| The gadget commons: Today is the last day of CES in Las Vegas, the biggest consumer electronics show of the year. CES celebrated its 50th anniversary this year (and handed out commemorative pins to prove it), and even though you may have seen a lot of journalists wailing and moaning about having to cover the conference, the show has managed to retain relevance and influence for half a century, which is no mean feat in a world of fly-by-night gadget trends. This year, my first back after missing 2016's show, I spent the majority of my time in cars and traveling between them; CES has gradually become one of the most important automotive shows in the world, if not the most, given its focus on technology, which is changing the car world at an accelerating pace and will probably result in automakers becoming very different companies in the next five to ten years. 
Cars were everywhere, it seemed, but that was partly due to my own narrow focus this year; health tech, VR and connected home devices were also represented in huge numbers at the show, with startups and huge, established companies alike peppering the show's multiple floors, across more than a few huge casino exhibit spaces. The point is that regardless of your coverage area, CES provides a pretty much unparalleled opportunity to immerse yourself in the flow of your industry. The number of meetings I took with executives at companies it's my job to cover within a four day span would've been impossible under any other circumstances. And the best part was that it was almost all substance; there's definitely a lot of noise at CES, but there's a through line of signal that can provide you with enough material to add depth to your stories for the rest of the year. CES probably isn't cresting in value anytime soon, either – there's always going to be a need for a sort of generalized meeting place of those working on consumer tech, where ideas can cross industry verticals simply because execs walk the floor and visit booths of companies they'd never otherwise know about. Some industries, like the automotive one, are effectively adopting aspects of all others in consumer tech, including virtual assistants and connectivity, so it's even more valuable in those areas. The CES firehose is still a tremendously unwieldy thing to manage, but that's why we go, and will continue to go in the future. We'll help find that rich, rewarding gold seam with the mix of rock and fool's gold, and bring it to the surface – because it's too valuable to miss. Get the context: |
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