Unless you are a PR professional, media member, work in the tech sector, or are a complete electronics nut, you may not have realized that it not only is 2016, but CES is this week.
What is CES, you ask? Only the biggest waste of a week electronics show in Las Vegas (probably the world) you’ll find on a re-occuring yearly basis during the first couple of weeks of each January. It’s a big deal – or at least was at one point to us in the mobile media. In the big scheme of things (outside of mobile), should you care about washers and dryers and new TVs and tech in automobiles and VR and drones and wearables and a whole bunch of other literal junk, CES still means a lot. In fact, this conference grows every year and brings in more than 170,000 people.
As I just mentioned, CES typically runs during the second (sometimes first) week of January each year as a way to kick off the year in electronics. Many of the biggest electronics companies in the world arrive upon Las Vegas to show off what they plan to sell at some point during the next 12 months. Samsung, LG, Huawei, Sony, Ford, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Lenovo, and a whole bunch of other companies are all a part of this thing. See, it’s a big deal.
The show runs from Wednesday through Saturday this year, but really kicks off for us on Tuesday, when we (the media) attend official Press Day at CES. It’s basically a day-long showcase from all the big dogs for 45 minutes at a time. We often live blog many of these 45 minute long pressers, then rush off to the next one, wait in line for an hour before getting into the next. It’s hell. I do not wish this day upon anyone.
But after Tuesday, the show floor opens and the 170,000+ people all ascend upon massive multi-million dollar booths from all of the companies I just named, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, to get our hands on the goods. Outside of the big guys, we have the little guys who are trying to make it as well that also want our attention. They buy booth space at CES because they actually could make it out of this conference, assuming their product is legit. Meetings are setup. One-on-ones are avoided. Half-naked “booth babes” are hired to attract the creepers in attendance to off-brand oddity products. And everyone has some form of a zombie-turning virus for your body to feast upon.
Tim and I will be there for the 80th year in a row I think. Actually, it’ll be the 6th. For us, CES just isn’t what it used to be in terms of news because all of the mobile focus has moved on to MWC in Barcelona at the end of February or to stand-alone press conferences. I honestly couldn’t tell you of a phone we expect to see at this show. This will be the least mobile-focused CES ever. At least that’s my prediction.
So, with that in mind, Tim and I will be there cruising around Vegas, looking for a story or two. What I’m trying to say is – don’t get overly excited for CES if you are a mobile or Android enthusiast. That’s not me being a grumpy journo, either. It’s just not a conference for us anymore, unfortunately. There will still be cool stuff all over the place that we may gush about here and there, it just won’t have anything to do with Android.
We’ll be there all week, though! We actually travel tomorrow (Monday) and are in attendance until Friday. If things are a bit slow tomorrow, you now know why. We promise, we’ll do our best to make it up to you.
Wish us luck.