CES 2014 – It's a wrap

Walking the halls of CES is like rummaging through a rainforest as a caterpillar.  Things are way farther away than they appear, and you will see a million interesting new things on the way to your destination.  If you read Part 1 of the CES blog, you most likely got a feel for what the (now CES-famous) Gibson Tent was like.  On the last day of CES, I ventured deep into the CES halls of abyss and saw some pretty interesting things.  Here are some of the more interesting sectors that I witnessed:

Robotics

Partly interesting – partly scary; robotics are here in full swing, and all the big players in the industry at CES were making sure they were going to be noticed.  There was an actual “Robotics” section with everything from bots that will clean your floor, to super-bots that will make you dinner.  It was obvious that companies are still trying to figure out where this sub-industry will go, but CES was the place to get a good idea of the direction of mainstream-robots of the future.  I saw everything from human-like robots to ones that look more like something that could dig up your yard.

4K TV

I had never seen 4k TV in action before CES and I can attest that it is incredibly entertaining.  The detail is astonishing and I was not expecting to be blown away.  Once I got my eyes on regular HD TV with my current flat-screen (which is now 5 years old), I thought it was the end of the line, but 4k TV is indeed superior.  One of my friend’s brothers is a pioneer in this industry who is paving the way for 4k streaming.  His company is NanoTech and I was able to find him and his colleagues through the maze at CES.  NanoTech was an award winner at CES so I appreciated getting the inside scoop on where the industry is headed from a pro; which is unquestionably upward.  Perhaps we will see SONAR or other Cakewalk items on a 4K screen at some point in the near future…

 

3D Printers

This is what is known as “Additive Manufacturing” and surprisingly to those like me who are NOT in-the know, it has become one of the fastest growing processes in the twenty-first century.  It starts with a box container and a spool, and then virtually makes an object appear out of thin air by generating successive layers of material to create a three dimensional product.  From what I understand, most 3D printers are used for building prototypes for the medical, aerospace, engineering and automotive industries, but from I could see it looks like these machines are moving towards more compact units with affordable price-points for consumers.  Many of the demonstration printers were making things like ashtrays, custom drinking cups and decorations that could be easily painted and sold.

Random Items

I definitely saw some interesting vehicles at CES.  There was everything ranging from hi-tech scooters, to cars that looked like they could jump the Grand Canyon.  Technology inside the vehicles seemed to be a hot point as well, such as break-away tablets that are wirelessly connected to the car’s internal engine computer and also control all the car’s features.  The one everyone was talking about was made by Audi.

Also, “Wearable Tech” was a buzzword and buzz-look where I saw plenty of folks sporting Google Glass.  I understand the concept, but I also personally feel about the same about the technology as this guy:-}

Plenty of “devices” were on hand whether they were new tablets, laptops, watches or phones and I was very impressed with what I saw.  It seems like we are on the verge of some new layers in the App world in terms of how they look and act.  I also noticed that edges around laptops, tablets, TV’s and just about everything else are either getting very thin, or vanishing all together.  It’s no secret that Wearable Tech combined with hardware devices will be getting more coverage as well, and it seems like Samsung has quite a grip on that field from what I could see.

Steam Machines

No… not carpet cleaners, but rather our gaming alliance Valve who showed up big at CES and actually walked away with a Best Of CES: People’s Choice award [Congratulations].  They announced 13 new partners for these gaming apparatuses.  With features such as supped up onboard processing, custom lighting, built in high-end graphics cards with liquid cooled  components, these machines seem to be on every gamer’s wishlist for the upcoming year.  We are honored to be aligned with such a forward thinking company such as Valve/Steam who are proving to be at the forefront of many technologies as proven at CES 2014.

The Gibson Tent

Of course the last half of CES in the Gibson Tent was nothing short of entertaining.  Besides showing conference-goers the creative possibilities using SONAR X3, we got a front row seat to some of the best talent in the business brought in by Gibson.  As I had mentioned in the first post, Frankie Moreno and his band were absolutely on fire.  Frankie is the type of performer that will convert every single audience member into a fan regardless of personal genre presence.  The rumor has it that he will be performing on one of late-night TV shows soon, so we will definitely be looking out for that.

Thank you to DJ Scratch and Drew at Beats By Dre (Beats Audio) who were kind enough to get us into their party at Light, Mandalay Bay.

Thank you to all the new people we met under the Gibson Brands label who helped make our first major Gibson conference a big success.

Thanks for reading, and see you at NAMM!  jl