Want to up your tech game? Is it time to get yourself a new gadget? (let’s be real — it’s always time for a new toy!) Lucky for you, HC Co-founder Annie Wang is doing some roving reporting for Windows at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 in Las Vegas and has the scoop on what’s hot in tech for collegiettes™ like you right now — take a look, and be sure to check back as we update this live blog! (By the way, we weren’t paid to highlight any of this…these are really our personal top picks!)
First up, notebooks! We got a chance to talk to the makers of some of the sleekest new PC’s in the market today and let us emphasize: these are all pure eye candy in addition to being powerful machines and ultra portable. Our faves are the Asus ZENBOOK (less than 1 cm at its thickest point!) and the Samsung Series 9 (um, a rose gold, crystal embellished edition?! What is this, a laptop made for the Her Campus office or something?!)
Here’s a recap video of Annie’s first day at CES!
Next, since we were sent to CES by Windows (thanks guys!), we got to spend a lot of time in the Microsoft booth learning about what’s new in phones, gaming, email, and more. As many of you are purchasing smartphones and laptops for the first time, we thought we’d give you a couple insights we’ve gleaned from the Microsoft perspective to help you with your all-important burning questions: Mac or PC? iPhone, Android, or Windows Phone?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote on Monday emphasized for us that that there are two different philosophies being championed by Microsoft versus its competitors. For phones, it’s a distinction between a heavily integrated experience versus an app-based experience. Whereas iPhone and Android users typically focus on the number of available apps (“There’s an app for that”) and what can be done with individual apps, Windows Phones are more about providing an integrated experience where you don’t necessarily need to open an app (or two, or three) to accomplish a task you care about. For example, the “people hub” on a Windows Phone shows you a sortable, filterable list of updates from across all your integrated social networks, be it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
A huge focus now and in the future for Windows is the Metro user interface, which debuted on Windows Phones and now exists on Xbox and upcoming Windows 8 machines as well. Here’s what the radically new design looks like on the new Nokia Lumia 900, with its prominent “live tile” buttons displaying constantly updating content.
You’re going to start seeing the Metro interface more and more as it gets incorporated into the design of Windows 8 (a beta version available for download is coming in late February 2012) and Xbox (since the most recent release last month)! Here’s what Windows 8 looks like right now on the prototypes we were able to see at CES.
If it isn’t hitting-you-over-the-head obvious, it looks super different from what we’re typically accustomed to from Windows. The experience is a full-screen one, with no minimize/maximize/close buttons and no start menu on the bottom of the screen. Instead, the new Windows 8 devices will fully harness the “potential of tablets with the power of PC’s” and will work with touch, mouse, and keyboard-based navigation. And again, it’s a very integrated experience; a new Share feature will be hardcoded into the operating system, allowing for quick, easy,built-in sharing from within any app. That’s just the tip of the iceberg with what’s coming in Windows 8, but from what we’ve seen (and swiped and pinched), it’s going to be absolutely revolutionary! Be sure to check for the downloadable beta version of Windows 8 coming in late February 2012.
Here’s a recap video of Day 2 of CES, in which Annie interviews Microsoft’s Skype and Hotmail teams, as well as talks to a representative from Sony.
Of course, a Her Campus recap of CES would be incomplete without a mention of the fact that Justin Bieber (yes, the very one!) made an appearance at an unveiling of TOSY dancing robots! By the time we finished interviewing Sony, the crowd was already so massive we couldn’t manage a sighting ofthe Biebs. Too bad, but hopefully this video we found will make up for it!
A few other highlights in photos:
Motorola had people running and cycling in their booth all day to show off their newest fitness gadgets, including the MOTOACTV — a smart music player and fitness tracker packed into a tiny touchscreen device that you wear like a watch!
Microsoft’s booth featured the gorgeous, award-winning creation of two ladies from Microsoft Research — an interactive dress made entirely of paper that allows you to literally “wear what you tweet!” How’s that for wearing your heart on your sleeve?!
Big thanks again to Windows for putting us up in Las Vegas for CES 2012. We had a blast!