CTIA: John Edwards and Fred Thompson

9:30 a.m., CTIA Show, Las Vegas

It is the last day of the CTIA show in Vegas and the final keynotes are due to start in a few minutes. Why do the keynote organizers always feel compelled to have blasting musicto start the day?

9:37. Steve Largent comes out. Why the politicians? Largent is pitching the consumer angle. A bit strained to invite the politicians. Largent is showing a video related to mywireless.org. The video is claiming consumers are under attack from tax and regulation. Everyone in the video agrees they would like to pay less tax. Not much surprise there.

9:42 Intros John Edwards. Will Edwards endorse? That is one question floating around the hall.

Information At Your Fingertips, Courtesy Of Google

Here's a quote from Bill Gates, "This next era that we're moving into is quite different than the original PC era." Where did that come from? Bill's first of many 2008 Microsoft retirement speeches including the one at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show? Nope, that quote was from Bill's 1994 Comdex keynote speech. With Bill doing the long goodbye, it is worth considering the number of times he has been right about the trend (a lot) and wrong about the company that would capitalize on the trend. Here's a hint. In nearly all cases he hit the trend right, but it was not Microsoft that capitalized on the trend. Information at your fingertips? That was from a 1990 Gates keynote. He was right about the idea of someone asking a computer to help them with their questions. Unfortunately for Bill, the company that people are querying with their fingertips...

Mr. 1000 core chip meets Mr. one tenth watt chip

Mr. 1000 core chip meets Mr. one tenth watt chip

I'm not at CES: Day 1

I'm not at CES: Day 1

What is missing from CES?

Ah, a new year. This year I'm not going to CES, but eWeek has enough editors and reporters at the Las Vegas event to give the show a good going over. Check out our web site for ongoing coverage. So, what am I missing? In particular, what are you missing? If you are looking for bigger televisions, louder audio and more ways to transport and play important content such as really amateur videos from YouTube, privacy protected music that makes Microsoft's Zune and Apple's Ipod everlastingly incompatible and massive speakers that will make it able to hear your car coming from the next state, then you should have made that trek to Las Vegas. But if you were looking for products and applications that would help your business grow in this new year, than CES was not the place for you. In an era of very narrowly focused trade shows,...

Comdex remembered

comdex rememberd