CES 2012 – The Post Report and Weight Gain Explained Within!

Quadruple Bypass with Bacon at Heart Attack Grill. Conquered...NEXT!

Over our 8000 calories Quadruple Bypass burgers from Heart Attack Grill, the Nerd Reactor team is not only replenishing from the miles and miles of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) coverage, but also compiling our memorable moments of CES 2012. Nerd Reactor did its best to cover the 1.861 million square feet of exhibit space over the 6 days that we spent in our 2 room suite. If you did not get a chance to make it out to the Las Vegas showrooms this year, allow us to present our recollections, lessons, images we want burnt to our eyelids, and memories we need surgically removed from our brains.

Overused Words of CES – Ultrabooks, Vampire Power, In-ear/Over-ear/Whatever-ear

If you are unfamiliar with the term ultrabook, just think of Apple’s MacBook Air, which was arguably the first successful ultrabook to hit consumers. CES 2012 looks to officially herald the era of the ultrabook. While the tablet era of yesteryear was still apparent, manufacturers like HP and Samsung brought products to market like the Envy 14 Spectre and the Series 9. These ultrabooks tout below 1 inch thickness, near-bezel-less screens, and feather weights under 4 lbs. Awesome for technology, but how about atleast trying to bring these to market at an attractive price point. At similar prices, I could spring for a proven MacBook Air. Most press conferences, kept mentioning “ultrabooks” which is fine, but we really wanted to be introduced to an ultrabook that we could actually recommend to our readers.

Vampire power is the power leak that occurs when devices are plugged in, turned off, but still drawing power. Year after year, Green Technology is a big emphasis at CES, but this year’s offerings seemed unimpressive. The only thing worth mentioning in this category is Monster’s approach to home automation. Read a bit about it here as well as Monster’s other offerings.

In-ear/over-ear/whatever-ear refer to the thousands of new headphones saturating the market year after year. Last year drew huge success to the Beats By Dre headphones. Manufacturers and distributors hoped to continue this trend by releasing even more headphones. 50 Cent also hopes to take a piece of the headphones pie.

Pleasant Surprise in an Otherwise Uninteresting Category – Home Appliances

TV’s will always be exciting, because we all want to play Xbox 360 on the largest possible screen imaginable to man. This year’s CES brought forth new ways to interact with TV’s like gestures and facial recognition. These SmartTV’s were innovative and deserving of attention, but a pleasant surprise in an otherwise uninteresting category for me was something I discovered at LG’s booth, home appliances.

A portion of LG’s booth looked like a hi-tech Sears Department Store. These new products will be covered in our in-depth LG coverage, but the gist is a fridge that can super chill room temperature drinks in 5 minutes and a closet that cleans and steams your clothes automatically. Literally, I could save 5 hours a week!

The Characters You See Walking CES

Take this next segment more like an observation to the uninitiated. The types of folk you commonly see walking the exhibit halls of CES fall into one of many major categories. I’ll go over them here.

Asian Business People in Suits – These corporate guys are usually buyers or sellers. They are also most likely to be “slow-walkers,” so steer clear of these guys as they usually wander in large groups and commonly with suitcases. If you find yourself surrounded by them, prepare to be engulfed in non-native tongues.

T-shirt/Jeans Man – It is a mystery as to how we get so many every year. These t-shirt/jeans guys could also be known as Technology Fanboys. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, since we all have to start somewhere.

Press (red badges) – These guys are the coolest bar-none. ‘Nuff said. Especially those NerdReactor.com guys. Feed them if you have food, or offer to carry their bags. They are well-deserving of your love and affection.

Film/Photography Crews – These guys are an extension of the Press people and can be usually seen amongst the larger booths like Sony, Samsung, and LG. Often times, you see a dressy hot gal in the middle, so it can be assumed that she’s famous or about to be. Say hi to my girlfriend, Jessica Chobot if you see her. What do you mean she’s engaged?! What am I going to do with this custom Wonder Woman ring?

Exhibitors/Industry/Industry Affiliates/Industry Analyst – I would also dub this the miscellaneous group. Those with exhibitor badges are just looking to get away from home base and must return before the boss notices they are missing. For industry people, I never quite understood the differences between them. What I do know is that most new people you meet seem to be Industry. Electronics is fairly big, I suppose.

G4 Film crew and Kevin Pereira.

Vegas, This Time of Year

It is no understatement when I say that CES is HUGE. You have the entire Las Vegas Convention Center to explore. Central Hall seems to concentrate the largest exhibitors like Samsung, Sony, and LG. The path to the 2 story South Hall is a trek through a sky bridge. When trying to make meetings that take you from the northern west corner of North Hall to the southern east corner of South Hall, we are talking about almost a mile of walking and dodging the aforementioned crowds above. It was tempting to pull this off.

The traffic in Vegas doubles/triples/quadruples during CES. If that wasn’t enough to deter you from driving, hotels adjacent to the convention even start to charge around $30 for parking. A viable option that CES provides is a convenient free shuttle service that serves the hotel blocks. This may get crowded at the beginning and the end of days, but it really is the best choice to get to and from your hotel.

How to Catch a Nerd’s Attention

Hmmm…. why don’t I just show you:

Rapper 50 Cent introduces his new headphones by SMS at the CNET studio.

Portable mini bluetooth speakers by DBest London.

Microsoft Booth in Central Hall showcasing Windows 8 Metro, Xbox 360 Kinect, and Windows Mobile. 2012 will be the last year that Microsoft showcases at CES.

iBike Powerhouse cycling computer and mount.

Lamborghini Aventador at the Nvidia Booth.

Ferrari on the showroom floor to introduce Scuderia Ferrari headphones.

Electric DeLorean at the NRG booth.

One of Sony's biggest announcements this year, the PS Vita. At the Sony Press Conference with appearances by Will Smith and a serenade of "Mr. Know It All" by Kelly Clarkson.

What's a CES without a robot interview?

Samsung booth which had the most impressive display centerpiece of TV's.

KB Covers booth.

Exclusive Iphone comic covers at the Case-mate booth.

The Nikon booth had a Hollywood makeup chair that constantly rotated models for some bizarre sessions.

Fujitsu designed phones and tablets that can be submerged in water. It was iterated to not be just a simple waterproof coat, but an engineering marvel.

Who Treated Nerd Reactor the Best?

The night life parties that we were invited to were awesomely great and nonstop through the week. We will get to those, but first, the Nerd Reactor team would like to recognize who we considered to be the Best of CES 2012.

Best Event – The Pepcom Digital Experience Event @ the MGM can be considered a convention within a convention. This Western themed one night event was held on Monday for only a couple hours, but it was long enough to be well fed, well informed, and well-drunk. Upon entry you are greeted with a cowboy hat and an ice bar up front. More than 150 companies held tables in an intimate setting that is often overlooked on the main CES showroom floors. Food is plentiful, and we are not just talking about box lunches but delicious catered roast beef cuts, parmesan chicken sliders, Italian meatballs, and more. The Pepcom Digital Experience is the best organized event at CES bar none.

Best Booth Tour – AMD did not have a traditional booth set up for visibility as large companies usually do, but somewhere upstairs hidden in the conference rooms was the world’s 2nd largest microprocessor company. The key here was intimacy. AMD was not aiming to be showy or extravagant, but they wanted to make sure that NerdReactor.com was able to understand the direction that AMD was taking. It was an awesome presentation with AMD dedicating more than an hour for us. AMD’s new products and vision will be covered soon in a CES featured article, so stay tuned.

Vegas Nights – After a Hard Day’s Work

All the meetings and appointments through the days were tiring and distant, but one thing was for sure…This is Vegas. World reknown, Vegas nights can only be characterized as the the most glitziest and the most glamorous. If partying at the world’s most expensive clubs and tallest penthouses does not entice you, then maybe our pictures will. We attended many parties, but the below list would be our honorable mentions:

Pron Party by Pink Visual @ V-bar Venetian (partying with porn stars!)
Back to Geek Party (Presented by Zotac, iBuyPower, AData, NZXT) @ Palm Sky Villa Penthouse
Squaresoft Army Corps of Hell @ Planet Holllywood Gallery Club
Intel and HP presents Tiesto @ Encore Club XS

Please enjoy the view. See you next year, CES.