Salon.com > CES

The CNET-CBS TV technology debacle

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:54:00 +0000

What did the online technology news network CNET get for sending a 90-strong legion of reporters, editors and other staff to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas? A big fat conflict-of-interest mess. Staffers are quitting in protest, executives at both CNET and its corporate parent, CBS, are coming off as craven tools, and a story that CNET should own -- the future of TV -- has turned around and bitten the network on its ass.

The Verge's Joshua Topolsky has the most details of a debacle that is both awful and kind of hilarious. Last week, 40 CNET staffers gathered together to vote on their official "Best of CES winner." The prize went to the Dish Hopper, an every-bell-and-whistle-possible DVR cooked up by the Dish Network that does all kinds of neat things, like stream shows to your iPad.

Clinton’s CES “gun rant”

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:48:00 +0000

It wasn't a surprise when Bill Clinton started touting the benefits of smartphones for impoverished citizens in the developing world during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning. That's par for the course at a convention where the smartphone is unanimously considered the ne plus ultra of human civilization and anyone who doesn't already have one is the rankest of barbarians.

But when he diverged from technology into the realm of gun control, the world took instant notice. According to AllThingsD's Mike Isaacs, the president "got a little political."

Smart forks for stupid people

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:58:00 +0000

Judging by the ennui flooding my Twitter feed from journalists covering the Consumer Electronics Show this week, nothing could be more dreary than getting your employer to send you to Las Vegas to hobnob at industry parties and be bludgeoned with the latest irrelevant developments in TV technology.

And then there's the smart fork.

Yes, the smart fork, decribed by its creator, HAPILabs, as "a connected fork that helps you eat at the right time and right pace," is the talk of CES.

More words have been spent mocking the product than actually describing what it does, but as far as I can tell, the HAPIfork vibrates gently when it decides that you are eating too quickly. Data on the speed at which you are gorging yourself can also, of course, be uploaded to the Web, where, presumably, you can compare your ridiculous eating habits with those of your peers.