Date: January 8th, 2006
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor) & Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
WHAT IS CES?
The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the world's largest annual tradeshow for consumer technology and America's largest annual tradeshow of any kind.
Verified registrants representing the United States, Canada, Mexico and more than 130 other countries include manufacturers, retailers, content providers and creators, broadband developers, wireless carriers, cable and satellite TV providers, installers, engineers, corporate buyers, government leaders, financial analysts and the media from around the world.
The International CES is the industry's largest educational forum to help companies expand their businesses and understand new technology. Approximately 200 conferences and more than 600 expert speakers encompass International CES conferences, Industry Insiders and SuperSessions to discuss hot industry trends and topics.
Keynote presentations feature executives from the world's largest and most successful companies and result in remarkable media coverage for the speakers. CEOs rank the CES as one of their top 10 most desired speaking opportunities, according to a 2005 Burson-Marsteller Most Valued Podium survey. Check CESweb.org in September for the complete conference schedule.
The International CES features products—and the companies that create them—from many different consumer technology markets. The show floor is organized by color-coded zones, allowing attendees to easily find each exhibitor as they navigate through 1.8 million net square feet of exhibit space.
The first CES took place in New York City in June of 1967 with 200 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees. Since then, CES has grown more than eleven-fold. Nearly 2,700 exhibitors, filling 1.6 million net square feet of exhibit space, showcased their latest products and services to more than 140,000 attendees at the 2006 International CES.
WHY IS TWEAKNEWS AT CES?
First and foremost, we at Tweaknews love anything to do with the latest technology coming onto the consumer market. CES essentially drops you directly into one of the highest concentrations of consumer technology in the world and some, if not most of the important product launches are done here. It is essentially a hub for every important manufacturer to display their product to prospective buyers and to the media. Every manufacturer you know that makes your home electronics and your computer hardware will be represented here.
CES DAY 2 COVERAGE
Day 2 started rather slowly seeing we had to spend the morning writing and arranging the content for Day 1. We tried to write the night of the first day, but we were out until close to 1am and were absolutely tired. As we sat yawning at each other across the work table, we decided that if we wrote anything now it would be absolute garbage and wouldn't represent what we truly accomplished during our introduction to the CES madness.
At noon after a bite to eat we struck out towards the south hall in search of some people to meet and greet and to check out some familiar faces. The first place that caught our eye was the World Series of Video Games tent outside the central hall.
WORLD SERIES OF VIDEO GAMES
Inside was a gamer's paradise complete with 20-30 high performance desktop and laptops setup with the latest games for people to play, fight or drive against each other inside a network. At the back was a stage where people could try their skills against the best gamer's on the planet including Fatal1ty. As seen above they also had an Formula 1 simulator setup to test everyone's driving skills.
Through pure luck I had the pleasure of talking to Ryan who is the marketing rep from XFX videocards plus I was surprised to bump into Tero Sarkkinen and Les Heizler from FutureMark which is the creator of 3DMark along with several other synthetic PC benchmarks used by many review websites around the world. It is great to put a name to a face after 3-5 years of communication.
Although I never knew this tent was even set up, I was glad I tripped onto it. It was packed full of consumers enjoying the latest in gaming technology.
