Ask The Admin

CES is one of AtA's favorite events of the year. Michael Meyer and Karl Gechlik ventured out to the NYC Press Preview and our RFID badges arrived at AtA headquarters yesterday. It's printed RFID which is very cool and warrants a whole other post. But in the mean time here is a a short Q and A interview with Tara Dunion on CES International 2008 and Karl Gechlik. We covered the pre-CES Media Show called Unveiled here.

AtA We absolutely loved last years CES. What can we expect to be different this year?

CES Each year we strive to make the next year’s CES better and even more compelling then the previous year. This year is no exception as CES is the Must Attend industry event this January. The digital entertainment story is going to be huge, with Sony Pictures Entertainment and NBC Universal exhibiting on the showfloor for the first time and bringing the power of their content properties to CES.

We are also launching a new “Technology in Emerging Countries” program which expands on the international focus of CES and shows the role that technology can play in emerging economies.

We announced this Tuesday, Nov. 13, that we have major name speakers slated to deliver presentations, including Nicolas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child project and the MIT Media Lab, the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame and Tao Yoo, senior vice president of corporate affairs for Cisco Systems.

These are just two of the many exciting new developments at the 2008 CES. Visit our blog ces.blogs.com or our website CESweb.org for other show news.

AtA Our readers would love to know a little more about the back end of your show. How much bandwidth will you guys have pumping through CES 2008? Is there Ethernet provided to the exhibitors or are they all required to go Wifi. Is there free Internet access for consumers?

CES This response was provided by our operations and IT staff. Here’s what they have to say:

How much bandwidth will you guys have pumping through CES 2008? We’ll likely have no less than 45meg.

Is there Ethernet provided to the exhibitors or are they all required to go Wifi. Yes, Ethernet is provided to exhibitors.

Is there free Internet access for consumers? Yes. (The LVCC has open access WIFI. The Sands did not offer open access WIFI last year)

Overall, exhibitors are encouraged to order hard wire Internet line, anything from Ethernet to T1, and many set up their own wireless networks within their booth. We discourage exhibitors from ordering wireless services as it can be unreliable on the show floor with everything going on all at once.

Smart City provides free access to their wireless networks to show attendees in public space.

AtA. We know you guys are using these fancy RFID badges. What information about attendees is collected and placed on the badge? What information is available to exhibitors?

CES The RFID badges are new this year. There’s been a lot of interest in them. The main reason we are doing this is to provide easier access to keynotes and CES Unveiled and to generate less traffic jams and better traffic flow. For those media who tried to get into the Gates keynote last year, you’ll see that this can be a real improvement. We will use the RFID tags to count the total number of media who go to the keynotes, Sands show floor and CES Unveiled. This will help us generally track Sands/Venetian traffic so we can plan better for next year.

Readers will be located in the Sands/Venetian only (including CES show floor entrances, Palazzo Ballroom and Marco Polo Ballroom for CES Unveiled and keynotes), but not the LVCC.