What are you most excited about at CES?

[Harold Mansfield]

As you know the largest tech convention in the world is happening in Las Vegas right now. CES ( Consumer Electronics Show) is when all of the new stuff comes out. http://www.cesweb.org/

I've been following all of the announcements by the minute and have videos going all day. It's more exciting than Christmas to me.

Besides seeing what's coming out...some of it quickly, I can also see just how obsolete that stuff I already have is :(.

I'm most interested in seeing advancements in voice recognition and functionality...I want to be able to choose my command. For instance instead of saying "OK Google". by now we should be able to set any trigger word. Of course I want mine to be "Computer" so that I can play Star Trek, but that's just me.

I also want to see the Google Glass technology trimmed down so that it seamlessly fits into a regular pair of reading or sun glasses.

Samsung's Virtual Reality stuff looks promising, but I'm just not ready to wear a helmet on my head to get it. When they make a holodeck call me, but you have to start somewhere.

I'm also interested in smart home automation, and faster, lighter, cheaper tablets.

Lastly, one of the great things about watching the press presentations is buzz word bingo. The first 2-5 minutes of every presentation is a glorious mash up of the industry's best buzz words and creative writing. No one just makes TVs, they're all breaking down barriers and delivering rich, immersive experiences. If you ever want to bone up on your marketing and copy writing, watch a few CES videos or live streams. They are the best in the business.


Is anyone else excited about anything, or following along?

[vangogh]

Believe it or not, nothing at CES excites me. I paid no attention to it last year and I'm not paying any attention to it this year either. You'd think I would like it, but the products I see never interest me. They strike me as cool tech forced into not so useful products. Here's an example. It's a combination cooler and bluetooth speaker (http://www.cnet.com/products/kube/). I get it. For those days you're going out to the park, you no longer have to carry both a cooler and a speaker. Not really anything to get excited about, especially when you see an $1,100 price tag.

I think I've seen too many products like that at CES and so I stopped paying attention. I figure the things that will be useful I'll hear about in a month or later this year when the product is actually released.

A lot of the tech is interesting, but I don't find the products themselves all that interesting.

Do you every go? I know it's in Vegas this year.

[Harold Mansfield]

I haven't been in a few years now. I actually watched the Intel press event from my couch this evening and it was pretty awesome. The speakers themselves are generally the CEO's and not very exciting, but it's cool getting a glance at new tech coming out this year as well as stuff they are working on.

Intel did a nice demonstration of navigating drones that avoid obstructions and find an alternate route without anyone manning the remote controls. I can see all kinds of applications for that.

They had a 2 monitor workstation set up that was all wireless. Monitors and everything. The desk itself was the power supply. Everything you put on it was wireless power or charging. That was very cool.

Minority Report inspired interaction with computers..that was cool too.
They also announced some new tech that they released into the public domain for developers to take it and run.

I also may be getting my wish with the glasses. They talked about their partnership with Oakley and getting that Google Glass tech in regular eye wear.

I agree, I don't need a fridge that orders my milk for me, but the new Dell tablet with the new Intel processor that comes out next month looks pretty sweet for the price.

[billbenson]

The tech thing I would like to see is improvements on wireless security cameras. I've always wanted to put a security camera system in and around my house. I'm not in a high crime area, but the elderly woman next door has been broken into twice. I'm sure it was her lawn service guys who knew she was out of town.

Some kids baseball batted my mailbox to death a few years back. It would be nice to go to their house and hand the parents a video; or the police.

The wired cameras are pretty good these days, and they still need power to them, so that may remain the way to go. It would be fun to sit in my office and see who's at the door or watch the world go by on my monitor.

[Harold Mansfield]

Tons of products for home security or wifi cameras/monitors out there. Have you seen drop cam?

[billbenson]

Tons of products for home security or wifi cameras/monitors out there. Have you seen drop cam?

I'm not familiar with the drop cam. The latest inovation I have seen are the cameras is that they use CAT 5 cable which is far less expensive than the cable they used to require.

[Harold Mansfield]

Drop cam just needs wifi. It does still need power, but you can plug that in anywhere. It's a simple solution if you just need video monitoring. https://www.dropcam.com/

[Brian Altenhofel]

For cameras, I still prefer CAT5 PoE. Only have to run one small cheap cable and don't have to worry about a power source being nearby. First one I installed of those was probably 6 or 7 years ago... 1080p, PTZ, regional motion detection, and audio recording. No, I don't remember the model.

CES never has anything I end up finding exciting. To me, it looks like just another coordinated release "conference" - at least 95% of what is "debuted" at CES is already well known to those following that particular area of technology. It's like SEMA, but for us nerds.

[billbenson]

Ya, that's pretty cool. What I don't like is the cloud storage. I want a recording device near my office. So I can have sort of a war center in my office. I want exterior and indoor cameras. I figure it will take about 2k for the whole system.The drop cam is more for aa nanny cam application.

I have a small closet next to my office. I plan on reinforcing it with steel and effectively make a kinda safe out of it. I have a friend that did this. He actually added sheet rock with nails embeded in them so if someone tried to kick it in, they would end up with nail holes in their feet.

To me thats a bit extreme, but I do like the idea of making a small closet into a safe. It wouldn't be fire retardent though.

[Harold Mansfield]

Ya, that's pretty cool. What I don't like is the cloud storage. I want a recording device near my office. So I can have sort of a war center in my office. I want exterior and indoor cameras. I figure it will take about 2k for the whole system.The drop cam is more for aa nanny cam application.


My bad. I misunderstood. I thought you were just looking for a quick monitor that you could plop somewhere to watch your mail box and such. I don't know anything about entire systems other than there are a lot of them out there. There's a whole slew of DIY ones on Amazon that come with multiple cameras now..night vision, motion sensors..but I have no experience with any of them.

[Harold Mansfield]

I gotta say...this year's live streaming options for CES events have been pretty good. Between C|Net, Android Authority, Livestream, the different Corporate websites and some of the tech show apps on Roku I've been pretty entertained with new stuff and happenings.