“Gadget Geeks Unite! Consumer Electronics Show Opens,” a friendly ABC News headline informs us. Yes, the huge annual trade show in Las Vegas is underway — a four-day event which Reuters explains “draws 140,000 enthusiasts and retailers and also gives the $145 billion consumer electronics makers a chance to showcase their hot products and try to outdo rivals.”
On Monday, “Sharp Electronics Corp. took the crown for introducing the world’s largest LCD TV,” according to the AP, “a behemoth 108-inch liquid-crystal display that most people probably couldn’t fit through their front door.”
Such a confluence of stunning products and stunned reporters makes for easy pickings, so we’ll zero in on just one bedazzling segment from CNN Monday afternoon.
Announcing that “The newest in newfangled is debuting right now at the annual Consumer Electronics Show,” Kyra Phillips turned to CNN’s Renay San Miguel for “a severe case of gadgetation.”
“The 2,200 companies that are here showing their wares for 130,000 people want to make sure they get some kind of buzz or publicity about this because they’ve got to get it on store shelves by the time Christmas rolls around in 11 months,” said San Miguel. And CNN was only glad to help out, via its “own little version of a reality game called ‘Pitch Me.’ Basically, why, as a consumer, would I want to buy your product?”
The game began with what San Miguel described as “a product that’s getting a lot of buzz that’s basically live television on my cell phone.” A man — Nexis calls him “UNIDENTIFIED MALE” — then explained, “This is V CAST Mobile TV from Verizon. And V CAST Mobile TV allows us to bring the best of TV onto your mobile phone.” Asked for the cost and when it would be available, Unidentified Male vaguely hinted, “We’re going to be launching this in the first quarter of this year. We haven’t announced pricing details at this point, but stay tuned. It’s coming in the near future.”
Next San Miguel asked whether consumers should be concerned about the phone’s “very small screen,” prompting this choice quote from UM in response: “Well, what we’re doing is we’re working with our strategic partner QUALCOMM and MediaFLO to bring the best of TV through really compelling consumer content deals so that people, when they have a few minutes to kill and are looking for some entertainment, instead of being tied to their TV or their DVR at home, can now access this content anywhere they are.”
The “next contestant” was Toshiba, offering, said San Miguel, “a very cool-looking, very clean, slick-looking laptop computer.” The man holding it — another “UNIDENTIFIED MALE” in Nexis, but we’ll call him White Male Salesman #2 — described the Protege R400 as “perhaps the most advanced showcase of technology in the signature notebook for Windows Vista,” and “the world’s first PC to provide the convenience of information. This is the world’s first system that can actually enjoy push mail technology — meaning whether the system is even on or even asleep, it will go out and actually grab your e-mail and provide it for you.” As White Male Salesman #2 droned on it was hard not to feel for San Miguel, forced to wait out such jargon on live TV.
Finally, San Miguel turned to a third White Male Salesman, who pushed “the RCA Small Wonder digital camcorder,” a nifty-looking device “perfect for posting to YouTube or e-mail. You can just flip up the USB arm and send that video that you just shot right to Grandma.”
After San Miguel thanked all the contestants, and Phillips gave a couple of definitions of “gadgetation,” the segment ended, four and a half smooth minutes after it began.
So who won CNN’s game? Sadly, San Miguel did not say. We’re guessing it was a win-win.
Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.