{"id":2411,"date":"2023-11-01T20:20:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T01:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=2411"},"modified":"2024-12-08T23:01:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T05:01:42","slug":"silver-anniversary-in-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=2411","title":{"rendered":"Silver Anniversary at CES in Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a landmark event for this humble geek \u2026 this 2024 CES will mark my 25th<\/sup> year of attendance (including the 2021 Chinese-virus virtual show as well) to experience the newest, most cutting-edge tech that\u2019s coming to the masses. Very probably, as usual, the public won\u2019t see it all as some of these items just don\u2019t work well (yet?) or is just out-of-touch with what really is happening around us. This will mark the first time I\u2019ll be chronicling the introduction of tech from not just ten years ago, but twenty as well. The differences in the decade-long differential between the two is shocking. Upon reviewing my documents and such from 2004, there\u2019s just so much I\u2019ve forgotten \u2026 Hopefully, I can be forgiven as there were literally thousands of new items at the 2004 show, and each subsequent show over the next two decades. I realistically estimate for the last 25 years at CES, I\u2019ve seen between 125,000 and 150,000 new pieces of tech \u2026 and walked approximately 700 miles as my pedometers tell me.<\/p>\n

Should I get a bit of luck and locate \u201cstuff\u201d from the 2000 CES show, I\u2019ll make a 25th<\/sup> anniversary posting as it was a absolutely overwhelming experience that let me gobsmacked for months trying to digest what I\u2019d seen. For this geek … it was a seminal, life-changing event …<\/p>\n

Now, jumping back to what is almost \u201ctech-prehistorics\u201d \u2026 2004.<\/p>\n

Notable \u201citems” not listed in my 2004 ten-year anniversary posting from 2014, are these:<\/p>\n

XM Radio and Sirius weren\u2019t merged yet and they were really going at each other for clients. Sirius always had the best perks at the show. They had Joe Jackson and The Bangles at their booth for an hour or so each, among other artists. Sadly, they didn\u2019t perform \u2026 why have famous musicians at your booth, in front of thousands of people, just to talk to them???<\/p>\n

Samsung showed its newest and fanciest phone, the a690 \u2026 today a phone of this performance level is best suited to being a fishing weight or Christmas tree ornament as it didn\u2019t even have Wi-Fi. But \u2026 it did have two-way SMS texting, as opposed to only receiving \u2026 so it WAS more than a fancier beeper.<\/p>\n

The president of Intel said that the LCoS<\/a> (sry, really technical description in the link) technology was the future of cheaper \u201cflat screens\u201d and projection TV\u2019s \u2026. The fact you probably aren\u2019t even aware of this tech is indicative of how successful it was. But, we knew that at the show \u2026 and clearly, we should have probably told him \u2026 He kept touting a sub-$1800 flat screen using that tech for a 50\u201d TV.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We laughed at it, but, hey \u2026 he had free popcorn his booth and the Heineken happy hour at the GoPro booth was coming up shortly and I hadn\u2019t eaten in over seven hours.<\/p>\n

RCA showed a \u201csuper thin\u201d LCD set \u2026 only about seven inches deep. One of my new LG OLED\u2019s is around 3\/8\u2019s of an inch (9.5mm) thick.<\/p>\n

HD radio was introduced and held such promise \u2026 but the radio industry blindly just waited too long and streaming has subsequently become the defacto standard in cars \u2026 personally, I haven\u2019t listened to radio for more than twice a year for quite a while.<\/p>\n

Sony, being Sony, introduced a 2.5 inch MiniDisk player for $399, that could play songs encoded with a proprietary and now forgotten codec called ATRAC, to stifle anyone from, GOD FORBID, from sharing a song. But hey, Sony at that time, thought that everyone would stampede to \u201cSony Connect\u201d to pay 99 cents for an encrypted song that could only be played on a Sony device. Steve Jobs effectively put an end to that nonsense in 2007, saying people don\u2019t want to \u201crent\u201d music \u2026 when he uttered those words, you could hear Sony saying “s&%t!!!” … we’re screwed!<\/p>\n

There were so many unrelated companies selling expensive flat-screens that didn\u2019t actually make any \u2026 I wouldn\u2019t have been shocked to see cheese companies selling a flat screen that offered the advantage of smelling like Cheddar. Hey \u2026 we all have dreams.<\/p>\n

Other genius offering was from the company \u201cMailblocks\u201d … giving, for free to its users, fifteen MB of web email \u2026 or to put it simply by todays standards, two HD photos from a Samsung S23 Ultra phone. But, they\u2019d triple storage for ten bucks a year \u2026 almost enough for less than half of a quality HD song recorded in the .OGG or .Flac format \u2026 or less than three seconds of a 4K movie.<\/p>\n

PVRs (personal video recorders, now called DVRs) were crude, had low resolution and a few actually had modems that would call a toll-free number every<\/em> night for a channel list and TV show details. Someone actually thought this was a good idea to have hundreds of thousands of these things calling a single phone number for a painfully slow data download \u2026 probably the same person that decided that there must be unlimited and totally incompatible versions of charging, video, storage and data cables for every device. Maybe an ex-Sony or Apple employee?<\/p>\n

In 2014, things had begun to get more familiar to the folks of 2024 as a few technologies had a bit of time to mature. But \u2026 as I\u2019ve stated in previous posts, even a single year can look totally different if something is a breakthrough \u2026 think the iPhone being introduced on the 9th<\/sup> of January, 2007 \u2026 the same time as CES, but (as is typical of Apple) not at the CES show. So, let\u2019s leap a decade ahead to 2014 now.<\/p>\n

Under the heading of \u201cit seemed like a good idea at the time\u201d \u2026 curved flat screens make an appearance \u2026 really cool for a single person to watch & really lousy for more than that, as the picture degrades precipitously if off-axis. This is the voice of experience talking here \u2026 I did a blog comparing the top-of-the-line curved Samsung vs. a LG OLED. It was a royal \u201cPIA\u201d hauling that Samsung back to Best Buy for a refund.<\/p>\n

Roku announced it wanted to be the defacto standard for streaming TV\u2019s \u2026 I wish they had spoken to me as I couldn\u2019t see ANY major companies paying royalties for something it could easily develop in-house. Now, they are only installed in what is considered the \u201cbottom-of-the-line\u201d sets.<\/p>\n

LG released its new flagship OLED \u2026 a 77\u201d spectacular showpiece for a lucky few. It was one of those pieces that if you have to ask \u201chow much?\u201d, you can\u2019t afford it \u2026<\/p>\n

This was clearly the show for the move to 4k despite there being literally almost nothing to watch. The camcorder makers having primarily 1080 cameras, had almost nothing to display as they were focused on getting 4K camcorders developed for late 2014 or 2015.<\/p>\n

Sharp displayed their \u201cQuattron\u201d TVs that had four colors (added a yellow pixel) other than the usual RGB<\/a> arrangement \u2026 it looked brighter \u2026 here\u2019s the \u201cbut\u201d \u2026 it was still a LCD set. I don\u2019t recall ever seeing it in a retail store after the introduction. I can only assume that people that have yellow as their favorite color may in the minority.<\/p>\n

Phillips showed its TVs in 28\u201d, 32\u201d, 39\u201d, 40\u201d, 46\u201d, 47\u201d, 49\u201d, 50\u201d, 55\u201d, 58\u201d, and 65\u201d sizes. Seems like there may have been no one actually in control in the TV development area at Phillips \u2026 sounds like the old saying \u201clet\u2019s throw it all at the wall and see what sticks.\u201d \u00a0I haven\u2019t seen a Phillips TV in years, so I guess none of them stuck \u2026<\/p>\n

Whirlpool (yes, the washing machine company) showed a frig that had Bluetooth for playing music from your phone or computer. I consider this absolute proof you shouldn\u2019t smoke weed and design refrigerators \u2026 regardless of how much you love your chilled munchies. The look on the Whirlpool guys\u2019 faces was interesting when I shared that I didn\u2019t think this was a good idea, and that the public was actually craving a dishwasher with Bluetooth instead \u2026 when I left, they were deep in thought as this IS a tech show, and Whirlpool only hires the best in audio for their appliances.<\/p>\n

The 4K Blu-ray DVD players were finally being shown \u2026 when the last time you used a DVD player?<\/p>\n

Digital cameras were really hitting their stride \u2026 while not impressive by today\u2019s standard, they would still be entirely acceptable by today\u2019s standards \u2026 of course providing you can still get batteries for it \u2026 and provided you don\u2019t own a Sony, as the cost of very, very low capacity \u201cMemory Sticks\u201d are stupid expensive and primarily on eBay.<\/p>\n

Digital watches were everywhere at this show and even today, the newest watches aren\u2019t really much better. Maybe a faster processor and a minor feature or two more \u2026 but, that\u2019s about it \u2026 shortly after that show I purchased a \u201csmart watch\u201d for $4.99 that will literally do almost anything that I would want new $799 Apple watch to do \u2026 AND looking cooler to boot!<\/p>\n

I’ve got my guesses of what’s coming at the 2024 CES … However, I sincerely hope I’m completely wrong, and it’s as much of a surprise as my first CES show …<\/p>\n

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This is a landmark event for this humble geek \u2026 this 2024 CES will mark my 25th year of attendance (including the 2021 Chinese-virus virtual show as well) to experience the newest, most cutting-edge tech that\u2019s coming to the masses. Very probably, as usual, the public won\u2019t see it all as some of these items […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2411"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}