CES Unveiled London
London’s iconic ‘OXO’ tower alongside the painfully hip and cool South Bank pedestrian and street foodie zone, is where the Consumer Electronics Association of America, or CEA, held the UK’s third ‘˜CES Unveiled’ event. Also going onwards to Paris and Tel Aviv, a slice of the top bods from CEA are effectively running their trade mission to the world. Invited guests were press, investors and entrepreneurs. I was of course not an investor, nor an entrepreneur.
As the CEA’s ‘˜CES’ show (we ain’t supposed to call it the Consumer Electronics Show anymore but just watch the telly people do just that come January) is properly global. You can go there and meet Australians and Japanese and Brazilians and well, they have folks arrive from one hundred and fifty countries world wide. The figures about everything to do with the CES are just bonkers. How about 150,000 trade-only visitors and enough press to need hundreds of computers and extra internet lines? Plus, it is in Las Vegas! Thus, it is THE show to go and report from if you can.
I was invited along this year as CES Unveiled has grown and I think also because there are a slew of really heavy duty automotive exhibitors booked to be at the show, alongside the aftermarket companies I write about. And Rupert Stadler, chairman of Audi AG, will be giving a Keynote Speech at the whole ‘˜Vegas kick-off. One of two keynotes the CEA are running this year, which is also new.
The city of Las Vegas itself is always ‘˜new’ and each year that you go back it is different in some quite tangible way. 2013 sees a whole new International Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport to land at, that can digest two thousand people an hour. I was never held up by immigration when on the Virgin flights a few years back, as they were only a few at McCarran and they were all expected in nice time-windows at a terminal that made Luton look urban. It was like, a single desk. But BA fly to McCarran as well now, so it aught to be looking pretty damn jet set!
The presentation offered analysis regarding innovation, from the CEA’s chief economist, Shawn G. Dubravac. It was a presentation and Q&A that a few Talk Audio types I could name would have given a lot to have been present at. After that, we got to see a small table top show of a few key UK items from cool companies and I spotted and gripped the chap from Damson as well as the 3D printing people and a prototype set of headphones with a photo-voltaic headband to feed the batteriesin turn used to power your iPod and let you listen to music at the same time.
I got a little video action and have sewn them together, complete with a little London-ness at the start… just because I live here and the tube gifts you the city, does not mean I have become blasé for the view from the Millennium footbridge is terrific.
The tech and feel-of-show taster was wonderful. The CEA’s hospitality as ever, completely full-bore and I want to go and see what the latest is this year, so bad I can taste it. They played us a video montage and I swear I got butterflies!
I will keep y’all posted.