The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. At the show, many previews of products are introduced, or new products are announced.
The first CES was held in June, 1967 in New York City. From 1978 to 1994, CES was held twice each year: once in January in Las Vegas known as Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) and once in June in Chicago, Illinois known as Summer Consumer Electronics Show (SCES).
CES is now considered one of the major technology-related trade shows, with the cancellation of Comdex.
2005
The 2005 exhibit was from 6 to January 9 in Las Vegas. The event started off with a twist when the main keynote address by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates went wrong as a device that was being demonstrated failed, much to the amusement of the onlookers.
Samsung showed off a 102-inch plasma television.
2006
The 2006 International CES took place on January 5, 2006 to January 8, 2006 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Convention Center, the Alexis Park Hotel and the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. HDTV was a central theme in the Bill Gates keynote as well as many of the other manufacturer’s speeches. The standards competition between HD DVD and Blu-ray was conspicuous, with some of the first HD movie releases and first HD players being announced at the show. Philips showed a rollable display prototype whose screen can retain an image for several months without electricity.
Attendance was over 150,000 individuals in 1.67 million net square feet of space making it the largest electronics event in the United States.
2007
In a break from recent tradition, the 2007 CES event did not begin on a Thursday, nor span a weekend. It ran from Monday January 8, 2007 to Thursday January 11, 2007. The venues also changed slightly with the high-performance audio and home theater expo moving from the Alexis Park venue to The Venetian. The remaining venues were the same as previous years: the Las Vegas Convention Center was the center of events, with the adjacent Las Vegas Hilton, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center hosting satellite exhibitions.
The location for the main keynotes was the other major change for 2007. Previously held at the Las Vegas Hilton’s Main Theater, they staged for the first time at The Palazzo Ballroom in The Venetian. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, gave his ninth pre-show keynote address on the Sunday evening. The opening keynote was presented by Gary Shapiro (President/CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which hosts the event), with Ed Zander, Chairman/CEO of Motorola. Other keynote speakers scheduled included Robert Iger from The Walt Disney Company, Michael Dell, founder of Dell Inc., and Leslie Moonves of CBS.
Finally, Industry Insider presentations moved to the Las Vegas Hilton, with contributions from Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia and John Chambers, CEO of Cisco.
In the gaming section for Windows Vista and DirectX 10, there were two games shown: Age of Conan and Crysis.
2008
The 2008 exhibition was from January 7, 2008 through January 10, 2008 in Las Vegas. One of the highlights was Bill Gates’ keynote speech in which he formally announced his retirement from his day-to-day duties at Microsoft. Along with the announcement, he presented a lengthy comedy skit on how his last day with Microsoft would be like, complete with cameos including Jay Z, Jon Stewart, Brian Williams, Steven Spielberg, Bono, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Clooney and Matthew McConaughey. The skit was believed to be written by WGA members before the writers’ strike.
Panasonic attracted much attention in 2008 by releasing a 150″ Plasma TV, as well as a 50″ as thin as an iPhone.
2009
The 2009 exhibition returns to the previous Thursday – Sunday schedule; January 8 through January 11, 2009. The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions will be taped during the exhibition.
Notable product introductions
Products and technologies introduced at CES include (in reverse chronological order):
Microsoft Xbox, 2001
Digital Video Recorder (DVR), 1999
HDTV, 1998
DVD, 1996
Virtual Boy, 1995
CD-i, 1991
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), 1985
Commodore 64, 1982
Compact Disc (CD) player, 1981
Camcorder, 1981
Pong home console by Atari, 1975
Laserdisc player, 1974
Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), 1970
Links
- CES Official Site
- Tips for attending the show at livedigitally.com
- Video Coverage of CES at Digitaltrends.com
- Live Coverage of CES at Engadget
- Video coverage of CES 2007 at video-blog.eu
- CES schedule Keynoters
- CES Video Podcast Center
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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