At every CES, there’s one company–usually in a small booth off the beaten track–with the single best name at the show.
In 2011, that company was Dream Cheeky.
Tag Archives | Conferences
Last Gadget Standing: The Results Are In!
The suspense is over! Yesterday morning, a standing-room-only throng of CES attendees attended the tenth annual Last Gadget Standing event (co-sponsored by Technologizer and LGS creator Robin Raskin’s Living in Digital Times), and witnessed demos–from the straightforward to the wild and crazy–from the ten finalists. Then they voted for their favorite gizmos by clapping, cheering, whistling, hooting, and hollering.
The Last Gadget Standing–as determined by applause-o-meter at the event is Acer’s Iconia, a notebook with two 14-inch screens and a touchscreen interface. And the People’s Choice winner–determined by an online poll–is Barnes & Noble’s Nookcolor “reader’s tablet.”
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What to Expect From CES
My TIME.com Technologizer column for this week is a CES preview of sorts: I explain why it’s dangerous to accept the show’s big news at face value until products have reached stores and consumers have had the chance to give them a yay or nay. And then I list a few products and categories which I’ll be on the lookout for.
I head to the show on Tuesday afternoon–the show floor doesn’t open until Thursday, but stay tuned for news as I encounter it throughout the week…
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Will Last Gadget Standing Jump the Shark?
Let’s see, we’ve had Elvis impersonators, roving robots, Dr. Evil, mad scientists….could Last Gadget Standing get even kookier? I’m afraid so.
Next week’s tenth-anniversary edition could be it. In addition to me, Harry McCracken, and your judging team, the event will be hosted by Jon Hein and special guest Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate from The Wrap up Show on the Howard Stern channel on SiriusXM Radio. Hein’s tech claim to fame came is the creation of Jump the Shark, devoted to the moments where there’s only one way to go: downhill. (Just ask Fonzie).
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Coming Next Week: CES Coverage, Ballmer Liveblog
For tech journalists, there’s no such thing as a new year’s holiday. We’re all too busy getting ready for next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The show floor doesn’t open until Thursday, but the festivities get rolling on Tuesday–and on Wednesday evening, Steve Ballmer will give Microsoft’s traditional keynote address. At last year’s event, he announced iPad-esque “Slate PCs” that went pretty much nowhere; this year, he’s expected to talk about another iteration of the concept and maybe even provide an early look at Windows 8.
I’ll be covering the show all week, and will liveblog the Ballmer keynote as it happens. You can join me at www.technologizer.com/ces2011–and if you head there right now, you can even sign up to get a reminder by e-mail.
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Why Conference Wi-Fi Wi-Fails
If you attend as many tech conferences as I do, today’s biggest hazard isn’t rubber chicken or pricey parking–it’s Wi-Fi that just doesn’t work. Wi-Fi expert Glenn Fleishman explains why it’s difficult–but not impossible–to deliver fast, reliable wireless Internet to large crowds.
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Cutting the Cable-TV Cord? Maybe Some Day
Cord cutting–getting rid of cable or satellite TV–is the buzzword du jour in the TV and electronics industries. Pundits have proclaimed TV dead, or at least dying00going the way of the recording industry, which went from pricey CDs to cheaper downloads and now to mostly-free streaming.
That was the juiciest topic last Friday at New York University during the Future of Television Conference, a gathering of TV brass such as the CEO’s of Showtime and Univision, senior executives from MTV Networks, Discovery, and Yahoo, and founders of Internet video startups. The subject also permeated Pepcom’s Wine, Dine & Demo tech show the night before, where about a half-dozen Internet-to-TV products were being shown.
The conclusion, at least to this reporter, is that cord cutting is about as real now as growing new organs in vats. Consumers will do it–but they won’t do it in droves just yet.
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TechCrunch Disrupt Winner Qwiki Creates Video Profiles on the Fly
David Spark is a veteran tech journalist that’s been covering the TechCrunch Disrupt conference for Yammer. Check out more of Spark’s coverage on Yammer’s blog.
Remember the search engine AltaVista? Ever wonder whatever happened to it? Nothing. It’s actually still a search engine. You’ve just completely forgotten about it and haven’t bothered to actually go to the site and check it out. But it’s still there and it still searches the Web. Why not take a look now?
The reason I mention AltaVista is because its cofounder, Louis Monier, is also the cofounder of Qwiki, a very cool search application that creates video stories on the fly based on your searches. The technology incorporates open resources such as photos on Flickr and descriptions on Wikipedia to create its instant video slideshows. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, says Monier, explaining that this is just a first demo of a technology with lots more to come. Unfortunately I couldn’t coax that “more to come” out of him when I stopped by Qwiki’s booth before the service won the “best of show” award at TechCrunch Disrupt to get a demo of his application.
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Coolest Apps From AppNation
David Spark is a veteran tech journalist and the founder of the firm Spark Media Solutions, which gives voice to companies by building their media network. Spark appeared on the last episode of Cranky Geeks this past week, and blogs regularly at Spark Minute. Follow him on Twitter @dspark.
A Couple weeks ago I attended the AppNation conference in San Francisco, an event for companies that create, distribute, and (try to) monetize mobile apps. (I was reporting on the event for Dice, the online job board for tech jobs). You can see a bunch of the videos I shot at the event at DiceOutLoud and DiceNews, but here’s a video showcasing some of the coolest apps I saw at the conference.
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Is the Web Going Away? Or is It Going All Over the Place?
When Wired hyperbolically declared that “The Web is Dead,” it didn’t challenge my worldview but rather surfaced what I knew subconsciously. The browser is not always (and increasingly less so) the best window to the Internet — especially on mobile gadgets. For years on my iPhone — and now on my Droid – I’ve foregone digging around in a tiny browser in favor of burrowing straight to what I want through an app – the New York Times, Facebook, The Weather Channel…
At this week’s Web 2.0 conference in New York, John Gruber of blog Daring Fireball tried to illustrate app supremacy by showing the absurdity of an iPad screen with only the Safari Web browser icon.