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Culture

Photos: The weirdest things at IFA 2009

Every year we go to the IFA tech trade show, and every year we see bigger demonstrations of corporate wealth and visitor stupidity. Join us.

Nate Lanxon

Sept. 7, 2009 5:25 p.m. PT

Nate Lanxon

See full bio

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Every year we go to the IFA tech trade show in Berlin, and every year we see bigger demonstrations of corporate wealth and visitor stupidity. We thought we'd share some of the more interesting sights from this year's visit, concluding with a photo of one Crave writer eyeing an uber-long sausage.

But first, we present you with this photograph. Since freak shows are illegal these days, Vodafone offered the next best thing: a grown man playing air guitar with a giant inflatable instrument. He was one of many guests offered the chance to compete in Vodafone's air-guitar competition, during which other passersby got to have a hearty giggle at each contestant.

Up next, see what happens when a man with a beard meets a lady with a razor.

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If you're a man, you probably grow facial hair. Here's a man removing his in front of hundreds of journalists, and a lady from Philips.

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This is a climbing wall--a wall essentially built for climbing, hence the name. T-Mobile brought this one, presumably because phones aren't very big and it'd ordered a large booth.

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If you're going to show off kitchen appliances, you're going to need a woman, and that woman's going to need fingers. This one is showing off how many remain on the hand she isn't inserting into a blender. Clever.

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Now this is something you don't see every day: a look-how-energy-efficient-our-TV-is demo. Showing off its efficiency was a Samsung set.

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This was Samsung's dorkiness challenge in full swing. The premise was simple: who can look the dumbest in 3D glasses. All contestants won joint first prize, because it's impossible not to look like a total goon.

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Samsung was keen to make its booth look like the most expensive booth at any tech show ever. To help, it brought along these massive hanging walls of televisions to suspend above visitors.

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3D TVs were the big thing at IFA this year, and around every corner was a company thrusting dorky glasses on to people's faces to show off how good theirs was.

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Look out, you're falling into a pit of balls! This unusual demonstration of human stupidity was put on by Casio to promote its Exilim range of cameras. How this helped is anyone's guess.

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The recession has hit some sports teams hard, with as many as two football players made redundant every arbitrary number of weeks. To keep up with the bills, some took jobs at trade shows so geeks could take photos of them.

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Another massive display of TVs. This time, LG TVs. But only "Big Brother" was on, so LG played something more interesting: a video of empty rooms full of chairs and tables.

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The IFA 2009 BMX Competition was well under way by Sunday. Little did the competition know that it itself was an entrant in a contest: IFA 2009's Most Out of Place Attraction. It won.

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This train set was erected by Sony to aid its demonstration of one of many new models of dSLR camera.

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Entertainment at IFA comes in many flavors. In this mysterious--and small--room, Japanese drummers can be seen deafening a crowd.

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Sadly, IFA is open to the public, and that means you'll spot a child here and there. This one wasn't being told off for playing, but rather being given a demo of a new Acer laptop. Don't underestimate the spending power of children('s parents).