I am not sure if it is because I am getting old or because this year it was impossible to see anything with the 140,000 attendees or simply because there were no exciting new technologies, but maybe it is time to stop going to CES? Here's a short summary of what CES 2008 looked like:
- Everybody is manufacturing LCDs and Plasmas
- Everybody is manufacturing GPS devices
- Everybody is manufacturing MP3 and MP4 devices
But if you look around there were no new innovations. There was nothing that really differentiates one from the other and when you walk from booth to booth it started to feel like you see more of the same over and over again. There were dozens of manufactures of iPod accessories (I heard in one of the sessions that this is a 1 billion dollar business). Apple wasn't here (as usual) but I was amazed to see in the International exhibitions all the iPods and iPhones imitations. I'm not talking about devices that "look like" the real thing, but these are devices that look exactly the same down to the packaging and everything. This means that retailers will probably (or already) sell these online for buyers looking for a bargain device so beware of what you buy online. Better buy it from a respected retailer then trying to save 50 bucks.
If all this is not enough there are rumors that CEA will move the show out of Las Vegas
It seems that they think they could get a better deal somewhere else, but I'm not sure which other city is capable of handling so many visitors at the same time in addition to the regular tourists. In my opinion this is just a move to negotiate a better price for exhibition space.
I'm writing my final CES 2008 post from the Las Vegas airport which means that I'm about to start my back-to-back "Red-Eye". I'm flying tonight LAS-CLE-RDU landing there tomorrow morning and leaving the same evening to Israel (RDU-EWR-TLV) for another on-board bad sleep night. I don't know why I do this to myself... 
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