Here's an interesting lesson for exhibitors: make sure your display isn't cooler than your product. Example number one was the amazing glass laptop that drew my interest along with several other people.

As we gathered around trying to figure out how to turn it on, a nice woman came over and explained that everyone had been doing that all day but in fact it was just a display laptop to show how their product, a laptop holder for your lap, worked. We all walked away dismayed.

Later I saw this cool egg workstation with built-in speakers and laptop tray. Neat!

Oh, the product is the laptop which has a new faster processer? Meh.

The kicker to the glass laptop story is that I did eventually find a glass laptop that's about as cool as the fake display one. It's a kit from a company called Benica (I don't see it on their site, so it might be a show special).

And not only that but I also found a better lap cooler.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it here but at home I keep my laptop on a bamboo cutting board. Mostly because I don't want to turn my testicles into silly putty but also because it keeps the fan clear and no one likes a hot lap anyway. This thing from Just Cooler plugs into a USB port and actively cools AND has speakers built in. All it needs is a glass laptop.

Reader Mark G left a comment the other day asking about buzz about the Blu Ray/HD DVD format war. That was before the Paramount announcement rumor (ADDING: Oops, not so fast), which has clearly turned the tide in Blu Ray's favor but I still have some perspective from CES that's worth sharing.

(For those who don't follow this story, there are two competing formats of high definition DVD. While there are some practical differences between the two, the real battle has been over who can sign the most exclusive agreements to shut the other other and have the most to offer consumers.)

This is Newsweek's N'Gai Croal being interviewed on G4 on Monday, being asked the Blu Ray question. His answer is that Blu Ray's deal with Warner was such a big win that it's just a matter of time before Paramount and DreamWorks come over to Blu Ray as well. He said that HD DVD might have a nice trick in offering hybrid players (that play both formats) but that would take away the cost advantage that has been a big selling point for HD DVD.

Later I happened by the HD DVD tent where a presentation was being given on the benefits of HD DVD. I didn't stay for the whole thing, but talking point number one was the lower cost.

Then I passed the Blu Ray tent and they too had a presentation. Their presenter was considerably more smug and he was busy listing all the exclusive deals Blu Ray had signed.

The funny thing is that CES put the two right next to each other in the conference hall.

From what little media I was able to see over the last two days it looked like the ZCam was going to be something of a star. It's an infra red camera that can sense depth and has body-part recognition algorythms. So it's like the Wii but 3D. The boxing demo game was probably the best illustration of it.

The company calls it "genuine immersion" but I saw it in a theme of what I'm thinking of as the opposite of virtual reality - real virtuality? There were several products at the show that dragged virtual technology into the real world.

The biggest illustration was Panasonic's concept "Living Wall."

It's a big blank wall that reads you and your gestures. Make it look like a living room wall, add a TV, change the size of the TV, turn it into a picture frame. It's all virtual but it's in reality. Virtual reality would have us put on special sensory equipment (goggles, gloves, etc.) and visit a virtual room where this kind of thing is possible. Panasonic and others are saying screw that, keep your own senses and we'll bring the technology into the real world. I don't actually think I'd want a big blank interactive screen instead of a living room wall, but I like it better than putting on VR sensory suit. (P.S. Wasn't there something like this in Total Recall?) (P.P.S. It was intersting to have this displayed in Las Vegas where things already aren't quite real. There's definitely a fine line between bringing the magic of technology to real world and creepy Truman Show fakeness like the Venetian Hotel's artificial piazza.

Elsewhere I ran into a booth displaying little dolls (the i-Buddy) that clip to your monitor and plug into a USB port. When a friend sends you an instant message with an emoticon, the doll reacts with color and motion, depending on what the emoticon is. So now even a virtual smile is getting close to being a real one.

I may be stretching it a bit here but a lot of the big exhibitors had theaters like this set up for speeches and demonstrations and almost all of them had odd seats. These are more like leaners, or else you're supposed to hitch your horse to them. Anyway, this set-up looks straight out of Second Life to me.

Later on I'll have a post about all the rumble chairs that vibrate with the explosions as you watch TV. I count those to the theme of real virtuality as well.

I'll be honest, I went to the Canon area to see if there was any cool free stuff. There wasn't - or at least, I didn't get any. There was probably something if you knew the right way to ask. I still had some questions though, so it ended up being a fruitful visit.  First, I'd read that Canon was putting image stabilization in its lenses instead of digitally in the camera. I couldn't quite picture what that means so I asked the guy if there was a way to see it demonstrated. He pulled out a pair of binoculars with the same image stabilization technology. He said it uses a gyroscope. The binoculars have a button to turn the stabilization on and off so you can compare. If you think of the last time you used binoculars, you'll recall that when you're looking at something far away there's always a big of a tremor by virtue of the fact that you're a human being who pulses and twitches. You can relax your breathing and ease your muscles but there's always a bit of jitter. When you hit the stabilizer button, the jitter goes away and instead there's a strangely detached floating feeling about what you're seeing. You know you're still holding the binoculars but somehow it feels like you're not anymore.

I then raised what I thought might be a touchy subject, the flawed design of the Rebel XT (and XTi) flash. Actually it's a flaw in all non-pro cameras. The direct light of a flash always leaves the picture and especially faces, washed out and casts harsh shadows. The trick everyone knows is to diffuse or reflect the light from the flash to give less direct light to the scene and a better picture. The Canon guy totally knew what I was talking about and even mentioned the common practice of holding a business card in front of the flash (at an angle to bounce the light off the ceiling). The guy next to me at the Canon counter said he uses a napkin as a diffuser. So here's this open issue in the camera community, would Canon come up with a solution? Short answer: No. Adjust the flash exposure setting in the camera's menu, find a third party product or carry a book of matches around to hold in front of your flash when you use it.

Lastly I wandered over to the new Canon video cameras. They have new really small flash memory models similar to what the Panasonic guy had shown off.

(Looks like it could be a light saber.)

At one display of award-winning new camera designs there were two video cameras next to each other, both with descriptions that bragged about being the smallest and lightest. If you don't want to get bogged down in little details, the basic conclusion is that everyone is coming out with little video cameras with high quality imagery and lots of flash storage. But in my experience, there's still the problem of the video having to buffer in the camera while it records. So the little sign next to the camera may say it can take 3 hours of video, but in my experience those aren't continuous hours. You can do three hours of 8 minute clips, but the camera can't do three hours straight. I asked the woman at the counter why.

The answer has to do with the class of SD card. Apparently a class 4 or 6 will record teh video more quickly whereas a class 2 will give that buffering problem.  I had never heard of SD cards having classes so later in the day I went over to the SanDisk zone and asked the guys there. They agreed with the Canon answer. I made the guy show me how to know what the class of the card is. If you look close at the packaging, there's a small number in a circle. It looks almost like a copyright symbol but with a number instead of a C. Meanwhile, the SD card I have doesn't have any number on it so either the card predates "classes" or the number can only be found on the packaging, not on the card itself.

This is too blurry to read but it says Direct Methanol Fuel Cell. I think the fuel is in that white bottle. I never heard of this before so this picture is mostly a note to myself to look it up later.

Every few booths through the show there's a display of water pouring on a laptop or down a screen or a phone being dunked in the water.

Apparently consumers have made it known that they don't like how fragile their gadgets are and makers are responding to the call with weatherproofing. What's significant is that these more durable products don't come with the telltale pieces of blocky plastic or construction yellow casing. They look like regular laptops and cell phones. Maybe the idea is that eventually it'll be standard. Until that day comes, one booth that seemed to be drawing a lot of attention was DiCAPac, which makes sealed cases for your technology. Not just a ziplock bag though, you can still use your device in the case.

These models weren't in the automotive area so I'll keep them separate here as well. One is a hydrogen car, the other is an electric car with gas assist. The perspective is a little funky because of how the body is cut away. The orange line in both cars goes to a charger socket that would be up near the front door.

The gas assist car, below, has a turbo charger on it but that's just to power the generator to make more electricity for the battery. The gas tanks are toward the back, six gallons each.

The Wolf King gaming keyboard makes such obvious sense I'm glad someone actually built it. You know how some games are controlled with keystrokes instead of joysticks but it can be a pain to work your fingers comfortably on a QWERTY keyboard? This is meant to solve the problem. I forgot to ask if it also types.

I'm not sure if I believe we'll all eventually walk around like Jordi Laforge or if I'm brainwashed by too much sci fi and future fashion so I just believe a visor will become a standard accessory. There were a few examples at the show.

These guys are wearing gaming visors from Vuzix. It displays video but wouldn't work as a substitute for a computer monitor. There was a Vuzix visor in the Sky Mall catalog on the plane that was going for 400 bucks. From what I gathered from their booth person they have a new version out that does virtual reality in such a way that the perspective changes depending on how you move your head. Sort of like that Wii mod we saw recently but instead of being on your TV it's an inch in front on your eyeballs.

This guy is using a TDV 3-D visor. The demo included a 3-D menu, so you walk through rooms to select what you want to watch. That's cool, but I'm not sure I want to walk through rooms to make a selection when I can have them listed on a menu instead.

Speaking of visors, remember the digital camera mask? I stopped by to see if the camera makes it heavy or awkward. Nope. The only weird thing is that there are two buttons on top, one for pictures and the other for video. Depending on what you're doing, a different colored light shines at the top of the mask so you can glance up and see what mode you're in. It works, but it's an unfamiliar thing to do so it's a little awkward. Also, there are cross hairs right in front of your eyes. Barely noticeable though.

In case you can't make out the print: "The world's first and only affordable security storage container protecting data from computer crash and theft plus fire and water disasters."

OLogic definitely had the coolest display I saw while I was down there. Not very flashy, as you can see, but this is the guy who controlled the robot with his mind. See the blue thing on his head? It's reading his brain waves. The way I understood the explanation, your brain has a certain electromagnetic pattern that changes depending on your mental state. That pattern can be read by a machine. The trick, then, is to put yourself in a certain mental state on purpose and have that be a command that the robot recognizes. It made more sense when he said his wife uses the trick of doing math in her head. That occupies her brain in such a way as to put her in a certain mental state.

Here's a local news feature on the technology.

By the way, they also had the custom wheelchairs. Not sure what that was about but they were cool too.

I'll just add here while I'm talking about robots that the Bioloid robot kit looks like the answer to where to start if you want to build a robot. I actually picked up and almost walked away with the manual you see there next to the box. I thought it was free literature but the woman behind the table grabbed it from my hand, it comes with the kit. Inside it shows how to program the different digits in the robot you build.

And speaking of building robots, I may have mentioned Buglabs here before but I love the idea so much I'm going to mention it again.

The idea is that you start with a basic platform and add components that do different functions until you build a device that serves a purpose you need. It's like Yahoo Pipes but for hardware. Along with building your device you go to the site and download software for it - open source so the whole community is contributing ideas.

I can't quite explain it to myself but there's something weird about putting breasts on a robot. What bothers me is that breasts have a function - well, two. And since the robot is not going to be performing nursemaid duties we're left to infer that they're meant to sexualize the robot, which is weird.

But then, there is another function of breasts and that is to contribute to the definition the female form. So in that sense, if you want a female robot you put breasts on it (and a female haircut and what looks like high heel shoes). Still, there's something weird about breasts on a robot.

This is the Wow Wee booth, more famous for its Robosapien.

Speaking of tank treads, this cool tank toy was part of a larger display from Parents' Choice called Sandbox Summit.

Also cool was a clear plastic microscope which displayed on a computer screen instead of putting your eye to it. And it could be removed from the stand so I guess you could 'scope anything within reach of the power cord.

The tank drives by remote control and broadcasts its video back to the eye piece you see her wearing. It also relays audio. The two things I wanted it to do that it doesn't do is allow audio the other way so you can speak through the tank, and have some kind of output on the eye piece so it can be displayed on a monitor. Maybe next version.

The main display with iRobot's Scooba, but this one is for your pool.

And this one you let loose in your gutters.

For some reason I like them better with knobby wheels and tractor treads.

(And P.S. it was a real downer to see the gutter cleaning robot in the Sky Mall magazine on the plane on the ride home. So much for exclusive peeks at CES.

When I was reporting about the Panasonic keynote and the new big plasma TV, another part of the pitch was how thin the TV is. I forget the dimension but to my untrained standards of television watching it sounded thin. Someone in the press room snarked that it was, in fact, thick. I thought he was joking, but this TV in the Pioneer area, "Project Kuro," may be the new standard in thin. It's basically as thick as a pane of glass. It's so thin it's hard to take a picture of it. Don't confuse it with the thick metal stand, it's thin sliver just to the right.

By the way, this is what it looked like in the press lounge so you can see how it was possible to hear reactions as the presentation was going on.

I felt pretty intimidated coming here for the first time. You know I'm not an exterme gadget guy. My tastes fall more along the lines of Homer Simpson - I like things that are shiny or loud or novel. A bigger TV or smaller phone doesn't mean much to me even if it's the centerpiece of the show for people who actually pay attention.

For the record, and probably in the interest of disclosure, I carry a Treo 700wx which I got through the company on the recommendation of my former colleague Gary Krakow, choosing from a very limited list and in consideration of what would work well with the network here at msnbc.com.  (P.S. You go Gary, T.N.S. Give 'em hell.)

My only other gadgetry is (are?) my cameras, all Canon. I was especially self-conscious about the Rebel XT I carry as my primary camera. Canon has long since moved on to the new improved Rebel XTi, not to mention the 40D and who knows what else. Would I be spotted as having a technologically dull edge? So far no.

More on my visit to the Canon booth later.

(Adding: My laptop is a Dell Latitude D620, also work issue. It has a dual core processor, which was new at the time, and I have no complaints - though the battery is garbage, more on that later too.)

The size of this show is part of its appeal but what's not often mentioned is how well the infrastructure withstands the jolt of people all arriving at once and moving to the same schedule. The plane here from Atlanta was packed - almost entirely with men. The long rows of three, window, middle, aisle, looked like we were going to row row oursleves to Las Vegas in a viking ship. Through the darkeness of the in-flight movie tiny red lights bobbed and floated like fireflies, the "power on" indicators on Bose noise-cancelling headphones (am I the only one whe doesn't have a pair of those things?) Two seats in front of me a man shows his seatmate a slide show playing on a leather-clad digital photo album the size and shape of a wallet.

The guys here at the show are most remarkable for how very average they are. There are no jocks here but there are also surprisingly few outright geeks. The average age is a lot older than I expected. I guess because the cost of attendance is quite high (sorry, I don't actually know how much because I'm hooked in through NBC) and also because as fun as this show is, it's pretty serious business. In some of the booths on the outskirts the exhibitors are meeting customers and arranging orders and shipments.

But as to the title of this entry, CES broke Las Vegas because the parts of the city touched by the show are paralysed with long lines. The airport took forever to get a cab. Checking into the hotel took forever as well. If you want to move to a different display area the lines for buses and cabs stretch the length of a football field.

Yesterday I ended up paying ten bucks for a sort of bootleg cab ride. The "cabbie" swung into a non-pick-up area of the hotel and the valet started shouting for anyone going to the convention center. Ten bucks a head. Five of us piled in, we got there in a flash and the cabbie made 50 bucks for what is probably a 5 dollar ride. I'm sure the valet got a cut in the end as well.

Like just about everything else at this convention my planning was a bit off. I have tons to share including a lot of photos (even a non-NBC celebrity!) but since there's only a finite amount of time to see what's here I'm going to go run around some more and post everything later.

This convention is so huge I have seven different location maps in my bag. I'm at the main convention center now, which is where all the big corporationns are. Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm not finding it as impressive as the small booth stuff up at the Venetian. You know how you go to the cell phone store or the electronics section of a department store and it's just a row of shiny little rectangles or a wall of TVs and even though there are big differences, they're all kind of the same? That's how the mega-corp booths strike me. And of course, this is where all the big media reporters are doing their interviews. (Dear colleagues, go up the road and see the robots.)

Which is not to say I don't have some cool stuff to share from the convention center as well. I even got a picture of the "no pictures please" watch phone from LG.

So far the coolest is the guy back at the Venetian controlling robots with his mind and a three-pronged skull cap.

Anyway, tons later. The show ends at 6 I think but I've managed an invite to a sort of after-show for the press. I have mixed feelings about that actually. It's really hard to see everything here but the suggestion that "the good stuff" is pre-picked for the media is kind of dismaying. There was a guy at the other hotel showing a hand-held 400x microscope that takes pictures. he took a shot of the hairs on the back of his hand. "Ok, you're right," I said, "That's pretty cool."  See? I told you," he looked at my press badge, "Now go get your colleagues up here." I wonder if his stuff will be showcased tonight. I have a feeling it won't.

I'm blogging from the press room at the Venetian Hotel at the Consumer Electronics Show. Panasonic just revealed the world's largest flat panel display and a ridiculously thin plasma TV. Even a few of the crusty journalists in here sucked their teeth, impressed.

I've never been to this show before so I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I'm going to walk around a bit and post some impressions from the NBC Universal booth in a few hours.

P.S. Ho! The Panasonic guy just cut all the wires to the TV. I get the impression wireless is going to be a big item this year this is going to be a big year for wireless. This Panasonic presentation is really exciting. I'm starting to understand what the big deal is about CES.

P.P.S. I'm booked for the "blogging booth" at the NBC Universal booth in the Central Hall of the Convention Center from 9-10 a.m. tomorrow. Come on by and say hello if you're around.

A broad swath of the blogosphere is in mourning on the news that well-liked military blogger Andrew Olmsted has been killed in Iraq. Olmsted left behind a final blog entry to be posted in the event of his death. Though he dismisses it as an indulgence of his ego it's really a remarkable act of generosity to share his final blog from beyond with the public at large. It's an incredibly moving post. See also the comments on his most recent entry on his blog for the Rocky Mountain News.

I've been mired in pitch-in participation on Iowa coverage this morning but I wanted to share a couple of games I was playing last night.

First, you must do yourself the favor of at least trying this cursor game to appreciate that it's still possible to have a novel idea in game design. BUT NOTE: Don't read the comments! There's a spoiler there! If you cheat you'll always wonder if you could have figured it out on your own.

I also tried Excit, which has familiar game play but a fun interface. I was finally stumped at Level 21.

The other newsy Gawker media item that's been circulating online (the first being the new sci-fi blog) is that they changed the way their writers are paid so that now they receive bonuses based on traffic, with the emphasis on quality of posts versus volume of posts (countering traditional blog logic that more posts means more return visits, better traffic, better user loyalty, better search engine recognition...). While there's a gossip element to the interest in this story, its larger relevance is hard to ignore while professional writers are striking over the value of their material online.

The pay scheme calls to mind the Metacafe plan which is more directly tied to traffic.

Speaking of the value of traffic, Free WSJ.com Would Need 12x Traffic To Offset Loss - That's figuring $6 CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

I'm skeptical that the top search terms in China are a reflection of Chinese culture as much as they're a reflection of the class of people with Web access in China. (And why are they searching for MSN? Isn't that an easy one?)

Jason Kottke's The Best Links 2007 - There are few individuals online who are as influential as Jason Kottke so a lot of these eventually made it onto Clicked as they spread across the Web. Still, You can easily spend the rest of the week on this. Go ahead, no one's at work this week anyway.

Speaking of year-end traditions, here's the BBC's 100 things we didn't know last year and the Edge annual question and the banished words list and the Darwin Awards.

Before going on vacation I read Roger Ebert's list of the best movies of 2007 with Juno in the surprising top spot. For that reason (and because whatever corporate moneybot controls the movies available to North Floridians has apparently deigned No Country For Old Men unsuitable for viewing) I saw Juno last week and loved it - though another list it could be on is "most poorly marketed movies of 2007." The commercials make it look like some sappy Lifetime Network special about teen pregnancy. Totally not; quite the contrary. The movie is already taking the country by storm so it hardly needs my endorsement and neither does the equally buzzy soundtrack but I mention all of this because of course I looked for the soundtrack online and ended up using The Hype Machine which is a combination music blog search engine and media player. Pretty handy. (Right now I'm listening to the Seeqpod offerings for Kimya Dawson).

Speaking of listening, and year-end lists, a Journey mash-up with Afrika Bambaataa is better than I expected.

Sleuth TV (?) is airing the Keen Eddie shows on Thursdays among other times. UPDATE: Waddaya know, it's an NBC property.

Speaking of TV watching, there's a bus stop near my house with a huge poster of the floating Terminator torso from the new Fox show. Very cool but awkwardly reminiscent of the Queen Borg from First Contact.

Would it really be useful to have a ruler on your arm? How many times have you used a digit of your thumb to measure inches?

I never would have believed Ron Paul supporters have the clout to cause a drop in the value of NewsCorp stock. They're protesting his exclusion from the Fox News debate even though he's polling better than Fred Thompson (who is not excluded).

"This website has been set up to be the definitive online resource for all things Whisk(e)y." It appears to still be very new but could be a lot of fun. (I'm currently working my way through a bottle of Jefferson's but I'm very bullish on the new Hudson Whiskey spirits both in flavor and principle.

Slate takes a shot at a counter argument to the scorn many direct at the Starbucks invasion. The argument is that Starbucks functions as a sort of coffee evangelist, generating converts to the Church of Caffeine which ultimately benefits independently owned coffee shops. Even with the insistence that the facts prove the case, I'm skeptical that picking up the spill-over crowd from Starbucks is really all that lucrative, especially when "The key for independent coffeehouse owners who want to thrive with a Starbucks next-door is that they don't try to imitate Starbucks." So people who want Starbucks will go to a place that is deliberately not Starbucks? Regardless of this particular issue, the greater objection to Starbucks is homogeneity. Even if it isn't a threat to independent merchants when six new Starbucks move into a community, the fact remains that it's six identical (mediocre) businesses and they happen to be identical to the thousands of others around the world. That's a problem for people (like me) who value the local character of where they live.

Random: Am I crazy or do jeans not fade the way they used to? I have
memories of new jeans that would turn my kneecaps and underwear blue in
the first couple of wearings and by the time the knees wore out they'd
faded nicely at all the pressure points including in a square over my
wallet in my back pocket. You knew you needed new jeans when they were
faded. Somehow I have two pairs of jeans that are worn out to the point
of having holes but are the same color as when they were new. When did
that happen and how do I find the old blue kneecap kind? I've managed
to learn that synthetic indigo was invented in 1987.
And something called Padazoic was used as an indigo substitute. I
wonder if the synthetic indigo is more colorfast, thus necessitating
all those "pre-faded" styles and causing my jeans to wear out without
fading. Maybe I should buy cheaper jeans, but I'm pretty sure I've been
wearing Levi's since at least 1987.

My first day back in the office has been a little like a needle skidding off a record but I did manage a little recreational surfing to break the blog silence until I regain my clicking stride. Assuming your fingers aren't too sclerotic from wrestling with those damn twist ties that bind every Christmas toy to its box, you might like to give these a click:

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote - This guy's got a bunch of cool Wii ideas but this one's so cool I can't stand it. As you know, the Wii can follow where you move the remote control. He uses that technology to put the sensor near your eyes (via visor or glasses) so that the Wii then knows where your head is. Once it knows that, it can adjust the perspective of what you see on the screen based on your viewing angle for a 3D effect that will knock you on the floor.

How much would you pay for an invite to Paris & Nicky Hilton's New Year's Eve party? Looks like the going rate is just over 4 grand.

This lady's giving up her cell phone for the new year - or at least, 60 days of it. She hasn't started the "Quarter Countdown" yet, but the idea of having no cell phone AND a finite number of quarters to use makes the whole operation more interesting.

Gawker Media has added a SciFi blog to its stable. (Interesting that one of the first posts is about sexy recruitment posters for Star Wars Storm Troopers. To this day one of the best traffic drivers to Clicked is the search traffic from people looking for "Femtroopers." Definitely a good way to kickstart a new blog.)

Speaking of Star Wars, Stabbing at Leia's (Uncensored)
- I feel like we saw this when it came out but I don't remember the guy
getting arrested by the Storm Trooper. (NOTE: Some F bombs.)

Our colleagues at Newsvine have a citizen journalist who answer a question I wonder every time there's a news story of rioting in the streets with burning cars. Whose cars are those? I hadn't seen the Bhutto candidacy reported as being built on class issues but that seems to be a big part of the rioting over her death.

Apparently in Oslo everyone fires off their own fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve. My guess would have been that it's a composite photo. Looking at that list of info though, it looks like a 7 second exposure (lukker = shutter).

The idea of making art by letting magic markers bleed out through a stack of paper over the course of a month was cool enough to make me click to NotCot's home page and their massive, horizontally scrolling (I eagerly await the horizontal scroll revolution) gift guide. I know it's not shopping season anymore but that doesn't make clever gadgets any less cool.