Tag: technology

Pre-CES PR Musings

Posted on by Liz

CES 2012. Already. We’ve seen it all, haven’t we?  What can CES possibly show us?

I’ll tell you one thing it will show us: a 55-inch OLED TV from LG. I can’t even get my head around that; I remember seeing a 12-inch OLED several years ago and being knocked out, thinking, oh, it will be YEARS before this technology can translate to a larger scale. Silly me. And in case you’re in the market for a TV that will take the place of your entire living room wall, Mitsubishi is showing a 92-inch LCD that was announced back in June.

Besides the TVs, there will be notebooks, cell phones, cameras, home automation options and really bad convention-center food.  In other news…

This is your last year to catch Microsoft at CES, and your first year to catch the PMA show, now part of the Vegas-in-January action.

CityCenter is still new enough to feel novel  and the fountains at Bellagio are still novel enough to feel mandatory.

As always, there will be celebrities (Justin Bieber! Snooki!  Dennis Rodman! Chicago will perform!) and the usual crop of invite-only parties and events.

Sony is having a “wedding” – yes, a real event in a Vegas wedding chapel – to celebrate the marriage of home theater and the internet (though I think that those two have been hitched for a while now, if you’ve been paying attention.)

There will be no-longer-top-secret code words thrown around, like Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich.

I think the introductions that will matter to most of us will be the tablets, and the apps.  Next week should bring a bumper crop of both, with some exciting features like increased speed, sharper screens and more location-based options.  I’m looking for improved battery life and feature-packed video streaming devices, myself.  There will be a “Mobile Apps Showdown” Thursday afternoon in the North Hall, and I’ll go on record as saying that I’ll probably buy half of the 10 winners, along with most CES attendees.  They’ll come in handy while waiting in line at McCarran.

Offlining: The New Digital Detox

Posted on by Dorothy Crenshaw

I’ve known for a while that multitasking is a lie. I don’t know anyone who can truly spread their attention across multiple jobs with equal focus. Like most people, I tend to toggle back and forth among tasks – blogging, watching Top Chef, listening to my daughter, ruminating about tomorrow’s schedule. It’s like trying to eat a five-course meal by tasting everything at once. It’s possible, but the net result is less enjoyment, if not lower efficiency.

But readjusting your relationship with technology isn’t simple. Because we’re addicts. That’s the other given of our media-feasting culture. Take the sturdy, un-hip BlackBerry. The form factor isn’t sleek like the newer Android devices or even the iPhone. But, on top of every ‘Berry, there’s that red light that blinks when a new message arrives. Reports say that users actually become hooked on the light. It’s a Pavlovian response. We’re helpless. If not CrackBerry, it’s at the very least the Starbucks of digital devices.

And though our appetite is still huge, the human capacity isn’t infinite. There’s that famous Matt Richtel piece about the dangers of technology overload.  It describes how our always-on access to digital gadgets affects how we process information, and how quickly we become distracted…leading us to crave more stimulation, which raises our distraction threshold. You get the idea. Your brain on technology. Next stop, digital detox?

In a way, yes. It’s called offlining, and it’s meant to culminate this Saturday, September 18, for a national day of being unplugged. The idea, which was (of course) dreamed up by a PR guy and an ad guru, was officially unveiled on Father’s Day of this year, as part of a call-to-action for parents to spend more time in face-to-face interaction with their families.

If the offliners have their way, the solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur will be not just the occasion for religious atonement, but a day of digital fasting. Cold turkey…without the turkey, the ‘Berry, the sweets, the tweets, or any of the digital soup we’re bathed in. So far, over 10,000 people pledged to have 10 “device-free” dinners between June and this Saturday. To help spread the word, you can send e-cards downloaded from the offlining website to a tech-addicted friend or family member.

It’s a gimmick, but I love the offlining idea for the same reason that I appreciate the Heart Truth  or Earth Day, or any other call-to-action in the public education model. It’s a terrific use of the power of public relations to raise awareness and even change behavior. For me, a one-day digital fast won’t be too difficult, but it’s symbolic, of course. There’s plenty of room for improvement in my relationship to technology, and every reason to find new ways to cherish my relationship with family.

And there’s one more person in this mix who can use some attention, and that’s me. I’m not Jewish, and, candidly, if I were, I probably wouldn’t mix religious observance with a self-improvement binge, no matter how worthy. But on Saturday, I just might stop the posting and the tweeting and the Facebooking and the Foursquare to have a more important check-in …with myself.