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We love our cute robots this year.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Getting around Las Vegas during the show \u2014 the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) says about 140,000 people are attending this year \u2014 remains a major obstacle. A decade\u2019s worth of transportation innovation has done nothing to improve the situation. I still find myself walking between venues to avoid the gridlock on the streets and in the rideshare pickup zones. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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At one point, I climb into a Tesla with two other attendees and descend into the Vegas Loop. It feels like a short, slightly futuristic Uber ride and saves me a long walk between the West and Central halls. Cool, I guess? But there\u2019s still no good way to get from the LVCC to The Venetian, and I sit on a bus that creeps forward for 15 minutes through a half dozen traffic light cycles waiting to make one last left turn into the expo drop-off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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1\/9<\/p>\n
Photo by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\n
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1\/9<\/p>\n
Photo by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Outside of the convention center, I take in the ways that Vegas has changed \u2014 and not \u2014 over the last decade. Tourists still line the banks of the gondola route through The Venetian as the gondolier\u2019s voice echoes in a slightly mournful tone, reverberating from a Banana Republic storefront. There are still men standing along the street handing out cards for seedy entertainment, slapping the pieces of paper to get your attention. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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A woman standing at the front desk outside of a restaurant exclaims, \u201cAllison! Is that you?\u201d as I hustle by on my way to an appointment. I fell for that tactic one or two times in previous years, but I know enough now to remember that she\u2019s just read the name on my badge and I don\u2019t break my stride. In Vegas, your attention is a currency that\u2019s second only to actual currency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Afeela like somebody\u2019s watching me. That\u2019s a CES joke, people.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
There\u2019s one new fixture on the strip that\u2019s impossible to ignore: the Sphere. One of my meetings in a hotel suite overlooking the Sphere comes to a halt so we can watch an animation of what looks like an alien breaking the glass and climbing out of it. The biggest item on my agenda on day two of the show is Delta\u2019s keynote at the Sphere (it\u2019s Sphere, <\/em>not the<\/em> Sphere, Delta\u2019s media communications remind us). This isn\u2019t the first time it\u2019s been used as a CES venue, but it is the first keynote presentation in the space. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
And the keynote is quite the show. Delta uses the Sphere\u2019s massive interior screen and other experiential effects in all the ways you\u2019d imagine. A plane rolls toward the audience, and as it turns to taxi, a wind whips up as if from the jet\u2019s engines. The simulated plane lands later and our seats rumble to mimic the impact of touching down on the runway. At one point, a syrupy sweet smell is pumped into the space, revealed to be hazelnut coffee, as delivered by an Uber Eats driver on a moped. Tom Brady made an appearance that I didn\u2019t understand, but overall, it promised a spectacle and delivered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Toward the end of the presentation, the lights dim and the screen shows an image of the Earth as a giant, floating glass ball, rotating in front of stained glass. The light seems to catch and reflect in the three-dimensional object, and even though I know<\/em> I am looking at an illusion on a flat screen, my brain is convinced that there\u2019s a giant, floating orb in front of me. Even watching it back in my recorded videos, I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s not there. It took 15 years, but I guess I finally got a great 3D demo at CES.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
What struck me more than anything at this CES was the very show-<\/em>ness of it all. I know it\u2019s a show. We all call it a show. We say stuff like, \u201cHave a great show!\u201d to each other when we\u2019re here. After years of attending, CES can feel like an assignment, a series of to-dos as long as the Las Vegas Strip that you cross off one by one, step by step. But above all, it\u2019s a show. There are no acrobatics or stunts, yet it\u2019s still supposed to make us feel something. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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It took 15 years, but I guess I finally got a great 3D demo at CES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Like a good show on the Strip, there\u2019s some sleight of hand involved. Someone behind the scenes controlling the \u201cautonomous\u201d robot. The concept car that never ships. The giant glass ball that\u2019s just an array of precisely arranged pixels on a curved screen. Like any other show, there\u2019s a beginning, middle, and end \u2014 whether or not we remember them. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The details of this year\u2019s CES will probably fade over time like all the rest have, but I\u2019ll remember the feeling of it for much longer. And even for someone who\u2019s seen plenty of CESes come and go, it turns out you can still feel a little sense of wonder after all. But I\u2019m not holding my breath about any of those concept cars shipping.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Photography by Allison Johnson \/ The Verge<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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