From Hip To Housewife

That’s what Ben (The PC Guy) Rudolph (looking skinnier than ever) calls CES, the 150,000 person, 8 football fields big Consumer Electronic Show held in Las Vegas every year.

I also heard someone call it The Consumer Exhaustion Show.

I agree with both.  Although the “best week” part can be hard to agree with sometimes.  What with the crowds, the jacked up prices, the long lines, the Japanese businessmen overly buoyant as they slip the bellman a $20 bill to put them and their bevy of hookers to the front of the taxi line.

And then there’s the tech.  Miles and miles and miles of it. 1.861 million square feet, to be exact.  So you don’t get to see everything..to say the least.  But here were a few of my favorites:

The refrigerator of my dreams, from LG.  I live in an apartment, and my kitchen is a classic NYC galley style.  That means, that when I open the refrigerator door, I completely block the back door. Not THAT big a deal, but annoying.  This LG French door fridge just looked awesome. With a very cool feature that puts bottles of juice or water at kid level, and accessible through a door-in-door feature that means you don’t have to open the whole fridge just to grab a drink. Isn’t it gorgeous?

I also really liked the wireless Wi Drive from Kingston that I got at the Clever Girls Ladies Who Tech party. It’s a wireless USB drive that allows multiple devices to access it at the same time. That means you can watch a grown up movie on your computer while your kids watch something else on the iPad.  All without wires.

Verizon showed off a new in-store giant wall that makes shopping easier.  It’s a touch screen wall that doesn’t just help you with Verizon shopping, but helps you find restaurants, stores…whatever in a super-cool interface with circles of proximity and connections. Could it be that they’ve found a way to make going to a Verizon store less than horrifying?

I saw wireless TV’s that you can move from room to room. The latest trend in cameras – both video and non- is that they are WiFi enabled. I got a SONY WiFi Bloggie camera (also from the fabulous and wonderful Clever Girls) that lets you post your video to Facebook, an email address, a blog…whatever, right after you take it – wirelessly.  It can live stream too.  And even though it’s no bigger than a cell phone, it can hold up to 3 hours of HD video. I would have liked it to have a reversible screen – or a front screen -so it would be useful for vlogging as well.  But I guess that’s why they call it a Bloggie, and not a vloggie.

The cases you can get now for all your devices are amazing.  From custom DIY versions, and adorable wearable purse-type ones from Case Mate (here’s the wall of their booth.  Covered entirely with cases!), to blinged out versions from just about everyone,to this one from Griffin Tech that @beccasara called The Mr. Potatohead of Iphone Cases. So cute!

Much of what people talked about was the Cloud – and being able to use things across all your devices. It doesn’t make for exciting blogging, but it could make our lives even more seamlessly connected.

Want to know more about my trip to CES 2012? Take a listen to the Blogging Angels podcasts we made while we were there.

One with Ben the PC Guy. (though he really ought to change his name to Ben the  Windows Phone Guy)

And the other with Beth Blecherman of TechMamas.  And she is the Tech Mama!

But I leave you with this – lest you think CES is all high level gadgetry:

Because Who Doesn't Want to Rest Their Wrist on a Boob or Butt Cheek Whilst Typing?

Yes, it’s a mouse pad.  And those? Those are the wrist rests.  You gotta love CES.