Nick and I will be bouncing some thoughts from each day of CES back and forth to share some more casual perspectives on the goings on here in Vegas. Today we’re talking about the shiny toys we’ve each been taking notice of on the show floor.
Nick: Today, I saw the future of computing. Literally. NVIDIA has managed to cram a highly specced gaming PC, complete with liquid cooling, into a beer keg. A working beer keg. Dubbed the Kegputer, it’s got two GeForce GTX 580 cards, a Corsair SSD and 12GB RAM. But the reason it’s possible is that it’s running one of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors, which just goes to show how awesome the new Core chips are. The best part of the whole Kegputer setup (aside from the 40 or so beers inside) is that NVIDIA has actually applied for a patent on the design, so we might actually see Kegputers hitting retail stands some day in the future.
Seamus: Mmmm… Kegputers… I was blown away today by a thin piece of acrylic. A thin piece of acrylic that is the bezel on the 7 Series LED TVs from Samsung. OMG. It was to be the best, least in the way surround for a TV ever. It’s the first time I’ve truly felt like the TV was absolutely delivering nothing but image. Great attention to design.
I also played Gameloft’s Asphalt 6 on Viera Connect. I was really wondering what the quality of the built-in games engine would be like. Honestly, it’s a bit crap. Very blocky graphics. But we’re still talking… let’s say PS1 era game quality available straight through the TV itself. That’s going to be interesting for the console business if it catches on.
I’m not sure what I think of all these app environments being proprietary. I guess each business needs to chase exclusive offerings, but I wonder if it would be better for the industry as a whole if they’d standardised. Perhaps that’s the endgame. Lots of separate systems, and an eventual consolidation?
Nick: In an ideal world, maybe, but sadly I think it’s going to be a fragmented mess forever, with a few falling by the wayside as we go along. Hopefully it doesn’t turn off too many consumers in the process though.
The other thing that blew my mind today was Razer’s motion controller peripheral. It creates a magnetic field, which it then uses to give you super responsive motion control. The guy on the booth was showing off Portal 2, and while I’d seen the demo in the Microsoft keynote, seeing it up close and personal was amazing. With all the recent focus on motion controls in consoles, it’s good to see that there are PC versions that are actually completely innovative solutions turning up.
Seamus: I’ve got one last dash at the show floor tomorrow before I’m on a plane home. I’ve got a few last targets to feel like I’ve ‘done’ this year’s show. Like getting in to see the Toshiba glasses-free 3D. They’ve got big TVs in there, so it’ll be interesting to see how comfortable the sweet spots actually are. And I think it’s one you have to see for yourself. So see it I will!