I have been going to CES for a few years now. About 5 years ago I worked closely with Diversions Entertainment at the One Must Fall: Battlegrounds booth, while also watching the CounterStrike tournament. My interests have changed a bit from video games since then, but I havne’t lost my love of technology, and the companies that produce it. This is why I go to CES each and every year. 2009 is no exception.
This year it seemed to have a larger crowd than 2008, but it isn’t quite where it was the first year it went. Maybe it was the lack of a video game tournament (or i missed it if there was one). Dispite the numbers of visitors lacking, the number of companies was higher, and the entire production sprawled across three showrooms. Among the crowsd, Press conferences were held, announcements made, and the groundwork laid for lots of money to change hands. Products ranged from the world’s thinnest plasma TV (a third of an inch thick, and amazing quality image), to Wristband communicators which were actually capable of sending text messages. One other important thing I saw: Windows 7.
I recently made some remarks on Windows 7, and I was excited to get to see it for myself. The departure from Vista may be a good move for Microsoft. 7 has the visual flare that can be expected with any new version of windows, (and I was right about the docking feature being a duplication of Ubuntu’s), but this time it seems to be done with extra care for efficiency. The machine they demonstrated on ran smoothly, and didn’t appear to be have any major high-end parts. The same can not be said for my dad’s 2GB vista machine, nor any vista machine I have come across with less than 4, which all run terribly without being tweaked to turn off the extra visuals.
Keep your eyes on my blog, I’m going to give my review of the flexible wristband phone (and a rant on cell phones in general), sometime this weekend.