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CES in Las Vegas 2022: Do a trade fair

2022-01-03T14:31:25.685Z


Despite the cancellations of many companies, the largest high-tech trade fair of the year begins in Las Vegas this week. Their boss warns that there can be no innovation without risk. You can see it that way. But you don't have to.


this time, for once, I would have arrived in Las Vegas on time.

The flight that I had booked to the high-tech trade fair CES even landed half an hour earlier than planned on New Year's Eve.

I wasn't on board, though.

With a heavy heart I canceled my trip on Christmas Eve.

When I was planning the trip last May, I was still hoping it could be my return to normal - a normal that always started my year with a trip to the world's largest technology fair.

The coronavirus disagreed.

The Omicron variant caused the number of infections to explode and made me reconsider my travel plans despite the booster vaccination.

All the major American tech magazines, from "The Verge" to "Techcrunch" to "Gizmodo" had already announced that they would not send their employees to Las Vegas.

Almost at the same time, a number of corporations, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, BMW and Intel, announced that they wanted to stay away from the fair or at least send fewer employees there.

Press conferences have been canceled, appointments canceled.

One would have thought that CES would be canceled under these circumstances, as it was in winter 2021. But Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Technology Association (CTIA), which organizes the trade fair, did not want to hear about it.

In a guest post in the Las Vegas Review Journal, he wrote that it was time to "make the world a better place instead of living in fear."

And: “We will all take risks.

But there is no innovation without risk. ”In addition, one is aware of the concerns“ that the CES could be an event at which the Omicron variant can spread ”.

This is to be prevented, among other things, by checking vaccination certificates and compulsory masking.

As an »additional safety measure«, this year's trade fair was shortened by one day at short notice.

On-site gadget test fails

"If we don't cancel, we're threatened with barrage from the press and other critics who dramatize the story and tell it from the point of view of the big companies," wrote Gary Shapiro in his guest article.

In his opinion, if the CES were to be canceled, it would primarily affect the small exhibitors.

He's probably right: the big corporations can put up with not being there.

They still get enough attention when they broadcast their novelty events live on the Internet, as the past two years have shown.

But the many small companies, the start-ups, are hardly or not at all noticed in this way.

And you miss the opportunity to try out new products immediately on site.

So this year I will probably neither create my own perfume via app nor cycle through the desert with a drone on my neck. I will also not try out new smart glasses or be chauffeured down a racetrack with VR glasses in front of my eyes for a virtual space game. Tracking down a trade fair trend, such as the one on sex gadgets 2020, will be difficult from Hamburg. And of course I won't be able to tell you what it's like when the lights go out at a high-tech trade fair because it has rained through the roof.

However, that won't stop me from reporting, if not

about

, then at least

about

the CES and the new gadgets that are being presented there

in the coming days

.

And yes, I have many online press conferences ahead of me in the middle of the night.

Hopefully things will be different again next year.

For May I have already entered the reminder “Book CES” in my calendar.

External links: three tips from other media

  • “What Are Aspect Ratios and Why Do They Matter?” (English, eight minutes to read)


    Because you may be hearing more about new TV

    sets

    and their picture formats in the coming days, this article could be useful: “Wired” explains why films sometimes in wider and sometimes in higher formats - and what the difference in size between the Hulk and the Black Widow has to do with it.

  • "Abandoned - Fontainebleau Las Vegas" (video, English, 19 minutes)


    I stopped by this half-finished hotel complex in Las Vegas during many a CES and kept wondering whether the building would ever be completed.

    The video explains what is actually going on and why the billion-dollar project will soon be brought to an end - or not.

  • »The key to fast internet« (reading time 6 minutes)


    Markus Horeld from »ZEIT ONLINE« lives in rural Brandenburg.

    To get some kind of fast internet connection, he became one of the first customers of Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink.

    He reports here how well it works and at what price.

I wish you a good start into the new year,

Matthias Kremp

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-01-03

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