2nd Blog of 2016

2 blog posts in one night.

As i sip a hot chocolate, I reflect upon how my new year always starts.

I celebrate the new year with the love of my life, then pack and leave for las vegas. I work for a large tech company that has demo's on exhibit of it's latest tech, at several trade shows. This one, is CES. For those of you not into acronyms, CES stands for "Consumer Electronics Show". It's basically the mother ship of all tech trade shows. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest on American soil.

Over 250,000, that's two hundred and fifty THOUSAND people descend upon las vegas convention center in a week.

My colleagues and i are tasked with attending this conference and filming all the demos, cutting them, and uploading the finished product to youtube, to draw attention.  It's pretty monumental.
This year, in 3.5 days, with a team of 5, we shot almost 60 projects, plus some periscope live streaming plugs. We break into two teams of camera, lights and sound, and one who's main focus is editing. 

This was my 7th CES, and third with this team. This time, i got to be on camera more. I learn so much at every one of these, but this time, we had our shit down. 

For 3.5 days, we are tethered to our site.  We work from about 7 in the morning until 6 at night, and by the time we're done, we're wrecked.  It's constant.  Then we have about 20 mins to change and clean up, and race to get in the taxi line to go scrounge for dinner. It's a magic dance.

On the last day, we get about 4 hours to walk the floor of CES.

Before i relate the awesomeness of CES, let me first tout how cool it is to work for a tech company. They bring their "A" game.

The Evo Car is worth seeing. It's the future of self driving cars.  Biometrics, measuring body stats, is pretty amazing stuff, and wearables are entering into another dimension of cool.   Haptics, which is a vibration feedback, has a big demo station, as well as all sorts of power systems.  But of course, my favorite this year, was a project that took me a year to complete. 

Now, I'm about to go all nerd on you readers. Energy Harvesting is a low power sensor that can power itself from elements around it...air, water, heat, light, vibration, etc and these sensors send information back on whatever their attached to.  For example, a sensor that tells engineers how much stress a strut on a bridge is getting, powers itself from the vibration of the bridge.    Another example, is a sensor that transmits moisture data on soil, around plants or a foundation of a house, and is powered by, you guessed it, sunlight.    A small planter with sensors was the exhibit, but also was a video that i helped write, direct, and all post production.  My colleagues contributed their time to making sure it was shot correctly, and my boss created the screen interfaces.    I learned so much about post special effects.  I have to admit, adding special effects so seamless that most viewers believe their were shot in production, makes me giddy.

But, I digress.  The video and demo were located right next to our Martian exhibit, which aptly played The Martian movie, next to a prop helmet used in the movie.   So, a lot got to watch my video. That was pretty damn cool.

Ok CES.  Outside our little hallway, is one of the big floors of CES.  To get to our area, we have to walk through autos and stereos. I like to think that a comment on the times is represented in what cars they're showing.  When i first started, it was pricy, fast, souped up heavy metal.  When the economy really got spanked, kia's and compact cars were demoed.  This year, we're back to the concept future cars and modded out hot rods.  Well what do you expect.  The Wow factor of a big ass stereo and speakers requires a badass car....not a volvo.

Passed the cars, and down the hall from us, are the big Electronics players with their fancy, schmancy tvs.  What's the buzz this year?  CURVED monitors.   Oh and ...let me see if i get this right "HDR" or high dynamic range".  What the hell does that mean?   It means the next gen of 4k...and curved computer monitors..like at your desk. right. They are still jacking around with no glasses 3D (still looks like shite) and they create these super huge 8K tvs, which will never go into production.  (no prices on a 105" HDR 8K tv...duh)

As usual, we got to walk thru Sony, Samsung and LG, which always have these ostentatious demos and a ballet of tvs that move to music. (yippee).  Hey, i'm not cynical, but lets face it...4K is so old hat, that the market is saturated. TV tech, IMO, has plateaued. People are not going to buy a new TV every year....most ppl stick to their tv until it breaks.

Of course, my favorites are GoPro, Celestron (i get all wiggly when i see the new scopes), Garmin and of course, all the small electronics that the big players bring out.  I will say, that Sony has one of the most comfortable floors. They get extra padding.

You can walk and walk and walk and walk and never see everything at CES.  But, once you've been to a CES, most of it repeats. 

Highlight of the trip? Getting to see Don Thomas, 4x shuttle astronaut.  I met him at Kennedy on my 50th birthday.  While he acted like he sorta remembered me, I bet he wont forget me now.

If you've made it this far, you're a bigger nerd than i took you for.   So, I'll reward you with this piece of info:  if you can wait a few years to buy a new car, wait.  There is some really cool shit coming down the pipe.

So, that's CES.  It's nice to see all the stuff, but impossible to see all the stuff., and after a few years, it all sorta looks the same.

Next time you put that fitbit on your wrist, hang that video doorbell on your porch, or get a text telling you, your laundry is done from your washing machine, smile and just know....many of those parts are made by a Texas company in texas by texans.  

Love your tech and hug your engineer.

Clear Skies.