What’s happened to conferences in 2007? During the past week, I think we’ve all been waiting for some truly amazing news to come out of CES, and it never came. So what’s the deal? Is there just too much industry pressure for these annual events for the companies to live up to? New rule for CES: If you don’t have anything good to show me that’s going to come out in the current calendar year, then you have no business having a booth on the show floor. We cover it because it’s there and because people find it interesting, but how frustrating is it that, for example, the hot new product you just saw won’t be out until 2010? Enough with the prototype and “concept designs.”

This whole scenario reminded me a lot of E3, and how drastically different it was from past years. Yes, the lack of excess was refreshing for people, but there were no amazing announcements to give it some balance. I don’t know, maybe if they had some dancing bears or something it would have taken the edge off of hearing about delayed titles and lackluster console sales.

There are exceptions, of course. Macworld is an obvious example of a show that keeps it’s intensity, but it’s also not as broad in scope as E3 or CES. And smaller conferences are also garnering a lot of attention, but that has a lot to do with their niche focus (such as startups at TechCrunch40 or LeWeb).

I don’t know, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect to be wow’d at every conference like this. And I certainly don’t think that companies like Sony or Samsung should sit on new stuff all year to save it for a big unveiling at CES, either. But with the rate that technology is progressing, I’m just a little surprised with the lack of new things to see here at the show floor. I guess there’s always next year.

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We’ve been having a great time here at CES so far, and cranking out the videos non-stop. I think tomorrow I might actually have a chance to browse the show floor a little bit and check out some things I may have missed. Honestly, I haven’t seen anything too mind blowing, but there were some interesting announcements from Panasonic and the really cool Alienware Curve monitor.

The Mahalo Daily’s at CES have been a blast too, and I was even on Buzz Out Loud today, which was great. It felt like we just picked up where we left off. The CNET booth this year looks absolutely amazing, so if you haven’t stopped by there make sure you work it into your agenda. I also met the lovely iJustine, albeit briefly, and Major Nelson of Xbox. Getting to meet the people I read and watch online at these events is my favorite part, for sure.

More from the floor tomorrow!

Image from Engadget

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In case you missed the story tonight, Mahalo Daily be doing video for the Engadget folks this week at CES. Starting this weekend, in fact! So you can catch the videos either on our site, or using the video tag over at Engadget. This is my third year covering CES, and I’m looking forward to seeing what new and shiny toys will be unveiled this time around.

There’s already crazy news with HD DVD canceling their entire freakin’ press conference (basically because Warner Brothers went with Blu-ray), so I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting CES.

Keep your eyes open for the videos, and rest assured that I’ll be twittering my fool head off about every gadget I come across. Heck, you can even follow CES2008 on Twitter nowadays! Here’s hoping my flight to Las Vegas won’t be delayed or canceled because of rain. Seriously!

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Wow! I’m extremely flattered to be on Violet Blue’s list of Top 10 Sexy Geeks of 2007! Violet has put out this list for the past two years, and every year it’s full of wonderfully smart and talented people. I guess I’m a little biased, because so many of them are my pals!

I love that she also used one of my favorite photos of me and Ryan (who was a runner-up on the list, that sexy devil). Well, this certainly made my day!

In other news (while I have your attention):
* I did an interview with MacMost recently, and realized that I say “really” more than is probably appropriate.
* Mahalo Daily is going on a short hiatus for the holidays, but we’ll be back on the 31st with some really (oops, I mean totally) amazing episodes.
* Then on the week of the 7th, look for our very special CES coverage. It’s gadget time!

Have a great holiday!

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

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