CES 2005 - Lesser-known companies with cool products
Thursday, January 6, 2005
There were several halls totaling to about 4 football fields worth of space full of Asian manufactures that I've never heard of. They probably make most of the products we use today, but stay behind the scenes as companies like Dell and Apple put their logo on items, mark the price up 200x, and sell it was a one-of-a-kind item.
Take a tour of some cool (and not-so-cool) items that sparked my interest. There's about 150 photos here, with lots of my own commentary. Feel free to add you own comments too.
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A lot of connectors on this reciever... Makes me sick... If you have enough equipment to actually need all of those inputs and outputs, you should probably buy separate amps and receivers, as well as sell some of your equipment and help those less fortunate than you.
Back on topic... HDMI promises to reduce the number of wires by being one cable that does digital video and audio, but that's still not good enough for me... Can't we just use a digital wireless standard already?
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:08:00 PM

MovieTime: A Projector and DVD player in one. A very cool idea that will probably sell like hotcakes in Costco. Do they sell hotcakes at Costco? To be honest I don't even really know what a hotcake is.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:11:00 PM
*COMBO*!!!
X-Men: Legends, posted 1/17/2005 7:11:00 PM
I would imagine this would become a pain in the ass to use because projectors are pretty sensitive to positioning and every time you opened and shut the top you'd probably have to re adjust it.
Anonymous, posted 1/19/2005 6:21:00 PM

What are those? Do they play CD's?
Anonymous, posted 1/24/2005 12:26:00 AM
Maybe they are pottery wheels!!!
Anonymous, posted 1/24/2005 12:26:00 AM

If this didn't have "European Design" stamped on it, would you still want it? I wonder if in Europe they put "American Design" stamps on items. Probably not, I bet people there know what they like without being told which continent the design work happened to be done at.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:15:00 PM
Well i live in EU but
this is the stupid idea i ever seen.
Beware of "the european desing"! =)
And by the way did you ever realised there are no citroens being sold officially in US?
Freak, posted 1/18/2005 4:24:00 PM
You haven't bought anything from Apple recently, have you? :-)
"Designed by Apple in California" is printed somewhere on the packaging for every hardware product.
Anonymous, posted 1/18/2005 6:53:00 PM

ThrustMaster has been around for many years, mainly known for their jet fighter simulator joysticks, but also for their name that sparks a small amount of giggling in the Beavis and Butt Head in all of us. heh heh heh...
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:18:00 PM

Thanks to Dolby, your sweet 5.1 surround sound system is already a dinosaur, as they were showing off the latest Dolby digital standard:
Their goes higher than 10, higher than even 11..., and just to make sure rival standard DTS can't catch up anytime soon, even higher than 12.
13.1 digital surround sound.... Yes - THIRTEEN speakers!
Me thinks the speaker industry paid them a pretty bundle to make sure it was fairly high number.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:24:00 PM

Somehow this is supposed to be a phone that plays "3D" games. Enough with the "3D" already! Can't somebody make a phone that makes calls really well?
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:27:00 PM

You don't need this to do surround sound with your XBOX, and this doesn't require an XBOX to do surround sound - so why does it exist? Because consumers are dumb. They see an XBOX logo and assume these must be ideal speakers for the XBOX.
Well at least it's small, and in one affordable package that grandma can get you for your birthday. And that's why I consider it a winner.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:29:00 PM

Oh you SanDisk, had kids been permitted at CES, the'd be all over your booth!
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:34:00 PM
Take a 1 gig card, put a "2.0" on it, and voil- you can now announce that you have the first 2 gig card! The trouble with tiny memory cards is that they all look the same. And they wouldn't even give me one to prove it really could hold 2 gigs!
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:35:00 PM

I don't know what this is, but I think this company firmly believes we all should have one in our living room by the end of 2006. I'm ordering TWO.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:37:00 PM
If I stand here...and frame the shot like this...I can get a picture of that chick's pooper while pretending to be getting the weird box of useless electronics. Score!
Anonymous, posted 1/19/2005 10:07:00 PM

Who could that be... Is that...
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:37:00 PM

...Tom Arnold! Oh wow, I thought for sure he'd be to busy trying to stir up interest in a True Lies 2 to hang out at CES!
The company he's promoting makes those video game systems you see sold on carts in malls. This company specializes in games that have controllers that mimic the thing your doing. So a fishing rod for the fishing game, a bowling ball for the bowling game, golf putter for the golf game, etc... The problem is that this company spent way too much on marketing and not enough on engineering. The games seem tedious at best, and didn't seem fun at all.
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 7:41:00 PM

Same company, they also had Jackie Chan come in to promote a game he sadly put his name and face on...
Dylan Greene, posted 1/17/2005 8:01:00 PM