We began our trip on day one with an early plane flight out of LAX. Our plane flight arrived at 8AM and we made our way to the Imperial Palace, but our room was not ready yet. Thus, we headed to Hash House to get some breakfast. After breakfast we went up to our hotel room; annoyingly we had to change room because of the out of the way location the room we had been given was located. We got some rest and prepared ourselves for the day ahead.
We split up for the first day of CES. Victoria headed out via the monorail to the convention center to attend the educational seminar. Meanwhile, I took the long route and got my press bag at the Venation. I liked the set up of the press room; it had lunches, drinks, and other resources for press members. One quick bus ride later and I was at the convention center.
After being awe-struck by the sights and sounds of the convention floor I wandered around a bit and found myself at the Cobra booth. Cobra featured new travel technology. New GPS systems, digital CB radios, and LED safety lights. It is good to see that advancements in technology can help those traveling long distance. The NBC/Universal booth was nearby and I took a look at the Battlestar Galactica MMO for PC. The game looked early in development, but it was boasting a large number of ships and ways to play. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
As a fan of books and social networking I had to check out Copia. The program allows for the purchasing and importing of eBooks to both PC and portable devices as well as giving users a menu to communicate with other people via a social network system. After that I took a look at the JVC booth which featured some nice 3D TVs. Sadly the 3D TVs at that booth made me feel a little nauseated from watching. Finally, I hit the Sharper Image booth before taking a break. They did not have anything impressive, but their clocks and tablet accessories were flashy as is the standard with Sharper Image.
After a snack and a break I was ready to keep searching the showroom floor. I hit the Cannon booth in order to look at their HD camera line up. When I arrived there was a presentation on their picture quality improvements. They had pictures of a meteor shower taken with an auto shot camera set near the ground. The quality of the images was amazing, not only were they difficult shots they were done with an auto shot, while the camera was left at a camp site. As a fan of Cannon products I am very excited to know what an upgrade to an HD camera will be like.
I decided it was about time to meet up with Victoria so I made my way to the meeting rooms and found her at the Education seminar. I came in partway through a presentation, but I stayed with the Education seminar until the end of the day.
Higher Ed Tech by Victoria
I was able to catch the Higher Ed Tech panels and presentations from noon until the the panels ended at 6PM. Though Higher Ed Tech focused on technology for college going students, they also covered how 3D technology can affect K-12 classrooms. Though this was a tech focused panel, there were plenty of educators in the audience - teachers, professors, and school IT personnel wondering how their (often tight) school budgets can handle the training and implementation of new technology.
One case for example was using 3D technology to better teach science to elementary school students. 3D projections were used to show elements in a plant cell and a display of the solar system as the planets orbit around the sun. Research shows that students did better on projects regarding plant cells and the solar system better than students who learned it the traditional 2D way.
The University of Southern California's School of Social Work also had a very interesting presentation using a 3D avatar to model and mimic responses and physical motions of a military person who has PTSD. The avatar is planned for use for the school to teach their social work students how to counsel a patient without "messing up" using a real client. The 3D simulation teaches the students to ask the right questions and to help them perfect their couseling skills before practice on a real person.
Other presenters talked about Internet safety in regards to security. However, the trend among the presenters was using eReaders and tablets in lieu of school books.
And we cut back to Jared
Victoria took a break to stretch after sitting for so long and I got organized for the remainder of the day. Next up was another keynote speaker, Walt Mossberg, a professional journalist, who talked about the economy’s impact on education. He brought up how computing will change how notes are taken and how presentations are done. How the tablet will soon be text book, note book, and interactive media tool for students. He also brought up that with eBooks the cost of education will drop and with the option to add interactive elements to text books it will allow for new avenues of teaching. However, to do this the text book needs to be updated and “reinvented” to go along with the times. Finally, he brought up the potential of online meetings and educational social networks for teaching beyond the classroom.
After the presentation was done Victoria and I left the convention center and got onto the monorail to head over to the New York, New York hotel for the Mashable Awards. We got there with plenty of time to get in line for the event. However, they said that they had no connection to CES and that our press status did not count and that all tickets were sold out. We would have accepted this, except that it went against everything we had been told. The promoter for Mashables was very rude to both of us and several other customers. We decided that arguing with someone like that would be a waste of our time and we went off to get dinner at the Nine Fine Irishmen.
We decided to hit the Irish pub in the New York, New York hotel. The fish and chips were great and a soothing drink helped as well. We wandered around the New York, New York and MGM Grand for the remainder of the night until we returned to the hotel to sleep.
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