Twenty-four-hour-a-day gambling. Free booze in the casinos. Showgirls. Buffets the size of Rhode Island. This, my friends, is where New Year’s resolutions go to die.
As it does each year about this time, Vegas is playing host to arguably the largest trade show in the U.S. No, I do not mean the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards – the porn industry’s equivalent of the Oscars – although that’s here this week, too. You have to be very, um, explicit about the instructions you give your cab driver. Although I’m curious what the trophy looks like.
I’m referring to the Consumer Electronics Show, 1.6 million square feet of the newest and shiniest in technology and associated products. This year’s show is spread across four Vegas venues, features 2,500 exhibitors and will see 135,000 visitors, not including walk-ups.
I’m not here to cover the show per se. I’m here largely on a fact-finding mission. Here’s a few of the facts I’ve found so far:
o Fact No. 1: Microsoft head honcho Bill Gates actually can beat the snot out of 2IC Steve Ballmer, at least with an Xbox controller in his hands. This must be how Gates maintains the Natural Order of the chain of command. Gates and Ballmer duked it out as Ali and Frasier respectively in front of a crowd of thousands in the guise of a game of Fight Night Round 3 at Gates’s pre-show keynote. “Thirty years I’ve been training for this opportunity!” blustered Ballmer, before being dropped like something hot by the boss man. Without the controller, however, “Gates punches like a girl,” noted one observer.
o Fact No. 2: How big is your TV? Doesn’t matter. As of this show, it is officially too small. About 60 inches is a nice, understated affair, apparently.
o Fact No. 3: The old saw about standards is still true: People must love ’em, ‘cuz everybody’s got one. However, your converged home entertainment/management system of the near future is likely to be based on technology platforms from our old Wintel friends. This means Windows Media Centre as a medium for high-definition audio and video; related devices like the Xbox 360 as repeaters; Viiv-branded, Intel-based PCs with certified compatible peripherals (like DVD players and TVs) and content; and subscription models out the wazoo.
o Fact No. 4: If the blue-skying about how technology will help manage your life has anything to it, there’s a lot of data involved. And the relevance of the technology is becoming increasingly dependent on the detail of personal information you’re willing to give the technology access to. There are a couple of ways of handling this. One, within the home network, is more powerful, convenient, personal and portable storage. The other – beyond the home network – depends on a back end with ever more granular personal information on the user. Itineraries, contacts, preferences – if the goal is to make your life accessible through any device (with proper personal authentication, of course) anywhere at anytime, users have to be willing to surrender more personal information. It’s an equation each individual is going to have to work out, because the value of the technology will become directly proportional to that level of personal information.
o Fact No. 5: Hungover U.S. conventioneers are easy prey when it comes to game show participation. I handed two of them their butts in a music trivia game show hosted by music service Rhapsody, winning a blanket for my troubles. The host knew surprisingly much about Canada – did you guys know we’re having an election soon?
Well, more facts to find. Hopefully, by tomorrow, I’ll be able to tell you something about retiring after winning millions of dollars in a casino.
Dave Webb starts seriously working on his New Year’s resolutions once he gets back from Vegas.