Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
This morning we had an early breakfast sponsored by Corel, and once again I was treated to enough quality information to power a truly valuable presentation. Maybe we'll present Corel WordPerfect12 or Corel Paint in February! I hope I can make it look half as good as these folks did! Corel also donated a couple of 30-day trial versions of their excellent software.
Some of the things you can do with Corel Paint are just amazing!
Corel acquired JASC software last year, so they were also able to present a new version of our old standby Paint Shop Pro.
By 10am my son and I were in position outside of the North Hall at CES, which is located maybe a short mile from the hotel and the Las Vegas Convention Center. If this complex is not the largest convention center in the country, it has to be close! Good thing we secured our badge holders the night before, as there were some long lines getting in to the CES.
At 10 sharp, the doors were flung wide and we were assailed. Let me just wax poetic for a bit:
Here's the North Hall: dozens of hot rods tricked out with the very latest booming speakers, which actually looked more like military ordinance than the acoustic marvels they were. Also, flat panel TV screens, imbedded on every available surface. Some enterprising soul managed to glom a TV on to a Harley.
I'm quite certain that these cars could not actually be electrically powered on their own, such was their condition of positivily bristling with high-powered equipment. Several of them had sound systems that measured high in the eighties on the decibel scale, which places them sonically in a class with jet engines.
And oh my, the ladies! One could not decide where to affix the gaze first! What a contrast in sensibilities - a convention of fat, balding geeks running around looking as if they were fresh from the Star Trek convention, trying to make idle conversation with supermodels while trying to remember to breathe. Though that's not quite fair - there were actually CEO types there. You could tell their caste by the gray turtleneck sweaters tucked inside the woolen jackets, and the get-out-of-my-way look in their eyes. To them I'd like to say: You can't go faster than the crowd, and moving in and out of traffic just manages to clog up the human flow further!
We ran through the North Hall taking pictures (of just the cars, of course), then struck out for the Central Hall, where we found some incredible audio and video technology. This hall was like walking through a Best Buy, a Circuit City, and an HH Gregg in one pass. The satellite radio display alone took up what seemed like a city block. There was a booth devoted to speaker mounts!.
After a quick lunch, we tackled the South Halls, which housed the computer and home digital arenas including gaming and flash drive-type audio players. One hyphenated word says it all, and I'm again not talking about the ladies: GA-GA.
My only complaint about the entire show is that there needs to be a rule about geek luggage. All of this was blithly trailed after these guys with no thought at all to cross traffic. People that bring rolling carry-on style luggage to this event need to be led into a room with promises of new bling-bling, and then forced to run over each other's feet repeatedly with their luggage, and with no offer of pardon other than a rude yank on the durned thing.
At some point in all of this blur of media hype, I realized my cell phone was missing, and since half of its leather sheath was still affixed to my belt, dangling there laughingly, it was alarmingly clear that the phone had dropped somewhere. I'll shorten the story, which would have included the premature grieving for a blackjack game I downloaded onto the phone just this morning, and tell you that my phone was found on the floor of my room. Moral: do not depend on a 1/4-inch plastic snap to secure a $250 cell phone, even if these very snaps are probably sold by one of the CES vendors here today. I'll keep it in my pocket after this.
Mike
Some of the things you can do with Corel Paint are just amazing!
Corel acquired JASC software last year, so they were also able to present a new version of our old standby Paint Shop Pro.
By 10am my son and I were in position outside of the North Hall at CES, which is located maybe a short mile from the hotel and the Las Vegas Convention Center. If this complex is not the largest convention center in the country, it has to be close! Good thing we secured our badge holders the night before, as there were some long lines getting in to the CES.
At 10 sharp, the doors were flung wide and we were assailed. Let me just wax poetic for a bit:
Here's the North Hall: dozens of hot rods tricked out with the very latest booming speakers, which actually looked more like military ordinance than the acoustic marvels they were. Also, flat panel TV screens, imbedded on every available surface. Some enterprising soul managed to glom a TV on to a Harley.
I'm quite certain that these cars could not actually be electrically powered on their own, such was their condition of positivily bristling with high-powered equipment. Several of them had sound systems that measured high in the eighties on the decibel scale, which places them sonically in a class with jet engines.
And oh my, the ladies! One could not decide where to affix the gaze first! What a contrast in sensibilities - a convention of fat, balding geeks running around looking as if they were fresh from the Star Trek convention, trying to make idle conversation with supermodels while trying to remember to breathe. Though that's not quite fair - there were actually CEO types there. You could tell their caste by the gray turtleneck sweaters tucked inside the woolen jackets, and the get-out-of-my-way look in their eyes. To them I'd like to say: You can't go faster than the crowd, and moving in and out of traffic just manages to clog up the human flow further!
We ran through the North Hall taking pictures (of just the cars, of course), then struck out for the Central Hall, where we found some incredible audio and video technology. This hall was like walking through a Best Buy, a Circuit City, and an HH Gregg in one pass. The satellite radio display alone took up what seemed like a city block. There was a booth devoted to speaker mounts!.
After a quick lunch, we tackled the South Halls, which housed the computer and home digital arenas including gaming and flash drive-type audio players. One hyphenated word says it all, and I'm again not talking about the ladies: GA-GA.
My only complaint about the entire show is that there needs to be a rule about geek luggage. All of this was blithly trailed after these guys with no thought at all to cross traffic. People that bring rolling carry-on style luggage to this event need to be led into a room with promises of new bling-bling, and then forced to run over each other's feet repeatedly with their luggage, and with no offer of pardon other than a rude yank on the durned thing.
At some point in all of this blur of media hype, I realized my cell phone was missing, and since half of its leather sheath was still affixed to my belt, dangling there laughingly, it was alarmingly clear that the phone had dropped somewhere. I'll shorten the story, which would have included the premature grieving for a blackjack game I downloaded onto the phone just this morning, and tell you that my phone was found on the floor of my room. Moral: do not depend on a 1/4-inch plastic snap to secure a $250 cell phone, even if these very snaps are probably sold by one of the CES vendors here today. I'll keep it in my pocket after this.
Mike
posted by Michael Moore @ 8:57 PM
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