The Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas is history for 2013. Today was the final day of what was reputed to be the largest show ever by floor space sold. Was it the largest attendance ever? I don’t know but there were about 150,000 people here.
The show is spread over three main sites. The Las Vegas Convention Center, the Venetian Expo Center, and the Las Vegas Hotel (LVH)
It is a mind boggling experience to attend this show as the vendor booths for the larger companies are something to see. No little 10x10 booths here but huge, spare no expense spaces with multimedia presentations, plus carpeting, and show girls in skimpy dress.
Sony's very large display with images projected on a circular screen.
How about a 110 inch TV screen?
Talk about a low-rider. Look at that speaker in the bed.
Here is a gyroscope stabilized wheel. It goes 10 MPH.
There are auto companies both foreign and domestic, a huge audio section which includes car stereos on steroids. All the major electronic manufactures with such companies as Panasonic, Samsung, LG Electronics, Intel, Toshiba, and Sony who had by far the largest display.
Outside of the show is an army of busses, drivers, caterers, cleaning people, and on and on who make all of this possible. Getting around this part of Las Vegas is a nightmare during the show. Parking near the convention center is $40 a day. Because it is cheaper and far easier for us, we take a bus from Circus-Circus casino to and from the show.
Because we have been doing this for many years we have developed a routine which has served us well. We drive from the RV Park to Circus-Circus at 8:30 AM and catch a bus direct to the show. At 3:30 PM we again catch a bus back to Circus-Circus and take our car back to the RV Park.
From 9:00 AM when the doors open until 3:30 PM when we leave is about all we can stand as our feet, legs and hips have had it for the day. Two Aleve helps us get ready for the next day.
Did I see anything really spectacular at this years show? Not really. This year was all about connectivity in the computing world. Your car connected to your house, to your music, to the TV, to the “Cloud”.
In this respect Ford announced a marketing agreement with Whirlpool. Some wag in the crowd suggested that Ford was going to put a wash machine in every car. Not so! They will however address the connecting of home devices through your car so as to control things like dishwashers and wash machines to turn on in low electric usage part of the day.
It is all about “being green” and saving energy.
Of course there is the collecting of what we call “swag” as in the days of pirates. Another words, what is someone giving away that we can get for free. It becomes a game and each night during “cocktail hour” we display our “swag” and determine who had the best collection for that day. All in great fun of course but with an ulterior motive. By so displaying our “swag” we get to tell where we found it so the rest of the group can check it out the next day if they happened to miss it.
