CES 2013: The Verge reports
We're on the ground in Vegas at CES 2013. CES is typically an event which sees a lot of news and product announcements, but over the week, we'll also be bringing you original reporting and features. This is the place to find them all.
Major Updates
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A modern gaming ecosystem emerges, with Microsoft gone and Sony silent
CES is not a games show, as Sony CEO Kaz Hirai pointed out to us in our interview with him last week. That's his reason for the dearth of PlayStation news at CES this year — the PS3 and Vita were hardly even mentioned at Sony's press conference. And of course, Microsoft didn't come at all, so we weren't treated to any Xbox hype at the annual Steve Ballmer keynote (which was replaced with a mind trip from Qualcomm).
And yet, this sure was a great CES for gamers. We got the new high-powered T...
Consumer electronics can play games, too -
Ultrabook, round two: can Intel control the future of the laptop?
There aren't many companies that can set a new direction for the entire computer industry. Right now, three come to mind: PC manufacturers march to the beat of Microsoft's Windows drum, and many follow Apple's design. The third is Intel, which influences the market behind the scenes with ever more powerful processors and aggressive marketing campaigns.
In 2011, Intel told every PC manufacturer that it needed to have an answer to Apple's MacBook Air, and offered $300 million, among other...
We really mean it this time. -
Microsoft just teased the next Xbox at CES
Microsoft didn't have a booth or even an official press event at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but that didn't stop the company from jumping on stage twice. CEO Steve Ballmer joined Qualcomm for its bizarre opening keynote, and more importantly Microsoft’s Chief Technology Strategy Officer, Eric Rudder, joined the Samsung keynote to showcase the IllumiRoom technology. Based on a combination of a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector, IllumiRoom combines the virtual and physical...
Redmond's fascination with augmented reality continues -
The Chinese Electronics Show: can China's biggest brands buy their way into America?
Huawei, Hisense, Changhong. These names are unfamiliar to Americans for now, but in a few years they will be as synonymous with consumer electronics as Sony and Samsung.
That’s the party line out of China, at least, where major electronics makers seem to have simultaneously decided that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas would be their coming-out party.
When Microsoft decided it was too cool for CES and abandoned its anchor booth this year, Chinese megabrand Hisense jumped...
We are prepared. We are ready. We will succeed. -
Microsoft's partners fly the Windows 8 flag, but the future is Surface
Microsoft might not have been at CES this year, but its partners and OEMs were out in full force. A quiet showing from Redmond at a time when the company is trying to push Windows 8 to the world could be seen as an unusual move, but looking around the show this week it made a lot of sense. Why waste millions of dollars on a CES booth to promote Windows 8 when your struggling PC OEMs can do it for you?
Intel and others prop up the Windows family tree -
Heading home: here's what it takes to leave CES
First, the bad news: CES is ending. All the cool stuff on the show floor is being packed into crates, loaded into tractor trailers and shipped home. The television walls are coming down and the demos are being dismantled. By Tuesday, all this stuff will be somewhere else. And by now, it should be painfully clear that there's a lot of stuff at CES.
In the next three days, it's all coming down
Here are a few numbers to put everything in perspective. Before the first booth has been installed,...
It takes 1,700 people to dismantle this show -
I rode the ZBoard in Las Vegas and it changed my life
I'm something of an electric skateboard veteran. Last year at CES I rode the Board of Awesomeness, an electric skateboard that uses a Kinect and a Windows 8 tablet to function. This year at CES I had the opportunity to ride the ZBoard; an electric skateboard that works like a Segway — leaning forward makes you accelerate, and leaning back slows you down. The ZBoard is yet another Kickstarter success we've seen here at CES 2013, and it blew my mind.
I felt like I was from the future -
Invasion of the body trackers: take me to your leader
There's no doubt about it — CES 2013 marked the point where fitness- and health-tracking devices became a legitimate affair. The category until now has been dominated by a few success stories — Fitbit, FuelBand, and so on — and true to CES form we're seeing a lot more companies attempting to cash in. After all, "people in America, frankly, are really fat" as Fitbit CEO James Park told The Verge in an interview yesterday; the obesity problem has been a hot-button issue for decades, and...
People know more about their iPhones than their health. -
Body request: give me back my fitness data
At CES this year, a horde of companies brought devices that track every metric of fitness: steps, runs, weight, heartbeats, skin temperature, air quality, and even how fast you eat. Much of the choice seems to come down to ergonomics (wristband or beltclip?), and color (pink or blue or gray?), but there’s another important distinction that needs attention: does the data this device tracks belong to me, or to the maker?
The answer is obvious. Naturally, information that’s tracked about my...
The 'quantified self' is here, but I shouldn't have to ask for the quantities -
Bitcoin punks go corporate at CES
The controversial digital currency Bitcoin has a display at CES. It's a good-sized booth, featuring a giant picture of a smiling woman holding an iPhone running a Bitcoin app. Crystal Campbell, a waitress who works at an Orlando restaurant that accepts Bitcoin, greets curious conference-goers with a friendly but not overeager smile. "It's basically like the cash of the internet," she explained to a tall brunette who had heard of Bitcoin, but wasn't sure exactly what it was.
It was a...
Bitcoin cleans up nice -
Ke$ha and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad CES corporate afterparty
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the latest in the series.
For two years in high school I was a cashier at Whole Foods. We were at a busy intersection right in the middle of three fancy prep schools, so we maintained a pretty steady flow of soccer moms doing wheatgrass shots or going really hard at the salad bar with each other all day long. My supervisor, the Front End Team Leader Eric, was one of those smart middle-aged Whole Foods dudes who seemed like...
Like a gift from heaven? -
At CES, self-driving cars dance with believers, skeptics, and governments
"Sensing what's around you versus understanding it [are] vastly different," said Lexus VP Mark Templin, waxing philosophical about the company's so-called advanced active safety research vehicle — "AASRV" for short — at a dimly-lit CES event early this week.
From the unapproachable, awkward name, you'd probably never guess that the AASRV is actually a self-driving car, every bit as autonomous, advanced, and buzzworthy as the ones Google has been driving around California for the past several...
We are not getting into competition with the robot industry. -
The Apple economy dominates CES 2013, but Samsung isn't far behind
Apple hasn’t made an appearance at CES since 1992, but its products are everywhere. At CES 2013, iPhones and iPads adorn the sides of booths for everything from Bluetooth speaker manufacturers to car audio companies. Booth after booth is named iFrogz, iSkins, and iLounge. Row after row of companies like Otterbox and Speck have made fortunes building cases for Apple products. Just Mobile’s booth is something like an aluminum shrine to Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s lead industrial designer.
At CES...
People wouldn’t love us for being Just Mobile, they’d love us for supporting the Apple devices they love. -
How Kickstarter stole CES: the rise of the indie hardware developer
They said the wristwatch was dead, but they were wrong. Forward-thinking watches are making a big splash at this year’s CES, the largest technology trade show in the country, and two watches stand out: the ultrathin, ultrasimple CST-1, which looks like a metal slap bracelet with giant numbers, and the Pebble smartwatch, which interfaces with the owner’s smartphone and can also run apps of its own.
Those two watches have something else in common: the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Pebble...
How crowdfunding stole the show -
Your robot butler is still a decade away, iRobot CEO says
I got a chance to speak with iRobot CEO Colin Angle at CES this week, and he gave me a nice refresher on the state of the industry — an industry that iRobot continues to lead in both the consumer and military realms.
Robots are ready to autonomously roam hospitals — but not your home -
The weird and wild interfaces of CES 2013
The public side of CES may all about showing off consumer gadgetry, but there's another, more lucrative CES going on behind the scenes. If you toured the private meeting rooms of the South Hall instead of the display booths, you'd find dozens of small manufacturers pitching themselves to the behemoths of the tech world, angling for an OEM deal or a partnership or even an acquisition. This year, the hottest commodity is a new take on UI. Depth cameras, gaze trackers, motion sensors: the...
After 20 million units, almost no one has heard of PrimeSense -
RIM says it has the apps it needs for successful BlackBerry 10 launch
Three weeks.
That's how long until RIM officially launches its new BlackBerry 10 phones. One year ago, I explained why RIM had a long road to getting developers enthused enough to create apps for the new platform. The company has spent that year going down it, honing its developer message, offering $10,000 guarantees, posting insane videos to rally the troops, and launching zero BlackBerry 10 devices.
This year, as I sat down with RIM yet again to discuss the state of its app situation, my...
We have exceeded even our most optimistic metrics. -
We Found Fur In an iPhone Case: How a little bunny brightened a dark day at CES
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the next in the series.
As LL Cool J took the stage at Sony’s massive exhibition space I was ready to pronounce this year’s CES dead on arrival. He was there to hype his regrettably-named music collaboration software Boomdizzle, throwing around generic technology terms with all the panache of a door-to-door vacuum salesman, the performance nowhere near as nuanced as his Special Agent Hanna in NCIS:LA’s. There was precious...
The bigger the price tag, the bigger the dream that the manufacturer needs to sell -
4K at CES 2013: the dream gets real
Almost exactly a year ago, upon these parched steppes of Nevada we know as Las Vegas, Vizio told us it was keen to get into the 4K TV market, but the timing wasn't quite right yet. Vizio asked for a year's worth of patience and, atypically for an electronics company, it's back at CES with the delivery of its 4K promise.
From the ashes of the 3D obsession rises a beautiful high-definition phoenix -
Sen. Ron Wyden on FISA surveillance law: 'We are going to win this'
Civil liberties advocates suffered a major setback in December, when the US Senate voted to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a bill that allows the government to conduct warrant-less electronic monitoring on suspected terrorists overseas and, as has become increasingly evident, its own citizens. Renewed on New Year's Eve, just before the inauguration of a new Congress, the law has come under intense criticism from those who argue it gives the government dangerously...
Wiretapping critic strikes a confident note at CES -
Pebble smartwatch finally shipping January 23rd, we talk to CEO about its future
The Pebble smartwatch is best-known for being a smash hit on Kickstarter. It broke records and leapt to a total of 85,000 orders by the time the campaign ended. The only thing left to do was ship, but unfortunately the company quietly announced a pair of delays that left an actual ship date in limbo — an unfortunately common problem with Kickstarter campaigns.
Today at CES, CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the company now has a firm shipping date for its backers: January 23rd. It will go...
From Kickstarter to the biggest tech show on earth, and soon on your wrist -
ARM CEO says Windows RT is just a start, launch has been restricted so far by Microsoft
I spoke with ARM CEO Warren East at CES on Tuesday, who was kind enough to explain the complexities of his company’s business model, along with addressing some of the exciting opportunities and challenges ARM is up against — in short, Microsoft and Intel.
At this point Warren East is just glad Windows RT exists -
Innovating a racket: the awards sideshow at CES
UrbanHello, a new home phone, proudly displayed its CES Innovations Award at a press event early in the trade show.
The Chinese electronics maker Hisense won two CES Innovations Awards this year, one for a 55-inch Google TV-enabled television and one for a 65-inch ultra-HD television with 4K resolution. But product manager Chris Porter isn't entirely thrilled about the achievement.
"Every company I've worked with, every time we get a CEA Innovation Award, the product does not do as well in...
You get an award, and you get an award -
Will.i.am is the most CES celebrity ever
CES introduced an entrepreneur-focused keynote this year called "Next Generation of Innovators," part of a larger strategy to pull in smaller startups to the trade show. Black Eyed Peas member-turned-techie will.i.am stole the show with his Jetsons-esque prognostications.
"Have you ever thought about the bathroom?" will.i.am asked, recalling a conversation he'd had with a construction contractor. "The mirror should be a camera with a display system. What the fuck do we have mirrors in 2012...
So 3013 -
It's official: 3D is dead
There's something about 2013's Consumer Electronics Show that's different from every other iteration this decade. You might not realize it immediately, for it's marked by the absence rather than the arrival of a new technology, but it's there and we're all sensing it on a deep, subconscious level. And it feels good.
3D is gone.
The tech industry's annual hot air balloon show is dead, and the world's better for it -
Sony CEO Kaz Hirai: 'We need to be a more focused company'
I just had a chance to sit down with Sony president and CEO Kaz Hirai for an enlightening chat about the electronics-maker's past, present, and future. Topics up for discussion include the company's new line of 4K televisions (including that new prototype OLED model), the Xperia line of Android phones and potential expansion to other platforms, and what the road ahead looks like for Sony. Kaz offers a glimpse into the mind of the Japanese monolith, with a surprisingly candid take on the rough...
A glimpse into the mind of the Japanese monolith -
Sony CEO Kaz Hirai wants 4K standard; disc format unlikely, but not out of the question
Sony is riffing on its wide-open 4K distribution strategy at CES. After announcing vague plans for 4K distribution at its press conference, Sony’s been filling in the details in more private conversations with members of the press that show just how unsettled the market for 4K content really is.
Sony CEO Kaz Hirai compared 4K distribution to Sony’s Video Unlimited service when asked if the planned online 4K content service would be exclusive to Sony customers. “We should be able to bring it...
I don’t see that as being physical media. -
The delicious snacks of CES: tradeshow tailgating
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the next in the series.
Here’s the deal y’all: I love Las Vegas. It’s got a history as checkered and weird as America itself, there are sick-ass laser lights beaming at you from every facade and orifice, and most importantly, it doesn’t give a fuuuuuuuuck what you think about it! Pretense of artfulness or a higher sense of purpose are difficult to come by here: everything is distilled down to the godless...
The tailgate party had sucked my emotions and tear ducts dry, leaving me to shuffle zombielike, warm Miller Lite in hand -
App makers highlight TV's utter failure to help you find anything good to watch
"I have a fundamental belief that the 10-feet UI as a concept sucks and is broken," says Jeremy Toeman, Dijit CEO and creator of NextGuide, a modern TV guide app for iPad. "It doesn’t matter what kind of lipstick you put on a pig." Toeman spoke yesterday in Las Vegas at the 2nd Screen Summit, a group of marketers and executives bent on invading your iPad screen while you watch TV. While that might sound scary at first — Toeman’s software works a lot better than your service provider's "GUIDE"...
You end up watching Karate Kid 3 — with commercials — and in SD. It’s what we call ‘sub-optimal.’ -
Qualcomm's insane CES 2013 keynote in pictures and tweets
2013 was the first time in many years that Microsoft didn't host the opening keynote for the Consumer Electronics Show here in Las Vegas. Instead, the show went to Qualcomm and its CEO, Dr. Paul Jacobs. We weren't quite sure what to expect beyond a new series of processors, but what we got was weirder than anything we've seen in all of our collective years attending CES. While Chris Ziegler translated the surreal experiences into a liveblog and I took photos of the craziest moments, the rest...
Relive the crazy -
Offline: why am I here?
When I was a kid I had a box of “electronics.” Basically, it was cannibalized parts from various decrepit gadgets, like RC cars, walkie talkies, and cassette players. I always dreamed of mashing together a few circuit boards and making something new, but obviously had no knowledge of that process. But I kept the box. There was something intrinsic to that tangle of wires and transistors that felt like technology to me.
CES is televisions, and car stereos, and iPod nano armbands
I still have...
The devices at CES are the raw materials of the future -
Could the next Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram ever debut at CES?
"Software is eating the world," the legendary Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen said in his influential Wall Street Journal editorial which served as a sort of state of the technology industry address in 2011, a bullish argument for the supremacy of internet startups. It's no surprise that the trend is taking over even at International CES, the 46-year-old trade show that has seen the debut of some of the most exciting advances in gadgets, from the VCR to the CD player, high definition...
New faces in Vegas -
Dish Network takes on TV Everywhere by integrating Slingbox into its Hopper DVRs
Dish Network is taking its own approach to solving the riddle of how to keep up demand for subscription TV services in the face of over-the-top streaming options like Netflix. While other TV operators have been working to expand authenticated TV Everywhere services, Dish is looking to bring content to customers while altogether avoiding content deals by building a Slingbox into all of its future Hopper DVRs. The new set-top box is called the Hopper with Sling, and it allows subscribers the...
Dish doesn't need content streaming deals — it has Sling -
Why Amazon is the only unstoppable monster in tech today
On Monday, Amazon briefly broke its all-time record share price on the NASDAQ exchange, hitting a high of $269.30, and closing at $268.51. The company now has a market valuation of a shade under $121 billion; that's roughly half a Google, twice a Facebook, or 44 Netflixes. This is despite most other big tech stocks like Apple or Google being down or flat on the day (with the exception of Netflix, which briefly broke $100 again on some good news). It's also despite Amazon losing $274 million...
Amazon is free to fail. It's free to reinvest and reinvent. It's free to choose where it wants to grow, and free to never go away -
The cheerleaders and skeptics at CES
CES Unveiled, an early press event at the show, usually serves as a well-mannered appetizer before the face-stuffing free-for-all that is the CES floor. This year was no different, offering up GPS-enabled drones and eye-tracking gizmos. But alongside the gadgetry, it also brought the first taste of the strange mix of rumor and gadgety anticipation that can only be found at CES. After months of speculation on what this year’s hot new gadgets would be, this was our first chance to find out what...
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Exclusive: Teenage Engineering makes a wireless speaker for serious adults
Teenage Engineering has built a reputation for uncompromising hardware design, unconventional products, and a sense of simplicity and fun in everything they do — and its new OD-11 Cloud Speaker looks like it will do all of this in spades when it debuts this coming summer. Anders Halvarsson and David Möllerstedt from Teenage Engineering just gave us an exclusive early look at the hardware they'll be showing off at CES this week, and told us all about how the company's thoughts on the home...
Home audio has gone in the wrong direction. -
The future is now, the future is weird: an expedition into the dark heart of CES
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the first in the series.
These days it seems like everyone is all about meeting up and nerding out. Music junkies lose their minds in the K-hole that Austin becomes every March, comic nerds let their freak flags fly in San Diego. Elite film appreciators flock to Robert Redford’s serene retreat in Park City, supreme art assholes learn about the future of being a supreme art asshole at Art Basel. The conference-festivals...
In a world where everyone’s mom has an iPhone, how is technology supposed to feel futuristic? -
Organized chaos: here's what it takes to build CES
For those who've never helped run a booth at a trade show, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the temporary city — an endless sea of lights, sounds, and humans pressing past one another in search of the next great gadget — takes weeks to assemble before the first attendee even hits the floor. It's a choreographed symphony of thousands of laborers, installing everything from flooring to televisions to washing machines.
The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs CES, accompanied us...
It takes a month to make a week-long trade show -
What's in your bag, Dieter Bohn?
What's in your bag? is a recurring feature where we ask people to tell us a bit more about their everyday gadgets by opening their bags and hearts to us. Show us your bag in this forum post. This week, we're featuring Dieter Bohn.
The Consumer Electronics Show begins next week and The Verge will be there in full force to cover everything we're expecting and more than a few things that we're not. To prepare for both, I tend to go a little overboard in preparing my bag. This isn't what my bag...
The battle for CES begins -
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Incredible photos from the CES vault: 1967 to 2013
In 2013, the official attendance numbers for CES – the Consumer Electronics Show – were just over 150,000, down from 2012, which saw the highest ever (156,000) according to the Consumer Electronics Association, the professional organization that produces CES. Behind the scenes of the massive, multi-day show held every January in Las Vegas, though, many industry insiders and media have been whispering of the “death of CES” – and large tech trade shows in general – for several years now. Less...
Ghosts of CES past
