Posts Tagged ‘las vegas’

The first event of the week is CES unveiled. This was over at the Venitian and it highlights some of the products in CES all in one room. The event was pretty much packed as everyone wanted to get that first interview. The Lenovo booth, for example, was completely flooded with people. I remember trying to get over to BOXEE and had to deal with a bunch of cameras.

Interestingly enough about CES unveilied, I was able to get a “VIP” ticket, but for some reason, the rest of the crew got in before me.

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During the 80’s and 90’s, there was a little show called COMDEX. It stood for Computer Dealer Exhibition. For a while, there were 2 versions: The Spring COMDEX (Alternating for a while between Altanta and Chicago) and the Fall COMDEX (Las Vegas). The show was attended by many and there were vendors galore. I remember seeing Bill Gates at the 1998 Comdex for the Blue screen error when they plugged in a scanner. I also saw President William Clinton give a keynote.

COMDEX finally fell in 2003. Nonetheless, a lot of History falls between this time and about April from the show. Therefore, the next few days there will be a lot of “At the COMDEX Show”.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

• Mosaic becomes Netscape
• Power PC CHRP
• Ubuntu on ARM

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1986 – Back in that day, Comdex was the big computer show. There were two versions: one that was held in Chicago in the spring and the other in Las Vegas mid-November. At this time, Atari was the big dog on the block. Jack Tramiel was putting all efforts in this years Comdex after seeing a small dip in the shares.

So they set up a 65 booth display with different 3rd party developers that would show off what the Atari could do. The big innovation that year – the SX212 1200 baud modem for $99.95. They also showed off the Atari 2600jr and the Atari 7800, and because of that impressive show, Atari boasted a $25 million profit that year.

Of course, the company went well for a few more years, merged with JTS, which was then bought by Hasbro in 1998. The company still is survived in a way to this day, but not in the glory that it was back then.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

• IBM introduces Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) Heads
• The first Apple iPod is shipped
• Circuit City files for Chapter 11 protection

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When I went to Las Vegas in January, I thought I would be going back to cover events. I didn’t think it would be so soon. But I don’t mind – a little hop over to the city that never sleeps for a few days of fun in the sun.

Except I will have a reason for going to the big city. I will be working with Andy McCaskey and Kara Karsten again for the HP Tech Forum Expo 2009. We will be covering the floor – CES style while also setting up one – on – one interviews with various vendors.

I will also be doing wrap up videos all week for the Geekazine channel and TVazine. So I thought I would start early by showing you what it takes to get ready for an event like this.

Andy will be getting the serious CES gear from Todd Cochrane, so I will have to make sure I have the little stuff covered. We will be doing the Backchannel content like we did at CES, so I will be bringing the AIPTEK camera. I will also be Podcasting my regular show on Tuesday, which means I’ll have to take the Blue USB mic with me and other various accoutremon.

In this weeks video, I get to do two things:

1. Show off the new studio space for future video
2. Show you all the items I am planning to take with me to cover an event like this.

It should be a great time. I will be on a plane and in Vegas by Sunday night. So that means I have a lot of work to do before then.

Oh, wait. I have a lot of work to do… Well, here is the video.

(This isn’t exactly tech, but it is technical.)

I have long had a bad feeling about building cities in places not environmentally equipped to support them. On one hand, it does make the desert bloom. On the other hand, blooms eventually fade.

Scientific Blogging has a great post on the growth and ecology of Las Vegas as regards the water supply, the water table, irrigation, and Lake Mead, including some fascinating aerial photographs and diagrams.

Read it here.

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One of the best parts of CES was the people I got to meet. Since we pretty much spent our time at CNTRSTG, I got to meet a lot of industry pros. Joel Evans (Geek.com), Robert Scoble (Fastcompany.com) are some of those people. However on Thursday, I had a chance to sit with the crew from Crackberry.com.

We sat there and talked about phones. They even showed us which Blackberries they had – Allison with the Blackberry 8830, David and Leo have the Bold. Sylvian was from Quebec and had no phone. Non had the curve, Adam with the 8330. Finally, Kevin had the Bold and Storm.

There was a bit of controversy as Kevin had a questionable picture on his Storm, but we took precautions to block it out.

We also debate CSI: Las Vegas.

It’s interesting how much work I not only had to catch up on, but also the work I created. The CES trip was fabulous – it took me to a place I have never been before. In all reality, I have never wanted to go to Las Vegas. The sounds of a casino can get annoying after a while for me. Yet, it really wasn’t as bad as I thought.

We stayed at the Monte Carlo – which I have to say I was not impressed with at all. Todd is campaigning the fact that the $14 – a – night internet connection was not great. While I agree with him, I had some other issues that really make me want to not stay there.

I actually changed rooms during the stay. The construction of their Civic Center was annoying (which I know is not their fault, but really – who drops steel beams at 5 AM on a Saturday or Sunday morning? That could have been done during the week). The reason why I moved rooms was initially because of two things – 1. They said the internet would be faster in another room (yeah, right) and when the other rooms took a shower, I would hear loud rattling by the pipes.The move to the next room subsided the pipe rattling, but you could hear the water draining no matter what room you were in.

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Well I didn’t expect this to happen, but when we got to CES today, our first order of business was to interview Jon Accarrino with NBCUniversal. What turned out was not only the interview with Jon, but also Bill Hartnett. We talked about their little Blogger lounge and how NBC has contributed to this new media. Andy interviewed the event on the Primary channel, and I took Backchannel video coverage.

The best part is the fact that Jon set me up with a station where I could not only upload the Video in High Speed, but also put up this Blog. Therefore, I am sitting in this comfortable chair connected to a real high speed pipe (300 MB Video was posted in no time flat). Sure beats the 170 minute upload at the Hotel.

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