Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Bellagio (Page 2 of 2)

CES Post 4: Land of Oz Meets Vegas

The Aussies banded together at CES this year, and did a nice job in with eight companies in one booth at the Hilton — which was called (of course) the Australia Pavilion. The whole effort was sponsored by the Australian Trade Commission and AEEMA, a computer industry association Down Under. I attended their press event at 11:00 this morning and met a number of the people involved, and later had time to catch at least one demo from the eight startups represented before I had to head off to the Yahoo press luncheon. Cesaussiebooth1

I met Angus Robinson, the CEO of AEEMA, based in Sydney…Barbara Adams, a U.S. representative of the Australian Trade Commission (based in Orange County, of all places!)…Annette Ahern, an Aussie based in Melbourne working for the U.S. Consulate there, and Aussie Susan Fitzpatrick, CEO of PR firm Dateline Media (Palo Alto, Sydney, and New York). They did a great job putting together this first-time organized presence for Australia at CES. (In addition to the eight companies in their booth, Robinson said there are an equal amount of other Aussie companies with their own individual booths in the show.)

AEEMA’s Robinson said his organization decided last year, after he had scoped out CES for the past three years, that this was the year to “show the world what Australia can do.” He said many technologies had their beginnings in Australia, including “the 802.11 wireless standard, the technology behind the Dolby headphone, the IMAX rolling loop, the electric drill, the inflight black box, the refrigerator, and more.”

Later, the one firm I got a chance to spend my limited time with I was really impressed with: Bluebox Devices, based in Melbourne. It has nothing less than a new “from the ground up digital media platform for the home.” I saw the concept demoed, and it was very cool. “It’s a complete on-demand digital content purchasing and management system for the mass market – TV, movies music, and other media types,” said Robert Yearsley, CEO. Cesbluebox

Interestingly, I also met an investor and board member of the company, an Australian named Ron Nissen, who’s now based in Milwaukee! He told that Bluebox lets people watch the content they want for free. “Basically, the pay TV model isn’t working, and free-to-air TV isn’t either.” I’m betting they can get the attention of the content and advertising industry in the U.S. A main objective of the firm is obviously to meet partners at CES, the CEO told me. One good one sauntered up while I was there, and quickly got his attention: Warner Brothers! I’m pulling for these guys, and have already suggested a potential funding partner that I know would like to hear about their technology.

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CES Post 3: Early Morning at BlogHaus

Well, I was the first to arrive this morning at 7:30 am, just as the housekeeping crew was finishing up. Only me alone with the breakfast buffet and a tub full of beer on ice at the bar (no, please….). Feeling good that I bailed last night about 10:30, I plugged into the T1 in the conference room, grabbed some much-needed caffeine, and started catching up on the buzz online. Bloghaus6 Seems the reaction to the Gates keynote yesterday wasn’t all that great — a lot of the same themes as last year. (But as Robert Scoble said to me later, at least everything worked this time…..ha!) More of the buzz online this morning seemed to be focused on how Macworld is already starting to suck away the oxygen from CES — an event that will draw only about one-fifth as many people.

About ten minutes later, a two-person video crew from PodTech arrived, followed closely by head PodTech dude, John Furrier. He said he and the crew were headed off to Cisco and lots of other interviews today. Other PodTech people started to arrive, and I heard the Haus was rocking till at least 5:00 am…..ooo, ouch. Glad my head is clear.

I’m gonna monitor the live coverage of what’s happening at the keynotes and on the showfloor from right here and do some blogging. The PodTech site is one good place for you to keep up on stuff ongoing, and note it also includes a page where all the BlogHaus-registered bloggers’ posts are aggregated. Events for me today include the Aussie companies’ press conference at the Hilton, followed by Yahoo press event/luncheon close by, and Disney CEO Robert Iger’s keynote at 4:30 at the Venetian (only because he might drop a hint of what’s to come in his largest shareholder’s keynote tomorrow at Macworld). Then the Showstoppers event this evening, and back here more for at the BlogHaus after that. Hey, this is work, people! Cheers for now…

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CES Post 2: BlogHaus Views

This BlogHaus suite is awesome, as is the whole Bellagio. Podtech and Seagate did it right. Here are a few grab shots, badly taken with my little HP camera, without flash mostly (so some are blurry). But hopefully you’ll get the idea.

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Trust me, we bloggers aren’t wanting for much here. The aforementioned mega bandwidth, they gave us $25 in taxi fare each, plus we get a full bar, food galore, and lots of great conversation in between blog posts. The Gates keynote just ended….so we’re now getting ready for the onslaught of additional bloggers about to arrive. There are maybe 100 people here now, soon to be double or triple that, I’m sure.

The last two pix are of PodTech’s John Furrier interviewing Tim Street of French Maid TV (which was quite funny), and then Dave Winer and Doc Searls, old blog buddies in deep conversation.

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CES Post 1: “The Year of Glass”

It’s Sunday late afternoon in Vegas, and I’m in the BlogHaus at the Bellagio. Very cool setup in the suite here (stand by for some pix later), Just chatted with Robert Scoble, and he told me they have an amazing amount of bandwidth — the best anywhere here, I’m sure. He said some 400 bloggers RSVPed, many at the last minute, a lot of ’em to take advantage of the ‘Net access, no doubt. So this place will get busy — especially after the Gates keynote, which is about to fire up at the Venetian. Right now, there are probably 50-60 people here.

But back to my first post from Vegas. Actually, this one’s not about CES per se, but rather a pre-event I attended yesterday and today called Storage Visions, across the strip at The Flamingo. Storagevisions A presentation this morning by Steve DiFranco, VP of sales and marketing for AMD, was interesting. He said that in the next three years, more glass will be sold than in the last 30! And a lot of that glass it for things we look at (not through, like windows), meaning all the many displays we have in our homes and offices on computers, TVs, phones and what have you. “This phenomenon has gone almost unnoticed,” he said. But, as you increase the amount of glass, he said, “you have to increase the amount of content you put on it” — which is certainly a focus of both this event and CES. “There are now multiple places to view content in our homes,” DiFranco said, and really everywhere we go. “And our houses must become more aware of content,” he said, referring to the huge opportunity in home networking devices (and his firm undoubtedly has some things up its sleeve in this regard).

“The real problem is the disorganization of this content,” DiFranco said. “Consumers must become content managers.” When the house gets connected, there will be less need for storage on individual devices, he explained, and more need for a “bit bucket” type of device, meaning central storage.

“The ‘connector’ becomes the next big thing after all the glass you’ve just bought,” DiFranco said. In fact, this may be the Year of Glass, but he says next year will be the “Year of the Connector.”

Today’s plugged-in consumers he called the “exposed generation” — meaning their desire to share content, a la YouTube and MySpace, et al. But, he said, they really don’t care where their stuff is stored. “So it will go where it’s cheapest and easiest to access.”

An interesting point DiFranco made in closing was that you’ll see amazingly little in the way of “the connector” at CES this year.

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