As I entered into my 27th CES show, it was obvious that “things” were still not back to how they were pre-China virus. The halls at the former Las Vegas Hilton were closed and that was an ominous foreboding as this is where all the Chinese suppliers for chips, PC boards and such were always located. I was concerned that show had shrunk again, but was incorrect … the actual bad news was that many of the companies attending chose to have their displays in hotels spread along the entirety of the Vegas strip. This is, and will be in the future, a colossal mistake as to get to their places the sheer amount of time required is absurdly long and the walking distances can be substantial or impossible. Subsequently, many simply will be ignored due to the wasted time for travel. The show lasts only a bit over three days and throwing away several hours just to walk/Uber to a distant site for a single display that may not worth the effort to explore even if they were in the main show, was disturbing. Samsung was THE prime example of how NOT to run a manufacturers display. They chose the Wynn, which required them to contract small buses, which were always filled to capacity forcing your presence in the howling, cold wind and wait for the next one, as they obviously hired an insufficient number of buses for the typical CES crowds. And after spending 30-45 minutes to thread the overwhelming traffic from the main halls, you find that the only opening for the Wynn, were directly across from the MAIN drop-off point for the packed halls at the Venetian! This is without question the most congested area in the entire city during the show. And once the turn was made into the Wynn, you discover that the road is too small for buses and choked with parked limos that the drivers had abandoned blocking the only area the buses are allowed for drop off, therefore you have to wait for someone to track the drivers down and have them move! And once you endure this miscalculated venture, you discover that Samsung had literally almost nothing to show that wasn’t in their booth last year. In a show, that in its longest two days, is each only eight hours long, you will easily spend three+ hours on this Samsung fiasco. I won’t be making this mistake again …
I typically always enter the show from the North Hall after going through the Westgate hotel … usually there’s less crowds at the monorail station there. The North Hall, when I first began attending CES, usually was filled with iPhone paraphernalia, a few small speaker companies and car stereo companies. I could breeze through this area in no more than an hour or two … but on this occasion, I spent the entire day there. It clearly had the most interesting tech and displays. It was here that two things became patently obvious: the stars of this hall was electric bikes/scooters/motorcycles and robotics. The mechanical men from Unitree clearly ruled this show with amazing capabilities …. They actually had two boxing rings where you could literally box with one of their small robotic pugilists, complete with headgear and gloves. It was clear that they had turned the bots’ abilities “down” and used only the smallest ones they produced. Thank heavens they did … the videos of them unleased were incredibly impressive. You wouldn’t want to meet the big ones that had “angry” as a setting … there’s absolutely no way it could be stopped short of tackling it and using a big hammer to subdue it. This is of course assuming it didn’t grab you at some point … that’d be bad news as their grip can be VERY substantial.
I’d still like to have one of Unitree’s “dogs” just to take it to the dog park with my pups. It could function as a sherpa for their goodies and act as a bodyguard against larger dogs … not to mention freaking out the other folks there as my “dog” would faithfully obey every command, and I wouldn’t even have to clean up from it dropping little batteries everywhere. Amazingly, I saw a guy riding a larger one like a horse and thought: could I get this on a cruise ship in order to get around at a foreign port? Can I order one with teeth? There’s no mention of a 100+ pound robotic dog with bright red eyes, razor-sharp teeth and reaction time faster than a mongoose, being a banned object. I can imagine being the subject of YouTube cruising videos of this thing following me around and snapping at aggressive vendors! Now that’s what I call a “service” dog!
