[photopress:CES_2008_flash.jpg,full,centered]
Oh sure, it sounds glamorous.
Walking the length of a football field about 20 times, being greeted by product spiders enticing you to step into their web and hear the product pitch.
Fine cafeteria food, and 150,000 people you can bump into at every turn.
Now, that’s a good time.
Honestly, it is kinda cool. Seeing large and small manufacturers bringing out some current and future technology to make our lives better.
And previews of the screens that will be showing the latest content.

And now with less wires.

Yep,lots of wireless choices for viewing your work, higher capacity flash drives, storage solutions abound (thankfully) with the best we saw from NetGear , Blu-Ray won the fight so soon you’ll be able to back up your materials on hard media that can’t crash and has the capacity for a small job. Currently about 25 gigs, and capacity may be increased in the future.

Tons of GPS companies here selling driving solutions, lo-jacking your teens and pets, but not so much on geotagging. The only one we saw of any interest in the photo area was from ATP.

Not sure about putting my CF card into a reader, unless it’s well backed up. Advantage here is that it will work with ANY camera. Current model uses 2 batts, new versions will be 2 pieces, with a tiny tracker and a separate card reader writer.

Kodak continues to hold the price down on printing costs for the general user. The inks basically have become cheaper than any other manufacturer. This IS breakthrough news and a lot of competitors are PO’d.

Lexar, the highest quality memory card company, will now distribute the breakthrough eye-fi SD card allowing you to wirelessly upload your pix to 14 different sharing/printing sites, such as facebook and Flickr( only in US right now). Very cool.

[photopress:cintiq.jpg,full,centered]
Wacom showed off their new, slightly more affordable Cintiq WX, a portable way to do your photoshop work right on the screen. (plus fun video at end of article)
[photopress:product.jpg,full,centered]

An interesting table top cyc solution from Pro Cyc called MyStudio. Coming in as a challenger to all of the current “studio in a box” solutions for those who may be selling things on-line, this system takes it into a professional arena with not only a perfectly manufactured ABS plastic cyc, but 5000k lighting that puts you in business immediately. And a very nice price. Under $250. for the set-up pictured.

[photopress:oledXEL1profile_left_med.jpg,full,centered]

$2500, 11 in, credit card thick TV’s from Sony.[photopress:oledXEL1profile_left_med_1.jpg,thumb,alignright] OK, if you’re a VERY early adopter And have some spare dough.

[photopress:solio.jpg,full,centered]
And for those who work in the field and would like to have solar as a power option, Solio has the state of the art product that claims to charge your goodies using solar power in the same time it takes for a traditional plug-in.

Smart phones galore, but none that have the intrinsic buzz of the iPhone. (We’ll be announcing our iPhone contest once Steve Jobs announces the new versions next week) But keep a close eye on Nokia.
[photopress:oxy_bar.jpg,full,centered]
Yep, some booths even had some old school Oxygen bars as a draw (are they still anywhere near hip??)

[photopress:yoko.jpg,full,centered] © Damon Webster 2007
[photopress:yokowill.jpg,full,centered] © Damon Webster 2007

Celebs abounded from Kevin Costner to Slash, Yoko Ono, Mary J. Blige, Will I. AM, and a ton of Hollywood folk looking to see which screens would be available to push through content. Now let’s see if they are wiling to settle the Writers strike and make sure everyone is compensated.
[photopress:lennon_sign.jpg,full,centered]
Speaking of Yoko Ono, she was there to help in the launch of the new John Lennon Educational Bus, and we’ll have a lot more coming on how they have committed to photography, as well as bringing a musical experience to students across the country. We are VERY excited about this one.

Plus the good news is that the big and small manufacturers are very cognizant about all of the old techno gear that will be replaced, and are implementing recycling programs. Whew.

Oh , and here is the video of Bill Gates’ last day we spoke about the other day.

Oh sure, they call this one of the biggest toy shows on earth.
[photopress:CES_2008_flash.jpg,full,centered]
hmmm… I wonder why.

Cheers!
Damon Webster