Nate Lanxon

Thursday 10 January 2008, 8:00am

The four things that grind my gears at CES

CES is an awesome place; hundreds of millions of pounds worth of exciting tech lies around every corner. But there are some things that irritate me beyond belief. Here are my four favourite things to moan about at CES:

1) Loud music on a booth is pointless
When you're at a company's booth trying to talk to product managers and engineers, the last thing you want is some rapper blasting his godawful voice at you over the top of offensively high-volume backing tracks. So many exhibitors have taken to deafening passersby in an attempt to reel in interested parties. Not me, friends. Not me.

2) Hot girls do not equal hot products
No number of attractive, scantily clad booth babes in hot pants and tight t-shirts will make a product suck less. Obviously it makes the day several orders of magnitude more visually enjoyable. But the concept of drowning geeks with totty in an effort to snare attention is not something I respond to. If something looks interesting I don't care if Satan himself talks me through its features.

3) Don't put products behind glass
I didn't fly thousands of miles across the world to be told I can't touch the product you want me to write about. What's the point? Telling people they can't touch something doesn't make it more interesting.

4) Segways are for posers
There's no point trying to ride a Segway through a crowded corridor of frustrated and tired journalists. If you want to be a poser, become a life model. There's no need for self-balancing nonsense-mobiles when 120,000 people need to get past you for a meeting. Ponce.

It's true: nothing gets me more in the mood for sleep than a good healthy session of topical complaining. Night night.

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