Robert Freeman’s whole Media, Business and Technology thing. Sorted.
Here’s one of the video blog pieces I did as part of the BBC’s CES coverage.
The R2D2 video projector has had a lot of good publicity at the show partly because they had some great visual gimmicks. First their booth was set up like a Star Wars fan’s bedroom, and they had performers being Stormtroopers, Princess Leia and Darth Vader.
Very camera friendly.
Incidentally, R2D2 isn’t a high-def device yet, it’s only a 640×480 projector, they’ll probably upgrade it for next year’s CES.
If you walked into a room where 12 FM radios were playing full blast, could you expect to hear anything in the cacophony? Well that’s what trying to use wireless internet is like here at CES.
I can’t get a Wi-Fi connection at my hotel, and I can’t get one at the show either. Wireless devices are great for the home. In tightly packed exhibition halls, they’re rubbish and unluckily for us, that’s exactly where they are being used.
As I write this I’m seeing 17 Wi-Fi hotspots, and over half of them are on the default channel 6. Wi-Fi in North America has a choice of 11 frequencies to transmit on, but no one seems to worry about checking what’s already transmitting where, and of course they’re all transmitting full blast, shouting over each other.
No wonder I can’t connect to anything.
The problem also shows up in Bluetooth devices. On one Bluetooth audio stand, we detected around 20 transmitting devices and whilst shooting material for the Click video blog, my colleague and I were keen to prove to show we could make it work on camera, using our own phones to dock with the receiving devices on the stands. There was surely no issue with it working, this stuff has been around for years after all.
But it didn’t.
This is what’s known as the tragedy of the commons. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth only work because of common (unlicensed) radio spectrum. It benefits all, but use it inconsiderately and you damage the resource for everyone.
My plea to the showfloor – turn your Wi-Fi down! The most stable internet access I get in Las Vegas is when I plug in my ethernet cable.
For an exhibition where wireless connectivity is the ‘now’ thing, the next big thing, might just be wire.
Scott Wasson at the Tech Report has a good strategy, which should make the CES organisers fearful. He’s not going this year, but expects to have better coverage than if he was here!
All the info is there to collect on the internet, which saves walking the halls, and going from hotel suite to hotel suite for the private sessions.
It makes sense, my pedometer tells me that I’ve already made 11,270 steps today, and the show hasn’t officially started!
What Scott might miss is actually getting to hold the hardware, or play with the software first-hand though. It’s also good to ask questions to the exhibitors in person. You never know, you might ask something that no one else has thought of, and you might also be able to tell if they’re fibbing!
Jeremy Pepper posts about the challenge facing PR people at CES face now they have a small army of bloggers to cope with as well as the MSM.
It’s interesting because Jeremy, like me, is a little old and a little new, media.
