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Toys Technology Hardware

CES 2005 Day 1 - Walking The Show Floor 140

Posted by timothy from the vicarious-ogling dept.
TheTechLounge writes "Our second day in Vegas for CES, and our first day on the actual show floor was pretty much what I expected: mountains of new gadgets, people in suits staring at your name tag and scantily clad models trying not to get angry as they are repeatedly photographed. We started our excursion on opening day in the upper levels of the South Hall. Big name companies like ATI, nVidia, AMD, Logitech, and HP were showcasing anything and everything they could fit into their floor space."
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CES 2005 Day 1 - Walking The Show Floor More

CES 2005 Day 1 - Walking The Show Floor

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  • Nice screens matrix (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moz25 ( 262020 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @05:57PM (#11305897) Homepage
    The screens on the first page look nifty. It would be even cooler if they joined better (i.e. no thick dark bars).
    • That's what projectors are for. I've never understood what the purpose of these NxN arrays of LCDs is.

      • Re:Nice screens matrix (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:14PM (#11305994) Homepage Journal
        Projectors are far better for arraying in terms of joining, but there are still some issues, such as barrel distortion. A straight line projected through a lens will end up curved, particularly at the borders.

        I'm curious what it takes to make a no-edge-molding LCD display, such that the edge of the image is the edge of the panel for near-seemless joining.
        • I'm also curious about possible light levels in well-lit rooms. I suspect that LCD screens offer better visibility (at equal power consumption) than projectors... is that true?

          The main point for a projector of course is that the image area is very easy to adjust and that the cost/area is much lower.
          • For absolute resolution, a panel is the best way to go. It is true that projectors wash out more easily, generally not to be used at a brightly lit room, like at a convention like this.

            The cost for screen area does go to projectors though. Watching videos is where absolute resolution doesn't matter so much (1920x1080 for HDTV, DVD is 720x480), but a larger screen makes it easier for more people to watch and be better immersed.
        • Cheap projector lenses have barrel distortion, just like the cheap zoom lenses used on digital cameras.

          Expensive lenses have as little distortion as you like but are bulky and may be restricted in zoom range. As with everything, you get what you pay for.

      • What's the maximum resolution you can get with a projector?

        On an array of screens it's easy to have (for example) 5120x4096, with a 4x4 array of 1280x1024 capable monitors... well, if your cards can support it of course. ;)

        • Re:Nice screens matrix (Score:4, Informative)

          by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:46PM (#11306129) Homepage Journal
          What's the maximum resolution you can get with a projector?

          Courtesy of Projector Central, the current max is:

          JVC DLA-QX1G $ 225,000 187.4 lb weight 2048x1536 7000 lumens

          Of course, you can get a 1920x1080 projector for an eight of that, or a 1400x1050:

          JVC DLA-SX21SU $ 11,995 13.0 lbs 1400x1050 1500 lumens

          There are various projects that support monitor arrays, some of them require multiple computers though.
      • I've never understood what the purpose of these NxN arrays of LCDs is.

        To obtain NxN times the purchase price of just one.

    • Re:Nice screens matrix (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, but that doesn't really make up for the disappointing models on the third page. Call that 'scantily clad'?
      • These shows are generally hell for them. There is very little going on around them that they can relate to, so they're copping the worst of both worlds in terms of both sensory overload and sensory deprivation. They're also constantly being ogled, occasionally pawed, and with very rare exceptions are getting no feedback to tell them that what they're doing is worthwhile or constructive. And they usually have to be on their feet all day for several days in a row.

        Try it yourself some day before moaning about
    • The screens on the first page look nifty. It would be even cooler if they joined better (i.e. no thick dark bars).

      Am I supposed to be impressed by that?

      It looks like one of those TV-walls that were last cool twenty years ago.
    • Samsung had an HDTV plasma TV that wasn't available to purchase yet - it was 102". No bars or anything. There was a crows of 30 people around that TV every time I passed by.

  • Only pictures most here are interested in (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Girlsss..... [thetechlounge.com] And the rendered version... [thetechlounge.com]

  • Phantom (Score:2, Funny)

    by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 )
    After the Infinium vs HardOCP, many "vaporware" lists throught the years, the "Phantom" Glorified PC... err... "Console" system made an appearance [thetechlounge.com] at this show. Will it ever make it on the store's shelves? Will people care? Stay tuned!

    • Re:Phantom (Score:5, Informative)

      by tabacco ( 145317 ) * on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:07PM (#11305952)
      The phantom was at E3 2004 as well, with a massive booth. I even covered it briefly here [idlethumbs.net]

      • Re:Phantom (Score:4, Interesting)

        by FiReaNGeL ( 312636 ) <[fireang3l] [at] [hotmail.com]> on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:32PM (#11306070) Homepage
        Didn't see that! From the article you linked to :
        According to Infinium Labs' pricing scheme, hardware will be given away free to any user who agrees to a two-year contract for their basic service at $29.95 per month or for $200 without a contract. Subscribers get a stock of basic games with the hardware, plus added games each month. But don't misunderstand me, you won't be getting UT2004 for free with this console; According to an Infinium rep you'll be paying full retail price for hot new games. [...] Games are stored on a local hard drive, and may be bumped off to make room in a TiVo-like fashion if you download lots of big games. We were assured though that you'd be able to re-download the games onto the Phantom at no extra cost as many times as you want. There is no way to trasfer the games to a PC for play. Conversely, there is no way to load your existing PC game library onto the Phantom.


        According to the Infinium rep I spoke to, the Phantom runs Windows XP Embedded with an AMD processor and NVIDIA GPU. In other words, a pretty normal PC, so it seems odd that they would disallow playing current PC titles. I even asked if there was any modification made to the downloaded games to allow them to work on the console, and was told that no, the Phantom runs the exact same version of the game you'd go buy in a store. Weird.
        It seems that the reviewer was... unimpressed at the least. After reading that, I can't figure why I would be paying 30$x24 (720$ for 2 years) for crappy games and soon-to-be-obsolete hardware. And these prices are from last year, and before the (costly and useless) lawsuit versus HardOCP. I'll buy myself a PC, thanks.

  • Babes (Score:5, Informative)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:01PM (#11305930) Journal
    I'll have you the trouble...here are the babes [thetechlounge.com]

  • Shuttle (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nightreaver ( 695006 ) <lau.l@NOsPaM.uritzen.dk> on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:04PM (#11305934) Homepage
    The new shuttles are what my eyes are out for. Their design has become top notch and you can now purchase systems with AMD64... I'm just waiting for the money.
    • Same here. I'm grabbing an SN95G5 [shuttle.com] and an Athlon64 3500+ as soon as I get another $150 to spare. BTW, I've found that buying the barebones unit and the rest of the hardware from NewEgg saves you a bunch of cash over ordering a pre-built system from Shuttle (down from about $1500 to $1000 in my case).
      It's supposed to be nice and quiet too, which is a big plus in my book.
      • I have an SN95G5. With the bios-controlled fan speeds set to "medium," it's surprisingly quiet compared to most PCs. My Dell at work is still better in terms of fan noise though.

        If you set the fan to "low," you'll get nearly-silent operation, but the machine runs too hot for my liking. I didn't have any stability problems with it set like this, but i could feel the heat radiating off the case, and the fan grille in back was almost hot enough to be painful to the touch.

        The fan sounds like a hair dryer when

  • Graphics cards? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BabyJaysus ( 808429 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:07PM (#11305954)
    Any word on motherboards for AMD Athlon 64 (esp. socket 939) with PCI-express, or even dual--PCI-express slots for SLI?

  • Scantily Clad Models (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaedemichi255 ( 834073 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:24PM (#11306036)
    FYI, if you really wanted to see hot women this weekend in Vegas, there's also a Adult Film Convention taking place at the same time. Dunno where it is, but just follow all the flocking male crowds ;)

  • The Phantom (Score:5, Interesting)

    by retro128 ( 318602 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @06:45PM (#11306126)
    I was at CES all day on Saturday, and lo and behold, what was in the nVidia booth? Well apparently Infinium Labs had a rep showing off the Phantom console there. I thought that was very interesting considering the fact that it won this year's Wired Vaporware Award. [wired.com]

    So needless to say, a friend of mine and I started grilling the poor guy. Naturally the first thing we wanted to know was how much the subcription fee was. His answer: "I am a hardware guy". Ok, fine, so now we wanted to know if the game content was exclusive or if it was just (under)glorified PC. He said that the Phantom would run anything a PC would and is directly loaded over the 'Net. So basically that left us with the impression that the Phantom was basically a PC in a fancy box pre-packaged with a Steam-like delivery system. I starting asking about the guts, and found out that they are farming out the board design to BIOStar, but I didn't get any word on what the BIOS would be like. That is, if it was encrypted Xbox style or pretty left alone. However, the indication I got was that it would be pretty well locked down. I also asked how the system would handle a hard disk crash, and he said the hard disk could be replaced and the content would automatically load itself back on the drive. I commented "so it takes you what, a day and half to get to your stuff loaded again", to which he replied, "Well, how often does your hard disk crash?", to which I shot back "Well, if it's a Maxtor, once every two weeks."

    Then he wanted to know what kind of hard disk I would recommend to put into it. I said Seagate and he seemed to agree with me. So if Seagate ends up in the Phantom, it's because of me! :)
    • didja think to ask- what kind of video card? (nvidia I'm guessing- but- which?)
      • Since it was on the nVidia stand, obviously it would be an XGI or ATI chipset, no?

        On a more serious note, I wonder how hard it would be to file off the non-standard BIOS and replace it with a real one? USD$200 sounds fairly reasonable for the hardware.
    • You recommended Seagate?!?! Obviously you never had one of their Horrorcuda (Barracuda) drives!

      Should've gone with Western Digital....
      • Funny how my maxtors never seem to fail (and afaik, lots ship on xbox'es and tivos w/o major returns), yet I've had soooo many WDs fail it's not even funny. (Worst thing after the class-action-lawsuit causing Fujitsu's). Seagates aren't that bad.

  • Models are not promotions people (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Magickcat ( 768797 ) * on Sunday January 09, 2005 @07:10PM (#11306261)
    The article poster is confusing "models" with "promotions" people.

    A model walks on a catwalk or is seen in a fashion magazine, wheras a "promotions person" wears does the type of job you're mentioning. Models have a fashion type of look and this is normally their professional career while it lasts, wheras promotions people are expected to be a sort of good looking sales person and can look any sort of look. Generally people who can't get into fashion end up doing depressing and explotitive jobs like promotion work. A model wouldn't be seen dead doing this type of work.

    Additionally, if they were modelling clothes, they wouldn't mind being photographed. The fact is however that promotions girls are just tits and ass.
  • You're not reading this article for the insightful comments about up and coming articles, are you?

    You're looking for links to girls, right?

    Yeah, I thought so.

    • Dammit, you've caught on to my clever scheme of exploiting other people's work in finding the links...

      Unfortunately, I'm rather disappointed in tonight's posters. Not one link yet to a site titled "Boothbabes of CES 2005". Come on /.ers, don't let me down.

  • ...and it sucked. I didn't see much of anything spectacular. The nVidia booth had a sweet TV displaying images in 3D without the need for any special glasses. I was impressed.

    Other than that, it sucked. Microsoft and Intel had nothing spectacular. Motorola had some decent phones, but even those were just obvious next steps in the evolution of the market. All in all, I was disappointed. Good thing my employer paid for the tickets.

  • I saw the sony black screen. Finally made sense when I saw it and crushed my heart with its limitations. Its got a $2,000 price tag and is not due out untill summer. Now that I see it I picture a very reflective material on the back and filtered layers in between blocking any colors but the red/green/blue. However the problem is there is are brighter/darker regions depending on where you stand. Not sure if thats the reflection of the display or lighting of the room (which was not terribly bright). Its not t

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