Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2005 Article Day 3

Gadgeteer Article by Judie Hughes and Julie

January 13, 2005

Julie's comments are in Black, Judie's are in Blue and italicized.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Friday

Julie and I overslept! I could swear that the alarm clock was set correctly, but it's possible that neither of us even heard it when it went off. In any case, by around 9:30 we were dressed and ready to grab something quick  for breakfast.

It's not like we HAD to be anywhere at any specific time, so we weren't stressing over it.

This had to be one of the coldest and most nastiest days either of us have ever experienced in Las Vegas, as we soon found when we were about to walk out to the bus queue. Since we knew we would have to wait outside for up to 30 minutes for the next shuttle, we decided instead to take a cab. I am not sure if you can really tell by this picture - but this was the Luxor's cab queue. The outdoor portion anyway! Inside, the line was a good 40 yards long! It took about 45 minutes for us to get in the cab - but at least we were somewhat warm and definitely dry.

It was pouring down rain and probably 40 degrees. Judie was shivering like crazy. I wasn't really all that cold, as we Hoosiers are used to a little chill in the air ;o)

Once we got to the Convention Center, Julie indulged me and agreed to check out the vehicles on display in the North Hall. I love shiny cars with loud stereos - and there were plenty of those to be seen. Check out this crazy modified Magnum with the Lamborghini doors. You can just see the DVD screen in its dash...

I'm really not a car person as evidenced by the fact that I drive a 1991 GMC Sonoma pickup that is starting to look a little ratty. I am hoping to get something new or new to me this spring. Definitely not a Magnum though.

Julie and I were laughing at this little vehicle - it is either a poor man's HUMMER or it is an urban assault golf cart!

Some of the restored classic cars displayed were to die for - this one in particular...

Ok, now this is MY type of car!

I didn't quite know what to make of this Pepto-Bismol pink HUMMER H2 with the fake Louis Vuitton pink Murakami Cherry Blossom fabric and suede trim. It was pretty atrocious...I like the screen in the sun-visor, though. Who needs a mirror when you can watch a DVD instead?

 

Ok, I want to know who the heck really watches DVDs in a vehicle besides children in the backseat? These vehicles had displays everywhere one could possibly be installed. It was nutty. I guess it was just a matter of we can, so therefore we shall...

This rear view mirror has a screen built into its left side. I believe that it is for a rear camera for these crazily raised trucks - so you can make sure you don't back up over a normal sized vehicle! I'll bet there are those who are running a DVD feed through them, though.

Okay, you know it is time to quit watching DVDs so much when you have screens installed in your ski boat!

Insanity!!!

Ooooh, here is my dream car. What does it have to do with gadgets you ask?

 

Look - it has an iPod Velcro'd to the dash -Ha! Doesn't that seem a bit sacrilege, though? Ummm, yeah ;o)

Same with this bright yellow Ferrari...

 

You would think they could at least install a cradle to hold that yellow skinned iPod! ;0)

Here are a couple more tricked out classics that caught Julie's and my eye...

   

The good ol'days gone high tech!

I need this crazy Harley truck for the ranch - I like how it has the matching 4-wheeler. ;0)

 

I'll take the 4 wheeler, you can have the truck. I could do some damage with it on the trails in my woods.

This gorgeous classic truck was made into a roadster. The engine was beautiful, but what really made the truck "something else" was the crocodile horn back trim on the seats - that can't be very comfortable!

 

Who cares about comfort when you have a car that looks like that!

Obviously this truck was never meant to be actually driven anywhere, but it really caught our eye on the showroom floor.

Back to gadgets! Yay, bout time!

This Audiovox headrest DVD player was very cool because it is totally self contained. The DVD pops into the top and then the watcher can plug headphones into the front jack. Now if you have two kids who ride in the back of your car that can't ever agree on what to watch, they can each watch their own thing. Kids today are just spoiled rotten, huh?! ;0)

 

Why when I was a kid all we could do on trips was to play "I spy with my little eye" and we LIKED it!

Pioneer had a booth set up with their sponsored driver Danica Patrick's Indy Car.

In case you wanted to see an example of how crowded the floor was in this area...we were packed like sardines in a can!

To say that this show was crowded would be an understatement. There's nothing quite as joyous as walking around with thousands of other people as they jostle, bump, stop, and sometimes even fart as you are trying to make your way to the next vendor. We must really love our gadgets to do this every year ;o)

Soon, we grew tired of looking at cars, and so we moved to the home audio and video section. Never had I seen so many plasma and HD screens in one place. Not that I own one or anything (yet!), but they almost seemed passé when there were so many together in one place.

We walked by these unusual speakers. Though they would not go with either Julie's or my home decor, they definitely had a fun "pod" look which I liked.

We saw quite a few gorgeous wooden speakers that I would love to have in my basement living room.

The THX booth had a home theater set up which I would be quite happy owning - those speakers and subwoofer managed to rumble the floor in a very satisfying manner.

These huge Earthquake speakers seemed to combine the best of wood speakers with the plastic pod design of the speakers pictures above.

 

Hidden amongst all of the sound products was a mini DVD player. This seems to be the antithesis of the new digital media players that are out. Note the itty bitty screen and the bulky plastic body? Yuck. Plus you have to buy the specialized DVDs. Granted this device seems to be mainly aimed at kids, and it probably has a low price point, but I would be happier teaching my kid how to rip their own DVDs that they already own, then showing them how to transfer them to a memory card to play on a Pocket PC or other portable media device...but then, that's just me. :0P

   

I don't recall what the price point was for the unit or the discs. I agree that this is another one of those products that will probably never see the light of day at your local Wal-Mart or Target stores. The thing is that the entire unit looked almost big enough to play full sized DVDs... So go figure.

The next booth had yet another little media player thingy that of course we don't recall the name of. Are you getting the impression that everything was starting to go in one eye and out the other by this point?

This was a really neat idea - biometric door locks! I already have a touchpad lock on my back door, but this beast is pretty enough to install on the front of the house. It looks like it will either accept a fingerprint or a button code - pretty cool!

   

I wonder how well it works when your hands are freezing cold or even wet? I don't have much experience (can you say NONE) when it comes to products such as these. I would like to know if they run on batteries or if they are electric. If electric, what happens in the event of a storm and power loss? Ours takes batteries but has a key for when the batteries die.

For some reason, these pastel laptop speakers tickled me...probably because even they weren't enough to soften the harsh black of that laptop. Maybe it needs some of the Wrist Rugs that Julie and I picked up at last year's CES! ;0)

By this time, Julie and I were completely "over" fighting the crowds and we were just about walked out. The foul weather outside and the fact that it had actually snowed that afternoon - even though briefly - made us ready to head back to the hotel a bit earlier than usual.

At least we lucked out and didn't have wait for the shuttle for longer than 5mins or so. Our bus driver was a little... shall I say... different. Judie and I sat right behind her and kept looking at each other when she would say something wacko. At one point she asked the passengers if we wanted to go for a drink somewhere. She wanted us all to go see the Chippendale's dancers with her...as if! :0P

As you can see in these pictures, the weather outside was nasty. What you can't feel is how cold it was! Thankfully, we were able to quickly catch a shuttle bus back.

 

As we were leaving, we passed the new TRAM station across the street from the convention center. Right now there are only a couple of hotels that are actually hooked to it - but hopefully in a couple more years it will actually reach the hotels on the strip.

 

Actually, I believe the tram stopped at Mandalay Bay which if I'm not completely insane, is next to the Luxor. So we could have given it a spin... Maybe next time. Oooh, I missed that. If that's the case, then we should have tried it. :0)

After we had arrived back at the Luxor, we got a call from Dan Parsons, one of our guest reviewers who also happens to own the company that hosts our site. He was in town for the show and wanted to meet. Since we had already made plans to eat at the Cheesecake Factory at Caesar's, he agreed to meet us there.

While we were waiting for them to arrive, Judie and I remembered that we had not yet completed one of our traditional CES rituals... gambling $20! So off we went to find a lonely slot machine in dire need of our money. I have to say that I think we each lost our money in record time this year. I don't think it took more than 20mins max. We did have slightly better luck when I bet $10 on black at the roulette wheel for my friend Ryan. We won that spin, but then lost the next $10 on a duplicate spin. Oh well...

Once Dan and his girlfriend Kara had arrived, we watched the animated Atlantis show as we waited for our seats...pure cheese!

 

The pictures don't do the show justice as there were shooting flames and plumes of water. Whee!

After a delicious meal punctuated with lots of laughter and freely given information from one of the smartest computer-guys I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, we all headed back to the Luxor so that Dan could take a look at the elusive Sony PSP, which Julie had forgotten to bring along to dinner. I didn't think that Dan was going to want to give it up - but I told him that he would have to fight me for it. ;0)

He mastered the Ridge Racer game quite quickly, although it took a few minutes to figure out how to get past the dorky pre game as none of us speak Japanese.

Julie and I were surprised when we realized that it was almost 11:00 and we both had time-sucking flights ahead of us the next morning. So, it was lights out and good night!

This year's CES was similar to those of previous years in that it is always fun to look forward to, but then only too soon becomes a blur of lights, sounds, huddled masses, taxi lines, tired shoulders and feet. We came, we saw, we survived. Until next year...