The usual tourists and gamblers in Las Vegas have been joined by some geeks this week as the world's biggest electronics show gets underway.
More than 200,000 people will visit the four-day Consumer Electronics Show, which is billed as the biggest annual event in the desert city.
It's big. It's bold. It's brash. It's the opening of the biggest tech show in the world, Las Vegas style.
On display today is a TV dubbed “almost human”, and it’s no exaggeration. You can now ask your smart TV for movie suggestions – it will do that and even come up with a list of movies featuring your favourite actor.
“And you might say, ‘I want to go to an Italian restaurant,’ and it will pull up that and pull up recommendations nearby,” says Philip Newton of Samsung Australia. “It's about enjoyment, and luxury every now and then is good.”
And to change the channel or on-screen app, there is no remote needed – just a simple hand movement.
“If you are like me and used to losing the remote down the couch, and batteries die in remotes, it's great,” says Mike Cornwall of Samsung New Zealand. “You no longer have to rely on the remote.”
The screen looks like a blur until you put on special glasses. Two people can then watch two different 3D movies on the same screen, which is fair to say will stop a few relationship issues.
Also at CES today was a fridge that can become a freezer at the touch of a button and an oven that can cook two meals at the same time at different temperatures.
Those and some 20,000 other gadgets will be inspected by more than 200,000 people, 1000 of them journalists, over the next four days.
It's no easy feat getting around. The floor space is so big, it's a good 50-minute walk from one end of the hall to the other. And if that made you late for a press conference, bad luck. The queue was a massive two hours before it even started.
There are 3000 exhibitors at the show, and it doesn't come cheap. A small, basic booth costs around $50,000. One of the bigger booths costs around $15 million.
But really that is small change for a growing industry already worth billions of dollars.
Amanda Gillies travelled to Las Vegas courtesy of Samsung.
3 News
source: newshub archive
