LG Phone and Projector
You’ve all seen the commercial. It runs over and over again. It’s the only LG television commercial that’s running right now as far as I know. And the idea is really cool. I wanted to see this thing. So Tony and I head to the LG booth. We ask one of the people there to show us the Projector Phone. She says, “I’m not sure if we have that here or not. If it is here, it would be over there with the phones.” Tony and I go over there only to find that they have them connected to a wall with security wires. There is no way to get far enough from the wall to see how they work and no area to display the image on. A film crew was there for some German show and they wanted to see how it worked too. None of the LG people could find a projector phone that wasn’t connected to the wall. I can’t imagine the millions that were spent making and running that commercial. They should have had a whole room devoted to showing movies on the projector phone. This is a no-brainer. So LG, this was bad and an incredible missed opportunity.
Pump Speakers
I don’t like the color and I have absolutely nothing to wear with them. And, oh, they’re speakers. Now I’ve seen speakers that look like a bust of Beethoven, speakers that look like a dog and speakers that look like shoes. I have seen it all. Please remove my eyes. These shoes would be ugly on a woman.
Pump Batteries
This is the Yogen, www.yogenstore.com. It charges your iPhone by pulling the string over and over again. They call it the charger for life. They say it’s 100 percent green. It’s also great exercise. There’s only one problem. The minute you stop pulling the string there’s no more charge. Make these things so they can store a charge please. How hard is it to figure out that people don’t want to spend 30 minutes at a time pulling on this thing? Yogen, this is a good idea gone bad.
The Wah Yung booth at CES
Wah Yung makes audio equipment. The booth pictured here was showing headphones. I use the word “showing” because that’s what they were doing. They weren’t connected to anything. And it didn’t look like anyone was interested in connecting any of them for me to listen to. Wah Yung makes a ton of equipment. But as a brand, they’re nonexistent especially at CES. And they had that same kind of bland look going as most of the booths from China. I don’t know why they keep going to CES. In the end, their efforts are both bad and ugly.
The Emperor
This is a chair for guys who think they’re Captain Kirk but in a gaming or business sense. It’s a true command center where the screens come down and surround you at the push of a button like the Cone of Silence in Get Smart. What kind of guy are you if you sit in this chair all day long? When will your laser beam destroy the White House? Will you shoot James Bond immediately or strap him to a table, put some special Wah Yung headphones on him and turn up the volume slowly until his head blows up or he escapes and kills you? Either way it’s bad although slightly cool.
iPhone TV
This one really made me angry. It’s an attachment that’s supposed to turn your iPhone into a TV. I immediately wanted to know what stations I could get. So I asked someone. She said, “You can pick up the local stations.” I said, “Like analog stations?” I said this knowing full well that there are no more analog stations. We live in an exciting digital world. She said, “No, they are digital.” To which I became even more confused. Was I going to have to carry a satellite dish around or connect to a cable box? So I asked, “Can I see it work?” She said, “No, it hasn’t quite been totally figured out yet.” This is bad and a tease from the folks at https://www.cydle.com/
Cydle M7 Mobile Internet Device
It was frozen and no one could unfreeze it. They teased me yet again after the iPhone TV thing. That’s cold and bad.
The Cue
The Cue had a great set up and looked like a really interesting reader. It’s connected to its own digital magazine and bookshop and also features stuff like e-mail, weather report, calendar, news, etc., within the device. However, the device was so slow that I immediately asked about the processor. The Cue guy said, “This isn’t the processor it will ship with in March. That processor will be faster than this one.” Then I asked how much. He said something like $700. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. This is where my thoughts started to go all over the place. Can I trust him about the processor? Do I even have $700. I might have to buy a new bike. That sounds like a lot of money. Where are Tony and I going to eat after this? Will I be paying for Tony and me to eat? And when I eventually came back to the moment, The Cue had finally downloaded the first page. Bad.
China
If China is taking over the world, it will be a very bland world. A world of washed-out pastels. And all the fonts will be the same. I don’t think I’m going to like it. I’m a colorful character.
Real-Time Recorder
This was actually a pretty nifty device. For idiots like me who can’t figure out how to digitize a DVD on their computer, you can get this thing. It makes a digital copy directly to your iPhone or computer from the DVD player. There is one catch. It does this in real time. That’s kind of bad. But this actually works and you can buy it now.
Casio People
Here’s just a taste of the world of CES. There are numerous beautiful people telling you about the new and exciting world of consumer electronics. I’m not going to say they’re bad. You have to judge for yourself.
The Organizer
I really don’t understand this one. It’s a pack for kids or kid-like adults so that your toothpaste and brush and stuff all have a pocket. And it hangs around your neck like it does around this future boy or whatever he
Arnie is unsure about the TV Hat ... does he have tunnel vision?
is. This did catch my attention. And I did spend time with it. But my final conclusion was pretty simple. I don’t want there to be a nuclear war where we come out of the shelters as small ugly green people even if we do have nice organizer packs hanging around our necks.
Porn Debate
This sign is sitting toward the back of the show almost as if it was accidentally transferred from the Adult Video Convention, which was going on down the street. There was no porn debate going on at CES. I couldn’t figure out what it meant. There was no petition to sign. Ron Jeremy was nowhere to be found. Most porn is pretty ugly and so is Ron. So I’m going with ugly.
TV Hat
This is me wearing a hat with an iPhone tucked in the front and a magnifying glass inside. It’s so you can watch movies on your iPhone. It’s a TV hat. It’s an interesting idea but I wouldn’t go anywhere with this person and neither should you.
Mink Man
Again, you be the judge. At least it’s not full-length.
