March of the noveau-geek
- 6 Jan 07, 06:14 PM
34,000 feet over the Atlantic just passed Godthab near Foxe Basin.
God, I'd forgotten how much I hate this. The crack of dawn start, the madness of the airport, the hours sitting in an airline seat designed for an anorexic midget. But this is what we do: our annual pilgrimage to the show they call CES. One of the largest consumer technology shows on the planet.
It's the Mecca, if you excuse the theological throw away, for the nouveau-geeks, the new breed of suburban nerd that since the advent of Google have become the new technology gurus.
(Of course at the other end of the swimming pool the proto geeks are rolling their eyes and slapping their foreheads when it becomes apparent the new guys don’t realise that mp3 is an MPEG 1 layer - Google it, become an expert yourself).
Thus at CES a certain hysteria creeps in to the coverage of ‘the latest gadgets’. You hear commentators breathe "Will it really do all that...?"
Here's the question: will there be anything new at this years CES...? Well, not really. Sure it will be shiny and you may just get away with saying we've never seen it before, but, well, see, they say that about the latest Ford Fiesta.
The problem is there are very few NEW technologies; in fact year on year development in technology is very slow compared to our expectations. The problem is, to make money, companies desperately need to interest us in what they are selling, which so often is the mark two version of the mark one we saw last year.
We can't avoid the shiny new stuff, thus a vaguely breathless piece in a national news paper, after trotting through the shows press releases concluded "anything could happen" at CES.
Yeah of course, anything. Just like anything could happen in a performance of, say, Macbeth.
See, shows like this run on rails, they are pure showbiz. The only thing to comment on is the 'performance' because the substance is invariably the same as last year.
We (obviously, I mean I) have already fallen out with a large PC manufacturer because I couldn't see what was new in its new box. And, foolishly, I said as much.
The clue was them offering brace of senior mouthpieces to talk about it. A CES rule of thumb is: the more important the spokesperson you are offered, the smaller the story.
Of course, one trick they try is to pretend that the senior person isn't available and heighten the excitement by not returning phone calls.
I've had girlfriends like that.
And then there is the joker that makes neurotics of us all. The surprise. The embarrassing conversation with your boss when you explain just how it was that the guys at home picked up a CES story, a proper one, and you didn't.
At CES we shouldn't be asking how new it is, but does it work yet?
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The REAL CES will be Steve Job's Keynote speech at Mac Expo on Tuesday.
Apple are the only true innovators left it seems.
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Yes well writtern article
Makes you read it!
But few technologies?
"The problem is there are very few NEW technologies; in fact year on year development in technology is very slow compared to our expectations"
What about podcasting which ahs rwally kicked of in the last year and totally changed the way many people access media. You might say it was around for longer, but the development of technology in the last year was behind it taking off.
Also what about the fact that i can now access any channel four programmes when ever i want!
These are just two examples!
Alos how the Wii, you may have know about it for over a year and say its a development of existing technologies. But is still new technology. and will dramtically change who can access gaming, no too mention music!
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Apple fan boys please start your engines ...
Chris is quite right - it's rare to spot that truely "new" piece of technology - and even rarer for it to go on to be a success.
The unfortunate thing is that after a working for a technology company for any length of time you begin believing your own hype - and woe betide anyone who actualy is brave enough to say it like it is.
It takes the impartial observers of this world, like chris, to do it for us and bring them back to reality.
Enjoy CES - don't get too carried away with the plastic bags and freebies - if you're anything like me you get back to the hotel room and throw them all in the bin to save taking them on the plane home
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At CES you find only the commercial development of hard- and software. The not so proprietary world develops just as fine, innovates just as fine and it is not visible on a show like CES.
Really CES is nice, but to say that everything new can be found at CES is simply wrong.
Thanks,
GerardM
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An honest piece of writing Cris! It is normally journalists who hype things up to get a story! Having said that, Technology is progressing, all the pieces of hardware are improving rapidly in small incremental steps. Doubling every two years even, exponential. Hard drives, processors, flash memory, even displays, you name it are improving all of the time. The big news is a new use of this that allows us to do what we could not have done so before, like the mp3 player. Although at the start they are often too expensive and impractical for most people, this rapidly improves. Myself I prefer to ignore the hype, be say, two years behind, and get everything at a fraction of the original price! As I've said to friends, I'll let the others who buy stuff right away pay for the development of it!
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I can sympathize with this account, as a small business we often trudge around these shows looking for something new and useful.
We ignore the big name suppliers but regularly find them offering "new" products that we have been selling for the past year or so.
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I think Chris Long has made an excellent point, that there is very little out there that is new. Sure, its faster, smaller, has more features, costs less and it's available in 5 colours, but its the same as last year. Oh, and as someone in the industry, I would say it probably still doesnt work.
I crave something new, a gadget that I simply must have and couldnt do without once I've heard about it. I'll pay over the odds for it, I'll use it all weekend and life will be complete again. Until the new version with extended battery life appears.
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