This past Saturday, I headed out to the well known West Edmonton Mall to check out one of the latest stores to open. For those that don’t know, West Edmonton Mall was for the longest time the biggest shopping mall in the world. Thanks to the construction boom in China it’s now relegated to the largest mall in North America, and the fourth largest in the world. That still doesn’t stop it from attracting a large number of tourists every year, as well as a number of unique retailers not seen anywhere else in Edmonton. My destination today is just a retailer.

That’s right, the biggest mall in North America now has an outlet for one of the most hyped brands online. Joining the ranks of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, we now have our own Apple Store. Apple’s products are decent, but thanks to the barbarian hordes know as the Apple fanboy you’d think Apple was the second coming of Jesus. Yes they are surprisingly absent from the above pic. That’s because I went to weekend after opening weekend. I don’t dig mass hysteria over a single company, don’t like getting up before 10:00 AM on a Saturday unless there’s a damn good reason, and I had another miracle to witness that morning. Even with all that, I was still drawn to the place. I had to check out the gadgets within, which I’ll further showcase after the jump.

Inevitably I gravitated over the new iPhone 3G. This is the iPhone’s legitimate debut in Canada, and it’s been a fairly rocky start. There was of course the epic failure of Rogers to provide plans suitable (and affordable) enough to take full advantage of the iPhone. They have since righted those wrongs somewhat, or done what Canadian corporations do best and place a band-aide solution over top of the problem in the hopes that people would forget. Unfortunately they then managed to team with Apple in a tag team of failure that resulted first in Apple’s iTunes servers going down temporarilty, and then Rogers going down permanently for the day.

So is the device worth all the hype? Well as much as enjoy poking fun at the Apple-crazed, I have to say that the device is at least decent. The interface is intuitive, and the multitouch is a joy to use. Is it worth the money paid? No, but for the simple fact that Rogers hasn’t really address the plan pricing outside of the initial three month deal they’ve offered (aka the honeymoon phase). And that’s half the joke, because in what amounts to one big cock tease you have to go to Rogers to buy an iPhone. They have them on display at the Apple Store, but you have to go elsewhere to buy them.

The next product I had to check out was the MacBook Air. I’m a fan of the smaller form-factor laptops, as my continued use of a Dell Inspiron 700m will attest to. When the MacBook Air was first released, I was cautious. After all it doesn’t have an optical drive, NIC, or removable battery. I always held up the Lenovo Thinkpad X300 as the small form factor to aspire to. That was all based on paper specs. Now that I’ve seen, touched, and played with the Air, I have to say my curiousity has been piqued.

Thinking about how I use my laptop, I’m forced to consider whether or not I can live without the missing accoutrements. Does the MacBook Air spin straw into gold as the fanboys would have you believe? Dear god no, it’s just a laptop. Still it’s a very nice laptop.

Overall I’m not completely filled with vitriol, ready to spit it out over the whole experience. This new Apple Store is a neat place to go and check out some nifty looking computers and gadgets. If you are a Mac fanatic living in the capital region, this is essentially your mecca. If you are just a gadget head, this adds another nifty layer to the high tech parfait that is Edmonton. I’ve included all the pictures I took in a gallery below.

Bill C-61 is Canada’s dark answer to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act used to cut a swath of destruction through fair use rights in America. It goes even further to impinge on the freedoms of Canadians then the DMCA could ever hope to pull off with the citizens of the US. The bill is self-contradictory, broad-sweeping, and really just a mess. This wonderful piece of work is the demon hell-spawn of Jim Prentice, who is currently Minister of Industry for the minority Conservative Party. But with all that being said, this post isn’t really about the horrors of Bill C-61. Every Canadian should be very afraid of this bill, and should write their MP to voice their concerns. If you need some info on why it’s a horrible piece of legislation, I suggest heading over to Michael Geist’s blog. He is essentially Canada’s closest thing to an expert on legal issues on the internet, and how they affect regular Canadians. There’s also a couple other blog posts outlining why this Bill doesn’t help Canadian artists. This whole issue is only the back drop for this post.

In this space I simply want to show my friends in America (OK I know only 5 people read this blog, but I can dream big) how lively the Canadian Parliament can be. By way of blogger Graham Williams, I have a video of NDP MP Charlie Angus essentially taking Jim Prentice to school over the issue of Bill C-61. This lively little piece of video shows the type of mud-slinging and sarcasm thrown across the floor on a regular basis. Let’s watch.

That’s way better than anything shown on CPAC in the US. That stuff could put a two year old hopped up on double-chocolate cappuccino ice cream to sleep. Man that’s why I love watching Canadian parliament. It’s like the US House of Representatives with a 2 drink minimum.

It’s taken a week, but I’ve finally recovered from my trip to the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In that week, while laid out on my couch I had an epiphany. I have now attended CES twice, and as a technology journalist I don’t like it. There are three main reasons for my shortly learned dislike of the event. The first and biggest reason is the sheer size of CES. The event is absolutely huge, due to its focus on far too many disconnected areas of the consumer electronics industry. The second reason is related to the first; there’s a huge amount of people at the event. Conventions like this do attract many people, but CES itself attracts people from what are once again very disconnected areas of the consumer electronics industry. Thirdly, there’s the large amount of expense that goes into attending the event. Everyone in Vegas is out to make $1, unless it’s CES week. Then they want to make $3. This doesn’t deter every Tom, Dick, and blogger from attending CES though. From Bob’s Miscellaneous Tech Blog straight up to the ivory towers of the New York Times, CES has no lack of coverage of every aspect of the event. Now I do like Vegas. The chance to visit the family, as well as touch base with my many contacts in person, is a welcome opportunity. But I’m left wondering, can’t we just bring back COMDEX, and have a North American show focused squarely on computing and IT?

CES as a show is absolutely huge. With well over 3.5 million square feet of exhibition space, one tends to cover a lot of ground in the four days the event takes place. This year alone the event took up the entire Las Vegas Convention Centre, as well as large portions of the Las Vegas Hilton and the Sands Convention Centre. This doesn’t include all the private showings booked at pretty well every hotel on The Strip. With this much spread, it makes even the most well planned out meeting schedule an exercise in organized confusion. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that much of the floor space is taken up by many things that a journalist whose main focus is computing has absolutely no professional interest in. Sure the latest flat panel TVs look pretty, and ten subwoofers put together in a car sound system that can rattle my guts from 3 metres away does tend to impress. However I’m only interested in those things personally, and have very little chance of covering them on an enthusiast computing web site. They become mere obstacles to get around on the way to my next meeting, or to see the next relevant exhibit. Even that proves difficult, as this diversification takes away exhibit space from companies like AMD and nVidia, who are rarely seen at CES to the extent that you would see a presence from Intel or Microsoft. This presents a missed opportunity; a void that could be filled by re-opening a North American computing event like COMDEX.

The crowds are another problem that the modern CES has had to bear. For the 2008 event, the Consumer Electronic Association estimated total attendance at a rather conservative 130,000 people. Walking around the show floor gave me the feeling that there were quite a few more people than this! Anyhow, this number is a result of two things. The first explanation is the simplest; CES is the biggest consumer electronics show in North America and the second biggest world wide. Product announcements are saved for this event specifically, and some companies make or break their first quarter (or their entire year) on their presence at this event. The second reason is more a little more abstract, and ties into what I mentioned before. With all the different products and sectors of the industry represented at the CES, you of course have people of all stripes from each one of those sectors rolling into town. Buyers, analysts, exhibitors, and press from the car audio market will be mixing with buyers, analysts, exhibitors, and press from home audio and video. You’ll have people from sectors like telecommunications, photography, video, and computing technology all trying to inhabit the same space. This is a huge driver of crowds. As we all try to get to our respective meetings and interviews, we bump into each other both figuratively and literally. Sure the halls are somewhat segregated, but with space at a premium you still have a large degree of overlap between companies and product types. It would be far more efficient to simply have a separate event for each sector. Say a CES Car Audio show, and a CES Home Electronics show, and something like COMDEX for those of us in the computer industry.

Over-coverage is a problem for any event the size and magnitude of CES. The press flock to these events so that they can be sure to cover the latest and greatest technology in their sector of interest on the day it’s released. They also come for the fringe benefits bestowed upon members of the press by the various vendors. This makes for a great deal of coverage in every medium that is used to deliver news. Now these two factors can make the expense of attending this event worth while. I know it has been in my benefit to attend CES over the past couple of years. However, the pricing of the varied and sundry services utilized by many patrons of the event while they are in Vegas are getting to be ridiculous. Hotels double and even triple their pricing. Should you be unfortunate enough to drive your own vehicle, costs for parking your car are raised through the roof. As well food prices become rather tough to swallow. The only prices that aren’t increased are those regulated by state authorities, like liquor, gambling, and public transport. That doesn’t stop many cabbies from trying to rip off out of towners who can’t pursue to complaint process fully. Now can either the problem of over-coverage by the press or exorbitant inflation of pricing for staying in Vegas be fixed by having another conference like COMDEX? The short answer is no. Las Vegas loves these conferences. It is money in the bank for them, regardless of whatever propaganda they put out saying they loose money from lack of gambling. The press also love these conferences. They love the freebies, swag, and parties thrown for their attendance. They love being able to be the first to the front page with news from the event. However, splitting off the computing part of CES and putting it back into a dedicated show like COMDEX might give more flexibility in the pricing negotiations for both events. The smaller the event, the fewer resources there are taken up by it. This will make the people who run these Las Vegas events happy. Which might cause the purse strings to loosen a little, letting prices fall somewhat.

I’m not trying to kid myself. I actually do enjoy going to CES. I’ve gone two years in a row now, and will be returning for many more events. I like Las Vegas; it’s a blast in and of itself. The sights and sounds of this city have yet to bore me. Leaving Edmonton in the middle of the January deep freeze only increases my enjoyment of Vegas. I also enjoy the benefits of being a member of the press at an event like CES. During the day, the huge amount of access I have to vendors and their products on the show floor satiate my gadget geek appetites far more than simply surfing about looking at coverage from home. As for the night, the many parties thrown for press and VIP guests ensure I always have something to do, or someone to meet and network with. I’ve actually been quoted as saying that if I came to Vegas for a week and CES wasn’t going on, I wouldn’t a have a clue of what to do. Now while I like attending CES, I’m not a big fan of the event itself. The problems have now been made clear. It goes without saying that a void was created with the fall of COMDEX. Even if it were to return, the problems of over-coverage and inflation in pricing may not disappear. That being said, the desire to have a North American outlet to showcase North American computing technology has forced the computing industry to CES, which in turn has forced CES to expand. This has also drawn in, and added to the already massive crowd, the entirety of the computing industry. This includes buyers, vendors, exhibitors, and of course press. With all this physical and corporeal expansion, the event has become too crowded and has taken over Las Vegas. The case for a return of COMDEX, or an equivalent to take its place, has never been stronger. Is it a viable market to warrant a separate show? Yes. Can it draw the crowds? Doubly yes. I think it’s time we brought back COMDEX.

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