Miss iRiE : CES07

CES07: Last Days!

Ana — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:52:00 GMT

Well I decided to work on this blog until Thursday. This will first cover what we did on Wednesday and our last day at CES. :(

The day started off really nice, disregarding the Wisconish weather that was going on Vegas. Our first stop was the Microsoft Press tend we need to plan now what we where going to do around the floor since these past days, we have walked around so much.

I decided to go on a wild goose chase searching for Nintendo. They weren’t listed in the exhibitor’s list but hey, someone had to have some Nintendo accessories or may the hard to get Wii, hmmm…After 30 mins of searching around, we found a third party exhibitor displaying Nintendo Wii and DS accessories. Unfortunately no Wii’s, come on Nintendo, what they couldn’t afford a booth or they just weren’t interested. Seriously, that’s pretty disappointing that they didn’t bother to invest in this event.

Next we decided to go on our HD adventure. Some of the TVs that caught my attention again, of course, Sharp’s 108” LCD HD TV by we tried to get a shot of the back to see what kind of wirings were going on back there, sorry to say they chose to cover it (now that’s naughty), I guess they want to disclose that yet to the public. LG’s worlds first full HD 100”LDC, full 1080p. LG has been getting involved with a wide variety of home appliances, mobile phones, computer and commercial products, in addition TV, audio and videos. I am really curious to see what’s next for them. I fell in love with the monitors that were attached to each other; I wouldn’t mind upgrading my 19” flat to that. Somehow, we managed to get lost in HD heaven for a few hours.

After that we met up with my brother in law who was there as a buyer for the Electronics portion of CES. Now for this one, I had a nice plan. I really wanted to expose someone who is really not into video games at all, I always love doing that, brainwash new gamers. We decided to go easy on him so we introduced him to Hellgate, he really enjoyed the game, couldn’t believe how much improvement graphics have made. We did our best to get him on Halo 2 but it was too crowded, perhaps one my home visits. Then we made our ways to the Intel booth were they had the official BMW Sauber, running an F1 powered by Intel’s Core 2 using a Logitech steering wheel, only one of us got to play it. I wasn’t to thrill to hear that I need to remove my shoes to get in.

Some of the exhibitors were really touchy about not allowing pictures of their products; they had a bunch of signs that you could take pictures. At first it didn’t really make sense to not allow people to take pictures but I guess if its products that are not yet out in the market they don’t want their competitors to get a good glance at it.

We ended the day by stopping by the Venetian, were we decided to go on a nice romantic ride on the gondola. It was a bit interesting ride, unfortunately since the weather wasn’t so great; we had to settle to an indoor ride.

For Thursday, we walked the floor for a while. By that time we were out of fuel, we browse thru some booths that at first were a bit busy. We decided to check out the Logitech booth. They had some pretty cool keyboards on display, too bad all them were wireless. I guess one when I decide to retire my Eclipse, I am going to have to go wireless. We also checkout the HP booth they had all their offering kind of crammed up together. They did have some laptops running of course Vista. After that we decided to the end our day at CES and walk around Vegas.

Overall, I had a great time at CES. The food was of course overprized and really bad quality (not surprised, something about events choosing the wrong caters). I really enjoyed getting pushed around and people running into me, since half the time they were looking the opposite direction. CES is definitely in my agenda already for next year, can’t wait…

CES07: Day Two!

Ana — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:24:00 GMT

Well today, I am already exhausted and it is barely my second day at CES, yesterday I walked more than I had planned to. I wasn’t feeling while I was walking but now it’s hitting me. Today I decided to see what Sony had to demonstrated, Microsoft proof to be the leaders in software in the event.

My first thing I wanted to see at the Sony booth was definitely this holiday hard to get gadget the Playstation 3. Some of the games that were demonstrated on the floor were Motor Storm (an off road racer that you get to drive dirt bikes, ATVs, sand rails, rally cars, monster trucks, and everything in between), Lair (a Playstation 3 exlusive title where you get to wonder off in the skies using a dragon) and a trailer of Gran Turismo HD that really caught a lot of people’s attention. No doubt their booth was packed with people, just like majority of the major company’s booth. I ran into one of the representatives from Fox News, who was a bit intimidated about trying out the games. So instead he decided to watch us play and was amazed oh how much improvement video games have made, of course. They some pretty hip looking notebooks out on the floor. Somehow, that’s were Sony shines all the time, they seem to manage to make things look trendy from the outside, excluding the PS3, I don’t know what happened there.

While we were making our way back to the Microsoft tent, since I needed to upload more pictures. We couldn’t help but noticed that 3 Doors Down was doing a live show with their hi song Kryptonite over at the ESPN booth. For being live they actually sound much better than a lot of the musicians out there, they really rocked the ESPN booth.

We decided to wonder off and check out what else CES had to offer around the event. We saw more Games for Windows titles such as Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (an MMO that looked like a combination of WoW and Oblivion), Hellgate London (really made me feel like I was playing Guild Wars, different story lines in games just the feel was so easy to get used to), Rail Simulator (how fun is that to drive around freely a train), Lord of the Rings Online – Shadows of Angmar (That’s right another one, perhaps they will hitch me on this one). So watch console gamers, this upcoming year there’s a lot of great titles coming up on PC, finally, I am getting tired of seeing the old great games in the shelves. Games for Windows seems to be stepping into the right direction, can’t wait to see outcome of the hard work the developers have put in.

The highlight of today was running into Godfree’s twin playing Halo 2. That was strange seeing the twin of my buddy that I wish could’ve made it. So watch out Godfree, we might consider replacing you if you annoy us, ha! As well as seeing 3 Doors Down live was a plus. After the show we decided to relax for this night and see what Vegas had to offer. So we decided to go see the Blue Man Group over at the Venetian. Sad enough they don’t allow you to take pictures of their performance, so I was only able to bring back home a mental memory of the show. But may I say it was a great show, the combination comedy and paint just was an amazing performance. Unfortunately, after this we headed back to our hotel, so no Zune Part, we didn't have enough energy to stick around for the midnight party.

CES07: Day One!

Ana — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:13:00 GMT

I was very excited to be at CES for my first time, I was expecting to run into masses of people, I think the brochure that they mailed was pretty clear about it. Yeah, perhaps some people that I know will call it "Nerd Fest" and no I am not a nerd, geek, etc. nor do I want to be one, I am simply an average human being who enjoys shopping for fun hardware and software. I hate it how people right off hand relate technology with geeks, it’s pretty sad when people fall that low to right off hand conclude that enjoying technology equals being a geek. Oh well, this is another topic that I rather not write a whole story about.

I was one of the lucky community members to get into the Microsoft Press tent and may I say the security was tight. Even with a pass, we still managed to get harassed by the cyborg guarding it. As bad as having to confirm that we indeed were allowed in there and the guy still didn't accept it, wow! Inside of the tent there was a wide variety of press working very hard to distribute information about the event to websites, newspapers, etc... Inside the Xbox Community room the MS community crew did a great job in providing us such a comfortable quiet place to relax and post up news about CES. They even put up a 360 with Gears of Wars so that we actually had something to escape from for a while, nice job guys. I hope to see this done more often at events, it's great to see Microsoft Community members actually caring about providing us the indie sites that travel around events, a place to keep up to date with our sites.

The first booth that I stopped by was, “of course”, the Microsoft booth, where it consisted more of PC games than Xbox 360 games. Didn't bother me a bit, instead that's a great thing. Give some shine of light to Games for Windows. Some people haven't exposed yet to this. Halo 2 for Windows, was the first game that I had get my hands on, I gave it shot with the keyboard but as a console user, it's more comfortable to move around with the controller. The game was running smoothly and the graphics where as equally good as they are in the Xbox/Xbox 360. The 360 titles that where available to play Lost Planet, Guitar Hero II, MLG Baseball 2k7, Icon, Viva Pinata and the arcades titles where Castlevenia, Ms Packman (packman with a bow), Worms and others. They also had some Voodoo PC on the floor that unfortunately we weren’t able to obtain much information from the demonstrator, since he didn’t know much detail about the product. Now why there wasn’t an Xbox 360 customized car? At least somewhere, come on…

At the Intel Booth the first thing that caught my attention was of course the multiply yourself skid they had going. Where you go do a few moves and get multiplied by this person editing the video. There was a huge line for this, even the popular gamers had to wait to get multiplied into a video, by no means was anyone getting any special treatment. In addition to that they had demonstrations of games using Intel’s most advanced processor “Core 2” their product is supposed to deliver to the power of four. They also had some racing cars that we decided to save for another to test drive them.

Over at the World Series of Video Games tent there was a competition of beating Team 3d (I was probably at the Microsoft booth at this time) which was supposedly going to be televised on G4. I guess I won’t get to see it since I never seem to tune into G4, I think the Men Show really gave me a bad impression about them. The tent had some really nice computers running games like Halo 2 (of course) was the game that caught my attention, wow I think the keynote brainwashed me. Other titles where Rainbow Six Vegas, Counter Strike and more…

Zune booth was way to sociable for me, in better words one it looked cool and hip, almost to make you feel like you where not surrounded by the masses of groups of people that where all over the floor at CES. I really love the colors they chose the bizarre combination of brown and pink together are not that bad. They had some really comfortable couches that made seemed like a hangout place, I thought that was really cool. I did hear that they were selling some Zune’s at CES for $20.00 less then the retail value, darn too bad I was broke. I guess Cesar brainwashed me with his pink Zune and no I am not even thinking about going out of my way to find a pink one (I hate pink) but without a doubt I’ll be an owner of one pretty Zune.

Overall it took me a lifetime to get from booth to booth, majority of the booths I visit it was almost impossible to even get a shot of what was being demonstrated. All around the convention I saw plenty of 360's that were being used with various games like Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3 along with the Xbox 360 wireless wheel, etc...No Wii's, what's up with that Nintendo? Some of the gadgets that caught my attention were the world's largest flat TV 108" by Panasonic. I really wish that I could have one of those in my living room, then again how do I make it fit thru my door? Also, saw Hyundai's line of LCD TVs and yes the same Hyundai that makes cars. Speaking of cars, I saw some really interesting customized vehicles with TV in areas you wouldn't even think about actually adding a TV to. I did glance over the Sony booth but decided to save it the next day.

Walking around the convention floor I wonder why the event lacked females, disregarding some that where promoting products at the booths. Come on ladies, we are setting a bad example, I know there's techy females out there so step out and show your face around. Well I have been asking myself that same question ever since I stepped door into my first programming class, sad enough I was the one of the only girl out 20 guys that we had in our class, just sad. Normally I don't pay attention to these kinds of things, but come on. It almost seemed like the requirement to be at CES was if you are a guy you're in.

After CES, we ended the night by attending this special event Microsoft had done over the Venetian with their famous water show. Where we got to enjoy a show with a puzzle water show, that sad enough I couldn't solve but wasn't alone on this one others weren't able to either. Followed by this we headed over to Pure Nightclub located inside of the Caesars Palace for Windows Vista party. Surprisingly the food was great, they had a good share of appetizers, variety of sea food and meat sticks. Sadly, I had to settle for chardonnay, somehow Vegas clubs only believe in two types of wines. The guys really enjoyed this one, the stage by the middle of the night got a performance of the Pussycat dolls, and I am still laughing out of this one. It's always entertaining just seeing how silly men look when they are going crazy over girls, ha! Too bad they didn't have some kind of PCs running games inside of this, I guess perhaps the club didn't allow it. After this we headed back to our hotel to get prepare for our next day.

Coming up the rest of the days @ CES 2007!

[ CES Day One: Photos | CES Gamerscore Coverage | Xbox.com CES Coverage | Vision’s Experience ]

CES07: Bill Gates Keynote!

Ana — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:36:00 GMT

This took place in the Ballroom at the Palazzio inside the Venetian. The security was really tight you where either allowed earlier to walk in if you where press or exhibitor. We finally got a shot at walking into the ballroom hall. Where they served us complimentary drinks on the house and we got to stand for about a few minutes outside the hall before we where able to actually find our way to our seats. I would say there were around 3,000+ press/vip people waiting to go into the Palazzio seat. Once we finally where allowed inside the ballroom they entertained us with various hip music. Which I wasn’t surprised, practically every event that I have attended they try to get as hip as possible, nothing wrong with that. :)

The keynote was introduced by Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of Consumer Electronics association. He introduced us with a video clip of Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates and Microsoft Entertainment, from previous times he had attended the event as well as it included some videos of Gates being goofy and funny.

For me the highlight of the show was their new products and services that will be available for "Windows Vista", which was demonstrated by Justin Hutchinson, group product manager for Microsoft Corporation. Some of the new options that where demonstrated that impressed the audience very well was an option called shadow copying which it's used to restore files that are saved in the wrong folders, organizing files in a more easier way, virtual 3d map of the world provided by Windows Live, media center, new device called sports lounge, which provides you real time scoreboards, etc. you will also be able to see on demand video services and the photo gallery is used to store your pictures (of course) where you can use editing pictures without the need to use a graphics software (ie. Photoshop) this is included in Windows Vista Ultimate.

Although Microsoft has been very quiet with Live Anywhere, we got to see some demonstrations of Uno being used via Vista. Some of the titles that are going to be available are Uno, Shadowrun, Microsoft Games Studios and Halo 2 for Windows Vista and hopefully more right away. But these will the first titles that will facilitate gamers to connect via LIVE network with their friends on the Xbox 360. So finally console players will get to face the PC players (it's on PC gamers).

From the gaming we stepped into the future in technology such as Virtual signatures from the comfort of your cell phones. How you will be able to accept package from without the need to be home. Also, we got a demo of the kitchen of the future, Gates using a projector as a cook book that that recognizes the condiments that you put down on the table and match them up with different recipes.

Overall the keynote was quite entertaining, some of the negative ignorant comments that came from the back or inappropriate members of the press falling asleep the entire keynote was really not necessary. It would’ve been nice if some more gamers and actual people who are interested in technology could’ve attended the event. Some of the press that we ran into the keynote was actually their first time they had a glance at the Xbox 360, wow...seriously! They had no idea what in the world Halo 2 was nor did they know the Microsoft actually has an online service called Xbox Live, wow, just wow.... So great advertisement for Microsoft to introduce a new crowd that is not well in touch with gaming portion of Microsoft.

~~- NO PICTURES SOMEONE FORGOT TO TAKE PHOTOS-~~

Later, we attended the Games for Windows social gathering. It was pretty relaxing I had a few drinks after the craziness from the keynote, but who wouldn’t, seriously. The people that attended this gathering were majority Microsoft people such as Xbox community guys, John, Tony, Chris from gamerscoreblog.com, also saw Peter Moore, and a few more that I can’t name. The appetizers that they servicing were pretty decent, servers kept up with you, almost spoiling you with food. Then after we headed back to our hotel to get prepared to what was coming

[ More Keynote Photos | Vision's Pre-CES: Gates Keynote | Gamerscore CES Photos ]

Getting Ready for CES 2007!

Ana — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 04:07:00 GMT

My first event for this year will be CES which stands for "Consumer Electronics Show". This is the largest tradeshow for consumers in the world. With more than 140,000 attendees from over 130 countries are expected to attend this event. They showcase the hottest technology from 2,700 exhitors, such as Audio, Digital Imaging, Emerging Technology, Gaming, High-performance Audio and Home Theater, Home Networking, Home Theater and Video, Mobile Electronics and wireless. So where is this immense event going to be located at? In the coolest city of the US, Las Vegas, the event will held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center/The Venetian, the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Hilton and Renaissance Las Vegas.

Some of the booths that I have in mind to check out would be of course Microsoft Windows Vista, Intel Corp, Motorola, NVIDIA Corp, Sony Electronics, Skype, among others...I will do my best to check out everything that is being showcase. So it’s going to be a very interesting week. And without a doubt I will be hitting up the slots machines, who knows maybe my bad luck will change and come back as a millionaire (ha, not!!!).