get the scoop on some nice enhancements in the OS as well as a look at the new Office suite. I was feeling better about the whole Vista thing already. Sure, it may be 35% service pack, but that is the price you pay for stability and security. Many of you will disagree with me on that point, but stop and think about what it must cost to maintain and secure the biggest target of hackers – the Windows OS. Technology aint free brother. Sure, there is Linux, Open Office and FireFox that are free. Now imagine that they all got super popular – not just nerd popular, but widely adopted. Now imagine a brutal Slovakian worm virus targeted at all three. Would you put your company’s “WORK” (network, documents, etc.) in the hands of those guys or Microsoft to handle the situation? Who has the resources, money and experience? It’s a bitter pill, I know.

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Tucked away in the corner of the Microsoft Island was the Xbox 360 zone. There were several presentations with cube-shaped bean-bag chairs. Watching the visitors to Xbox land, the biggest buzz by far was the newly released demo of Fight Night Round 3. There were people on their cell phones telling others about how they had to come down and see it. The demo made Dead Rising playing on the kiosk nearby look very bad. Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb gave a brief overview of the 360 to a small group of about 12 of us. Even though I already know about all of the features he covered, it was still pretty impressive seeing is all lined up like that. The new dash is really phenomenal. Paired with games that really show the systems power like Fight Night, we should see the 360 really blossom over the next year.

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VR Glasses are far from dead.

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Toshiba thought it would score them some points to had a dude dressed in a cheap nerd costume. This was embarassing to watch.

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For the serious Splinter Cell fan...

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Some interesting alternate gaming input devices.

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... no idea whatsoever, but the mech-hands are cool. There was an Adult Expo somewhere in Vegas - maybe this got shipped to the wrong exhibit hall?

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This was kind of cool. You plug a card fitted with an SD memchip in your GBA and it plays Mpeg4 flawlessly.

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Some interesting games...

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New kick-ass Dell Media Center PC

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Mario, looking very shiny.

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This is a shot of just a very small fraction of the mess of empty shipping pallets out back.

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Nintendo bootlegs sold right in my hotel lobby!

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And of course it wouldn't be a trade show unless there were a few babes. I have no idea what the Hawaiian girls were selling but there was a steady stream of nerds waiting for pix. I asked the orange girl if she was wearing pant-extensions. She corrected me and told me they were leather leg warmers. So awesome!















That's it for this years CES!