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CES 2012

CES 2012: Are the dancing girls really necessary?

CES 2012: Are the dancing girls really necessary?

LAS VEGAS--She isn't wearing much. What she is wearing is shiny and silvery. She's dancing in front of you, though her heart doesn't seem to be in it.

It's 10.30 a.m. And yes, it is Vegas. And yes, it is CES 2012.

Every year, one imagines that there will be fewer dancing girls. Every year, one is entirely mistaken.

My first--but surely not my only--dancing girl sighting Monday morning was at the booth occupied by Vietnamese robotics company TOSY.

This is the company that tomorrow will bring attendees the rapturous glee of witnessing Justin … Read more

CES 2012: German gaming company's war joke backfires

CES 2012: German gaming company's war joke backfires

Funny isn't easy. It's also mercurial. One person's funny is another person's "I would very much like to strike you in the face with my umbrella."

As the doors of CES 2012 opened to admit the excited and the hungover, the lengths and depths of funny were tested just a little.

I happened on the booth belonging to Roccat, a German gaming hardware company based in Hamburg.

Adorning its exterior was an ad that read: "ZEE GERMANS ARE COMING. DON'T WORRY. THIS TIME WE'LL PLAY NICE."

In small type at … Read more

Ericsson has big plans to connect the world (live blog)

Ericsson has big plans to connect the world (live blog)

LAS VEGAS--Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg has a grand vision to get a connected device--or two or three--into the hands of every person on this planet. And he laid it out here at the Consumer Electronics Show, in a keynote address that barely managed to touch on consumer technology at all.

Hey, no one said infrastructure--particularly communications infrastructure--is easy.

Ericsson doesn't have the sexiest business in the world--it supplies telecommunications equipment and manages wireless networks--but its business is crucial to the consumer's increasingly mobile lifestyle. As a result, the company's perspective on mobile's future was intriguing, if … Read more