CES 2012 Coverage - Day 0

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Press line up for the Nokia Press Conference @ CES 2012

CES officially starts tomorrow January 10th, 2012.  Day 0 is typically for the press conferences and early appointments with vendors and exhibitor final day setup.

This is the first time I've arrived this early for CES.  There was no traffic on the freeway, no wait at the buffets, and generally no crazy traffic jams.  That was nice for a change.

It should be interesting to see how the numbers in attendance are this year.  I was not planning on coming this year because I missed registration deadlines by a few hours for the free exhibitor pass (they moved it up a good month earlier than usual), and in general I think going every other year is enough. 

But in the end, I figured the colocation of PMA 2012 (never attended) and CES was worth it, (and I got a code to register later for free.)  

Also, hotel room rates are ridiculously high this year!  Rooms that go for $39 off season are commanding over $200+.  And the regular hotel rooms I'm used to are $499+ the first few nights.  I guess hotel casinos need to make their money from the cheap geeks who attend huh?

I almost went to the Microsoft Steve Ballmer keynote - since it is their last year here at CES...

Luckily we chose to skip it and just live-stream it later because there was nothing really new and exciting that I didn't already know about.  I'm already running Windows 8 developer edition...  And Steve Ballmer is no Steve Jobs when it comes to presenting.  

This year I'm traveling lighter with just a Canon S95, a super-zoom (Sony HX100V), and Sony HDR-CX550V camcorder.  I also brought my laptop so that I can quickly encode and process video footage to hopefully post shortly after... we shall see.

Anything specific you want to see?  Let me know by commenting below or send me a tweet @mikemu