I cut a longer version of the Gadget Show Live video, this time from scratch, with a Garage Band tune form loops and some sound effects. Going through it was a good memory jogger if nothing else. It also makes me appreciate even more what the pro’s do on The Cool Stuff Collective.

The show day I went to was press/professional day so it was probably a more subdued affair that then the 20,000 people per day paying public days. For a start the arena show was off bounds as the guys were rehearsing. So no crossing of gadget and games show streams there then.
When I arrived I went straight to the back of the hall and found the UK computer museum, they had a huge stand for each decade and lots of that is in the video above.
There were a lot of 3D TV’s and laptops mostly with glasses. The Nvidia stand had a huge 101 inch 3d TV playing Crysis 2 on a high end PC and it was VERY impressive. The LG 3d projector show was good too though it was more for the pure quality of the picture than the 3D effect which seemed somewhat subtle as they played the Tron light cycle scene.
Elonex were in full force, and had huge number of tablets and e-readers. For a Uk company they are right up there in the rankings getting more market share than many of the major electronic giants.
The vehicle test tracks were great, lots of electric bikes and scooters. The TP Scoot was particularly impressive. Very stable, and very fast and road legal. I skipped going on the Segways as already done that 🙂 funs as they are they are of no use here as they are not street legal. WE had a go on a smaller electric scooter that was only £100 and that was fun too but the TP was my favourite.
Sugru we are the show and it was great to see them there, the hack anything putty was getting lots of attention over near the future tech section.
In future tech (4 small stands by one wall) there was laser object capture, robot guitar hero player, a working 3d printer, Neurosky and some robotic kits. The commercial stuff is great but they could do with a much bigger future tech section. I guess thats what the wired nextfests are for though 🙂
In the gaming zone, for some reason, people had to queue to enter the 3DS zone. Matt did point out that we were wasting time queuing as I already had one , had been to the launch party and we had had it on the show. So in dipping out of the queue I managed to rip my trousers. Not very rock and roll, but it was funny. It somewhat restricted my movements but luckily the badges we had all had safety pins so I risked it and pinned what I could back in place.
When we found the new games section where gears of war 3 was running and duke nukem I had to take a phone call about sorting out an Opensim server that was having a few issues. So I stood there looking at Gears of War 3 (awesome!), talking about Opensim and rebooting a remote machine via my iphone, wearing my TV g33k tshirt with the crotch of my trousers held together with pins. It was, not to put to fine a point on it, a surreal moment. Ninty you owe me some trousers!
Game had a big store in the game zone, they had pretyy much everything at full price, just a couple of pounds off Crysis 2. That seemed a bit of a pity, though saved me spending any money.
There were a lot of motion gaming chairs at the show, which looked very expensive. One of the more interesting cockpit versions though featured a projected dome. to give a 180 degree view from a regular project source, using a convex mirror. That in 3D would be awesome though complicated.
The paintball experts at http://www.nationalpaintballfields.com/ were great to talk too. They have a great lazer tag system (as in the video) and also they run kids games using foam non exploding pellets (like a fancy Nerf). Though they showed a whistling sniper bullet for regular paintball that was very cool and their custom markers were stunning. 25 rounds per minute, precise control.
It was odd seeing Flip on the Cisco stand on the day that Cisco closed the doors on the poor little thing. I am sure they are getting some flack today!
I was looking forward to the Vuzix AR glasses, but they were there but not working when I popped in.
There was a very strange couple of stands for some wrist band that is like an acupuncture pressure band, but with a “hologram” on it instead. This was just odd.
The venue was certainly full enough of some amazing kit, though equally if you pay attention to gadgets and hang around in best buy and read the tech press it was probably less surprising, but still well worth the trip.