Greetings from Las Vegas!
Technically, I’m here for business, not monkey-business. I’m here for the NAB convention until tomorrow, learning all about digital video and the future of broadcasting. What the heck does this have to do with me, or my clients, you may ask?
Well, I am here to observe trends, detect patterns, and get set for what is going to be important to the folks that I help, a few years down the line. I’m observing software features that will be dirt-common in days to come. I’m looking at expensive hardware that will be cheap-cheap in five years.
For instance: I’m seeing plenty of signs at various booths saying things like “Up to 5 PB”, and at first, I was puzzled, until I figured out that they were referring to five petabytes… five million gigabytes. Gosh, that sounds like an awful lot of storage, and surely only big businesses are able to afford so much storage. But, based on so much past experience, I just KNOW that there will be five petabyte keychain drives being handed out for free at baseball games and banks in a few years. Remember when ten-megabyte hard drives were like infinity stretching out before you? I do.
Apple has announced their new suite of professional-class video-editing programs here, and in my opinion, everything else here runs a distant second-place finish. They’re dominating all of the news coverage. Their “booth” is the biggest thing here, and it’s always jammed. They have a huge theater for continuous presentations, and every seat is always filled. I’m seeing the usual, middle-aged, paunchy conventioneer-types, but I’m also seeing an enormous number of young people clustered around the Apple displays, and standing at the back of the rows of seats being hogged by old folks.
Apple hired a Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer to supply some high-quality photos for this event, so I’m not going to try to compete.
Being an enormous geek, I was mesmerized with Apple’s wall of horsepower… Technically referred to as a big ol’ pile of Apple servers (268 processors) and networked hard drives (300 terabytes). In every direction, Macintosh displays were demonstrating smooth, snappy powerful new software. Everything flowed so nicely, thanks to those stacks of servers, slaving away behind the main stage. This was brought forcefully to my attention when I was admiring this wall of flashing winky lights while the guy around the corner was demonstrating the audio-editing software. I could hear the sound of a Ducati motorcycle screaming away, on and off, and the winky lights in front of me were going bonkers in perfect sync. Cooooool.
This all seems very esoteric, expensive and far away from most people’s needs, doesn’t it? No, not really. The newest high-end Macs have eight processors inside. New laptops will have four processors in around one year. Intel expects to have 80 processors inside of one chip in about three years.
That huge, expensive wall of power probably cost more than a million bucks, and required a technical team for assembly and maintenance. By the time you buy your next Mac, YOU may command nearly as much power!
Off-topic, I have to say that I DID squeeze in some fun last night - SPAMALOT is well-worth seeking out when you get to Vegas (or Broadway, though the Broadway tickets are usually sold-out months in advance). If you’re a fan of classic Monty Python, you will NOT be disappointed.
Vegas has changed a lot, and there are construction-cranes everywhere. Expensive, glitzy casinos are replacing the old, tired classic dumps, and Sinatra’s ring-a-ding-ding has been replaced with REM and Beatles music everywhere. Baby-boomers rule here, now.
I’ll predict the future: In ten years, there will be industrial-strength shop-vacs at the exits leaving the Las Vegas Strip, just to simplify things. Nobody goes home until every wallet and purse has been emptied! NOTHING here is free, or even inexpensive, without a taxi-ride away from the Strip. It’s too far to walk, even for a bank - I’ve tried.
There have to be EIGHT separate Cirque du Soleil shows in town, and my, aren’t they expensive. Every major casino has one of these shows, and I can see why… scanty garments, but not TOO scanty… You can bring the wife and kids.
I’ve done my best to be abstemious, so far away from my daily routine, but I’m failing miserably. It costs 22 buicks to use the gym, so I’m not spending a lot of time there, and my waistline is mysteriously expanding. It MIGHT be due to the incredible meals that we’re enjoying every day. Most nights, I feel like a python that has swallowed a goat! My vices don’t include drinking, womanizing(!) or gambling, but I can ALWAYS be tempted by high-end chocolates or a perfectly-prepared steak.
Dennis and I attend the conferences and walk around the convention floor by day, and do tame, expensive stuff by night. We are SO middle-aged!
