CES 2025, DTNS Briefing, and random thoughts on the LA fires
For Monday, January 13, 2025
Hello everyone. Boy did the wheels fall off the wagon with this Substack. I got sucked into the Holiday shuffle, then right at the start of the new year, decided pretty last minute that I would actually make my way to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. I’m so happy I went, but now I have blinked and the weeks passed me by! I’ll try to keep this quick cause I have a few random, unrelated things on my mind.
Consumer Electronics Show
My attendance to CES 2025 was a bit of a last minute decision. At this early stage of the business I have to be really aware of where my money is being spent. Attending CES seemed like a great business decision from an awareness and contact-generation perspective. But the cost of booking flight, hotel, and food was a bit scary at first. Luckily I was able to secure some pretty inexpensive accommodations. Though man, I took Lyft to so many places. So it wasn’t CHEAP. But it also wasn’t what it could have been.
Overall, I was reminded of just how much of a sprawl that convention is. Being in Las Vegas makes sense, because everything is gigantic in that city. The fact that CES takes over multiple venues reminds me that for next year, I should book more than a few days at the convention. There’s simply too much for one person to cover. I make no illusions that I can cover it all, but I do think I could do a better job of prioritizing my time there.
Ahead of CES, I focused on booking up most of my time with interviews and booth visits which, on its surface, isn’t a horrible idea. The problem is that I didn’t do a great job clustering them together in the same physical space. This meant transportation time and cost. Thankfully, I made (almost) every appointment. But scheduling as much as I did in advance also leaves little to no room for discovery while I’m there.
I approached my coverage through the lens of what its like to experience CES, further leaning in the vlog format that I’ve been playing around with in the past few months. Expect more from that perspective in the coming weeks in fact. Don’t miss the coverage if you haven’t seen it already! And don’t miss my Micro Center article on some of the cool Creator tech at CES 2025!
Don’t Miss Techsploder Podcast with guest Becca Farsace!
Real quick, on new years eve, I recorded a new episode of the Techsploder podcast with Becca Farsace. It’s one of my favorite episodes so far. Becca is incredibly engaging and there is much about her story that reminds me of how I broke into this industry. So just a quick nudge to check it out if you haven’t already. I also have another episode to release by the end of the month!
New Gig Alert: DTNS Briefing
I can FINALLY talk about something that has been in the works for a while now. My friend and longest mentor in podcasting, Tom Merritt, has made some changes to the way he and his team produces the incomparable Daily Tech News Show podcast. To distill it down as simply as I can:
Daily Tech News Show will now become three separate shows, each offering a different way to get your daily tech news:
(From Tom’s Substack):
Daily Tech Headlines - Remains unchanged. 5 minutes of tech news Monday-Friday
Daily Tech News Show Briefing - Less than 30 minutes, focused on analysis and explanation, hosted by myself and Jason Howell with help from Robb Dunewood, Huyen Tue Dao, and Jenn Cutter.
Daily Tech News Show LIVE - The DTNS you’ve come to love slightly expanded and with more emphasis on the discussions. Hosted by Sarah, me, Roger, and team just like always.
Notice my name there in the Daily Tech News Show Briefing blurb. That’s because I’m joining the DTNS Briefing team! I will be writing and hosting along with another co-host every Tuesday and Thursday morning! I will also fill in when others can’t make it, as my schedule allows.
I’m THRILLED to sync up with the DTNS team. It really is in many ways like coming home to something very familiar. It also keeps me in regular exposure to the daily tech news which is something I haven’t had since leaving TWiT a year ago. I just love the gang I’m working with. And also, I have to say, it’s kind of refreshing to record a podcast that is audio only and not live. I love my live video podcasts, but its a nice change of pace.
So don’t miss it!
Los Angeles Fires
Finally, not to end on a down note, but I do want to mention that the devastating fires in Los Angeles have been on my mind like they have so many of you, I’m sure. Many people I care about live in the area, and I’m not entirely sure who has been directly impacted and who hasn’t at this point. They are certainly not out of the woods yet, which keeps them lodged in my mind.
It’s all very surreal in a way. It reminds me of the Santa Rosa fires of 2017 that destroyed a large part of that city. At one point during that horrific event, we saw how the projected path of winds were blowing in Petaluma’s direction and were cautioned to have our go bags packed and ready. The weekend was approaching and we couldn’t bare to just sit around and see if it would happen. So we loaded our Subaru to the gills with as much important stuff as we could manage and headed to Sacramento for the weekend to stay with friends.
Going through the house with a camera to take pictures of everything in sight and hidden was a stark reminder of how quickly everything we accumulate over our lives can be gone in a split second if we are unlucky. Choosing what we decided to put into the car was its own strangeness as we were faced with making split second decisions on whats MORE important than other stuff.
Sitting around, glued to the news as we awaited more information was also nerve wracking and traumatic. There was no such thing as relaxing. Constant edge.
I feel so badly for the people in the area who face that fear or even worse, realize their worst fear has been realized. And I’m holding out hope that those fires can be put to rest so people can get on with reclaiming their lives again.