My Week @ CES: Day 2

By The Brown Messiah – Read Day 1 Here

Day 2: Day 1 of the Con – North Hall

Slowly we got up and headed out to the convention center. Circus Circus isn’t too far from the LVCC so we decided to walk. About 15 minutes later we found ourselves at the convention center. We filmed a quick intro in front of the “CES” sign and headed into the North Hall where KT decided we would start our coverage. North Hall was filled a bunch of companies, most of which seemed to be car companies, so we started in the back and left the cars for last. Most of what we first saw were smartphone accessories. Battery packs and Bluetooth speakers, phone cases, screen protectors, styluses etc.. The highlight was the a rather taboo item, but suffice it to say that Good Vibrations should have thought of it first. We saw a company KT featured on his show about Kickstarter and crowdfunding; so we stopped in for a quick interview. I was running the camera and since it was my first time I was a little nervous, but it turned out okay. I’d be getting plenty of practice in the days to come. One of the cooler things I saw was a hologram projector that did true holograms. These holograms were used without some sort of back drop. Granted it didn’t look like science fiction, but for a prototype it looked really good. More evidence that we are technologically advancing at an amazing and sometimes alarming rate.

Like I said, North Hall mostly had a car companies. Honda, Hyundai, Ford, Toyota,Tesla, and many others were all there showing off their latest models and and ideas. All of these companies had one thing in common and it was that they all are making efforts in autonomous vehicles (cars that drive themselves). The technology is pretty cool, but I still remain one of those people who just doesn’t trust that sort of tech when it comes to driving. I get distracted easily and I feel that by taking out that need to pay attention to how you’re driving when you’re driving would just make things worse for me. It’s still really cool how far the tech has come. The sensors are getting to be so precise and sensitive that they can detect all types of weather conditions and adjust accordingly. One thing that is an issue aesthetically is how the the sensors can look a little bulky and unappealing. Nissan’s model however had a nice sleek look I enjoyed. Honda had a really cool look to the dashboard of one of their concept cars that was full on Star Trek. It looked awesome!

North Hall also had companies like Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung, and LG, just to name a few. Nikon had an awesome setup called Project Helix that was using 72 Nikon D750 DSLR cameras to take a 360° photo, which you can check out here. This is when I started feeling the weight of all the walking on me. While KT and Deedo went to check out the Panasonic booth, I took a break and sat down. After about 20 minutes or so, we got up and were off again. We checked out Samsung and LG. LG had an amazing “tunnel” with the upper half of the ceiling lined with LG OLED TVs playing a movie, which was an incredible sight! We finished off the day with the Sony Booth. At one end they were displaying the super slow motion capabilities of one of their new cameras, and on the other, good old Playstation VR. Also there was a wall of OLED panels that were so incredibly thin, it looked like simple wallpaper. The resolution was insane and I could only imagine saying to my buddy’s “Hey wanna come watch the game? I’ll have it on my wall!”

After we finished up the day we went to a small party for Eska, a packaging company. We went up to 52nd floor of the Cosmopolitan for this one and got an awesome video outside on the balcony. At this party we met Jeanette who worked for a Bingo card manufacturer in Vegas. We all started talking to her and quickly found out she was just like us, a crazy nerd who had had to go to CES. We all talked for a bit and all decided to bail on the party to go get Ramen from one of the local spots KT said we HAD to go to before we left. So we packed it up and headed to Monta Ramen. All I can say is that if you like ramen and you’re in Vegas, go there. It was absolutely phenomenal and I wish I had some now. Even just watching the cooks behind the counter was fascinating. These dudes probably make over 500 bowls of ramen everyday and they have got it down.