Last day of the show. The one tip you try to remember each year, is that the crowds are far thinner on the last day … so plan to visit the booths where the lines and crowds were simply too much to deal with on opening day. Despite the show being around a full 25% smaller than two years ago, it is still overwhelming to the newbie. And it’s very easy to get lost. There are actually four foldout maps, large enough to almost cover a king size bed and that’s just for the primary floors.

 

There were over 20,000 new times introduced at this show … mathematically, that’s trying to evaluate 5,000 new items a day. Needless to say, I may have missed a few. But I’m hoping I saw most of the ones who may influence our lives, and survive despite the economy, until next year.

 

 

I found my favorite affordable Chinese speaker company again. Far better sounding than you would imagine for the money, and simply amazing prices … provided your minimum order is a boxcar full. I’m always amazed what 250 bucks can buy, should you get lucky enough at the end of the show to get the samples. An equivalent at Best Buy would easily be $2000.00 or more.

In my rush to try to see the whole show, (which has never happened after trying for a decade) you occasionally miss the products that are probably not going to be seen again after the show. One that pops into mind right now is the iSmell … It’s your basic bedside clock/radio with a twist … when the alarm sounds, the clock begins emitting the smell of coffee. I wanted to ask more questions, but the person in the booth had the same look in his eyes as the zipper guy, so with blistered feet I escaped on sheer willpower alone.

In the extreme rear of one of the halls was an unexpected treat in one of the smallest booths at CES … a display that very literally appeared in the air in front of you. It was like something out of “Blade Runner”. Imagine watching a movie on your television … now take away the TV and you have the image “floating” off the ground. That’s exactly what it looked like. It was small and obviously a prototype … but this thing made the uber-expensive 3D TVs look ridiculous. No glasses or huge cabinets … It’s like the TV that “Area 51” would produce with alien technology. Should this thing ever get to mass production, it would instantly spell the end of the TV industry as we know it. I suspect the inventors will be bought out by some mega electronics company and the company closed, if not outright burned down with the inventors inside.

 

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