A primer for the Consumer Electronics Show
Everybody loves a road trip. That’s one of the reasons that the annual Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas every January since 1978, is so popular. Another is the exclusive clientele. Since the show is closed to the public, you’d better be a celebrity, an industry professional, or a member of the press if you want to get in.The January show is now the only CES of the year, but between 1978 and 1994 there was also a summer show in Chicago. Before that, the CES was held in New York since 1967. In the more than forty years since its inception, CES has provided the world with its first glimpses at notable new pieces of technology, including:
- the Videocassette Recorder in 1970;
- the Camcorder and Interactive CD in 1981;
- the DVD in 1996;
- the Microsoft Xbox and Plasma TV in 2001;
- the Blu-Ray DVD in 2003;
- and the 3D HDTV in 2009.
The Consumer Electronics Association is the governing body behind the show, and they make sure to bring out the big guns whenever possible. The 2010 show featured appearances by Jay-Z, Steven Spielberg, and then-presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If you’re not a member of the electronics elite, then your chances of getting into the show yourself are slim. Still, you can look forward to next January for the latest announcements of what’s new in the world of computers.