something for
the weekend / January 13, 2012
your cultural 5-a-week

So if you’re not sure on what CES is all about, here is what you need to know.

It’s the world’s biggest technology conference and it takes place this time every year in Vegas, and it’s always just a week before the porn industries biggest conference takes place in Vegas - the Adult Entertainment Expo ; unsurprisingly some of the tech industry stay on, hello 3D TV’s. It takes place across three days, and is attended by lots of geeks, press and industry bods who all get together to share the latest gadgets, give keynote speeches and attend more of those ‘workshops’ my Mother colleagues have been at. It’s a case of revealing exactly what’s next? And with 3,100 companies on the show floor, there is everything from cars, TVs and PCs, to gadgets that are gadgets for the sake of being gadgets, some are great, some are just silly. So you’re never short of something to see. Oh but don’t expect to see Apple there. They maybe the world’s biggest tech brand, but they’ve never attended CES, they of course have their very own conference.

So what was everyone talking about at CES 2012…?

CES allows celebrities to get their geek on. Most are there to get paid … I mean endorse products they truly believe in.... And with so many tech companies fighting for the attention of press and consumers, you can’t blame brands for using them. Some of the endorsements feel right, others not so right.

Last year, as creative director of Polaroid, Lady GaGa set CES a light, amongst other things, launching a pair of glasses with a camera built in. This year it was a battle of the ‘Justins’, young and old. Both showed their age in terms of tech endorsement.

First of all it was the turn of Timberlake, JT, who bizarrely backed yet another re-launch of MySpace … Yes, you read that correct, MySpace! Whilst it was cool when JT was in ‘N’SYNC he clearly didn’t learn anything about technology playing Sean Parker in the film The Social Network . Parker was the maverick who launched Napster, who later became a tech entrepreneur. Although maybe that was why MySpace chose JT in the first place? … Anyway, in a heavily scripted speech he promised to ‘connect your friends to your moments as they are actually happening’ by announcing the launch of MySpace TV and a partnership with Panasonic. The partnership herald’s, in-entertainment social-functionality, essentially you can update your MySpace status at the same time. And whilst tech blog Mashable reported it was one of the best attempts they’ve seen at social TV, MySpace are yet again 12 months late, social TV was the talk of CES 2010 and 2011. We hope for his sake that Timberlake was just the messenger, and he’s not, as he announced, really ‘serious about bringing MySpace back’.

Later in the week the younger Justin - the Bieber (or # gadgetNERD as he tweeted) – took his turn, but this time he helped launch something far cooler. He unveiled a new dancing robot that doubles up as a speaker. The ‘mRobo Ultra Bass’ is state of the art and is made by Vietnamese robotics firm TOSY robotics . And whilst Bieber’s endorsement literally meant smiles to on-lookers and looks of shock on stage, as the robot-come-speaker began dancing, you can’t help but think his endorsement was more genuine that JT’s. At least it’s a product you can be convinced he actually believes in.

So the Bieber’s dancing robot speaker was neat. But what else caught our attention?

Well all the talk from the big boys was Ultrabooks - essentially thin and sleek laptops, like Apple’s Macbook Air. The difference is they’re more powerful than the air and more affordable. Samsung and HP all unveiled new models.

There was also talk of yet another TV revolution. Whilst we’ve already mentioned MySpace and Panasonic on the software tip, hardware remained on the agenda. LG’s 55 inch OLED TV (Organic light emitting diode) was seemingly the most impressive, at just 4mm thick and it’s virtually bezel-less (no boarder around screen).

Beyond the mainstream products there were a number of other notable innovations on display. The ‘Blast Chiller’ again from LG, sits in a fridge, so you can place cans of beer, bottles of wine and other drinks in it to be chilled in just five minutes; so simple. Why doesn’t every fridge have one already?

Affordable 3D printers also got a lot of love. Most of the talk was about New York tech start up Makerbot and their ‘Makerbot replicator’. Their blog says ‘The MakerBot Replicator is ideal for personalized manufacturing, providing a new way to make the things you want and need’. The premise is make 3D objects between the size of cupcake and a loaf or bread, simply by downloading the open-source plan then printing it out on their machine. You can print anything in 3D. Costing just $1,749, 3D printing is set to come mainstream.

Finally there was Sphero . It is a small glowing ball that can be controlled via an iPhone or iPad app through a Bluetooth connection this was fun gadget to come out of CES this year. Watch the demo here .

A few weeks ago Microsoft announced that CES 2012 would be their last, saying that it no longer had a need for it to help launch products. So there was much hype on whether they would go out with a bang and all eyes were on Steve Ballmer’s final keynote. What would the Microsoft CEO announce?

Well not a lot in truth . It was probably a bit of a let down aftert all the hype. Whilst he spoke about their assault on mobile with Nokia with the launch of the Lumia 900 and their apps store, bloggers and reports were more took back with the bizarre PR stunt midway through his keynote. All of a sudden the ‘Microsoft Tweet Choir’, who looked more like a choir who serenaded newly weds at one of Vegas’ world famous 24 hr churches, came on and sang a song made of tweets generated by Microsoft followers. Their singing was fine, but the lyrics were awful. Watch it for yourself here .

More successful was the keynote stunt by wireless and mobile technology company Qualcomm. They had the world-renowned dance group Jabbawockeez (US’s answer to Flawless) open their keynote with a performance that fused technology and dance. Qualcomm were there to launch their Vuforia augmented reality platform ; which allows you to create another dimension between reality and your mobile device. Sesame Street’s Grover even made an appearance to help demonstrate how their Sesame Street app, which allows kids to interact with real-world toys in a virtual space, will work on the new platform. Take a look a at Jabbawockeez’s performance here .

Where Geneva and Detroit have once been the place to launch new cars, in recent years CES has become the home for car companies looking towards launching new products. Ford grabbed headlines first a few years back by making the switch to CES, and since many car manufactures have followed suit.

This year it was really about ‘connected cars’. Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Audi all launched systems; proving that the future advancements in cars are, on the whole, going to be software led (apart from the obvious switch to electric and bio fuel of course).

Mercedes had the most to say. They unveiled its ‘Mbrace 2’ system . It’s their second generation of car communications and version 2 now connects cloud-based apps and smart phones to the vehicles. Apps from the likes of Facebook, Yelp and Google Search will make drivers more connected; and an Android and iPhone app connects to the car to give the owner diagnostics on the cars performance in real time, as well as locking and unlocking the car.

To be fair to Mercedes, they’ve put their own app developer team together in Silicon Valley to code and design it’s apps in close contact with the big players. And whilst the aim is to use connectivity to enhance the driving experience, the number one aim is that they do not distract from driving to result in dangerous driving. Robert Policano, the firm's product manager of telematics services, told the BBC. "If you want to post to your wall you can do that using a series of canned messages already plugged in there".

Time will tell whether updating your status using your car will ever really kick off, but you can see Google Maps working nicely when voice activated. Spotify would be pretty neat, you could stream Bohemian Rhapsody at any point for a Wayne’s World moment ; although you might look a tosser doing it in your Mercedes-Benz.