Boing Boing Gadgets at CES: Video Report, Day One

(Flash video above, downloadable MP4 is here.)

Greetings from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Lost Wages, Nevada! I'm here with the Boing Boing Gadgets fellas — Beschizza, Brownlee, and Johnson, and Boing Boing's video team. We're traveling the floor with the BBG 3, surveilling all they review, and we'll be filing daily reports from the floor. Here is the first.

Highlights from this episode:

* So you've probably heard there's an "Official Blog of CES," right? So, screw those guys, we're more awesome. In this episode, Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (the group that puts on CES) dubs Joel Johnson the Official King of CES, then bows down to him and touches Joel's invizibul robe.

* Rob Beschizza shows us what he likes about the new netbooks from Asus, namely the screens you can swivel around to use as touch-sensitive tablets (disclaimer: Asus is sponsoring BB Video's presence at CES, but not BB Gadgets. Rob actually didn't know anything about it at the time, so this isn't paid placement or editorial whoring).

* Joel grills the everliving crap out of the poor guy tasked with representing Sharper Image here. Joel was a big fan of the early incarnation of the mega-gadgets chain store, but believes they went to hell before they were recently bought out and resurrected. Joel's advice to the new guy: don't speak to us in marketingese, please, and stop making crappy products.

* Joel talks with the guys at WowWee about a Spyball for children — baby's first panopticon! $150 device, shaped like a play ball, includes cameras to spy on other playmates. WTF.

* Xeni snuggles with robotic stuffed animals from WowWee that respond to human touch with emotive facial expressions, grunts, growls, and body movements. Verdict: cute, also creepy, definitely from the Uncanny Valley.

* Beschizza and Joel perform the first of what will likely be many schwag booze taste tests. Today: whiskey from the hosted bar, plus tiny energy drinks some wireless networking company was giving out. Mix them together, and you get what Joel describes as "there's nothing not awful about this it's just plain bad."

Next episode: we are accosted in the dark of night, on the streets of Vegas, by inebriated Canadian chemical engineers dressed as Yeti Furries.

Join the discussion thread for this episode over at Boing Boing Gadgets.

Sponsor shout-out: Boing Boing's video coverage of CES 2009 is sponsored by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is intended to be a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."