October 16, 2005

Digital Life

I gathered some friends from ITP and went to Digital Life, the consumer electronics and gaming convention, on Friday afternoon. The convention was a huge extravaganza, and reminded me of ComDex, which I used to go to with my Dad and Uncle while I was in college. DigitalLife promised to show us new products, exciting new games, and celebrities. I was there for the freebies, and as such, I was pretty disappointed.

The tickets to Digital Life were being given away rather promiscuously (promotion codes could be found all over google), and I'm guessing with the volume of thrill-seekers (as opposed to actual buyers) present, giveaways were not as high a priority as at Comdex. Still, there were a fair number of trinkets being handed out (I got an RCA dog keychain), but the lines were ridiculous. The big to-do when we arrived on Friday afternoon was the Tivo giveaway—apparently Tivo had held a "funeral for VHS" at noon, and anyone who came by to drop off a blank VHS cassette as part of the service could get a free Tivo if they also purchased a year's worth of service at the same time. There were people smugly toting their free Tivos all over the convention floor.

I couldn't help but be smitten by this cute little robot. He's only about 14 inches tall.

At the same booth, however, there was a really creepy animatronic monkey head with weird rubbery skin (and quite a bite). I got a picture of Matt with him, and a detail shot below.

There was also a large gaming influence, and to celebrate the release of a new Star Wars-themed game, Storm Troopers were roaming the floor.

Among the games, non-standard controls seemed to be a theme. There was a fighting game where the controls were little transmitters one wears on each wrist like bracelets. I saw someone flailing wildly but having dubious success in the game. There was also a slew of mats used as input, for running and jumping. There was another, a bowling game, with an actual bowling ball used as the input device. The kid trying to bowl had to take four wind-ups before he was able to successfully get the bowl rolling down the lane (gutterball). Clearly, the consumer electronics industry has a ways to go with the cutting-edge control pads/devices.

Posted October 16, 2005 07:33 PM. Categories: New Experiences , Week 6 | Permalink