Smartphone Thoughts: My CES Experience: Part 2

So, off to ShowStoppers. As I worked my way around the floor, I had some great talks with Lenovo, Howard Chui (no, he wasn't in a booth at the show, but I did bump into him as I worked my way around the floor), Kingston, Skype, Corsair, THX, and so many more.

There was no shortage of gadgetry at this event, however most of it wasn't really mobility focused. There as lots of cool things - like the new THX system for your car! Or the ultra large capacity memory cards from Corsair. The coolest mobility related gadget was the Skype phone. I'm not sure how many of you have heard about or even seen one of these devices. Skype has managed to get a carrier in Europe to buy into this device and it should be available soon (if not already). The phone works over the data network to allow you to call your Skype contacts from anywhere. But it's not just good for Skype calls, you can also make real calls to real land-lines or other cellular customers. The phone is pretty small and should sell for around $50 with a plan. Now, the guy in the Skype booth was telling me that Skype usage doesn't count towards your data use or your minute use on the device. I'm not sure what the carrier gets out of this arrangement. But I like the looks of things.

From ShowStoppers it was off to the Microsoft Community dinner at Roy's. This was an invite only event and while there was some of us from the mobile side of things, there was also a number of other people from other communities in attendance - HardwareGeeks, TheDigitalLifestyle, NeoWin, and more. Most notably, at least for me, was the attendance of Brad Wardell from Stardock. I've been using Stardock software from the very early years when they only made applications for OS2. It was pretty cool to finally meet Brad and have a chance to talk with him. (I know, I must sound like a groupie or something, eh?) My only regret with Microsoft's Community dinner is that there wasn't enough time to mingle and chat with everyone in the room. It's not that there was too many people, just that there wasn't the time between arriving and eating.

And so ends part 2 of my CES experiences. Watch for the third and final part coming soon!