Getting ready to hit Los Angeles and the Electronic Entertainment Expo for the 11th time, I was inspired to peek back at photos I had taken over the years at E3. Most of these are from the years 2002-2005 -- considered the heyday of the show's over-the-top displays.
From bikini-clad women to a life-size Katamari ball, we've seen plenty of unusual things at E3 -- this year's show will have to be pretty far out there to stand out.
(Credit:
O2 Planet)
(Credit:
DEG)
After having witnessed their rise in the bacchanalian heydey of the dot-com boom, we've always had an odd fascination with oxygen bars. And yes, we admit that it probably has something to do with Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet too.
That aside, the "Entertainment Oxygen Lounge" may prove too difficult to resist even for skeptics like us. Not only does it have the requisite stress-reducing and mood-enhancing equipment, according to BornRich, but it combines that system with a massage chair. And we all know how we feel about those.
It gets even better: Add a DVD player, stereo, and high-end earphones for "audio/video therapy" to an "Aroma O2 Headset," and it's Bliss City. Come to think of it, we'll skip the oxygen and have a beer instead. Pabst Blue Ribbon, of course.
(Credit:
O2 Innovations)
Allergy season has already arrived in many places, as you might have sensed from the preponderance of red-eyed colleagues even before St. Patrick's Day arrived. And the onslaught of killer pollen might leave many wishing that they had their own oxygen supply.
O2 Innovations, however, is making this purported state of bliss a bit more accessible with the "O2B," which Chip Chick describes as a portable oxygen bar. The device still isn't cheap at $659 on Amazon, but that's still nearly half the cost of the "O2hi Personal Oxygen Machine" we saw last year.
The O2B, which bears the oh-so-California tagline of "Oxygen Is Beautiful," comes with its own headset, 12 mouthpiece filters, and 5 nose hoses, which we hope aren't as uncomfortable as they sound. But if they really want to distance their product from the pack, we'd recommend a mask so customers can do their best Dennis Hopper impersonations from Blue Velvet.
I stumbled onto this booth and was immediately enchanted by the Escher meets Bruegel imagery and cardboard castle look. What could it be? There was no name on the outside, so you had to go in to find out. Hmm, sneaky...
Ah, of course, it's those whacky people from Crumpler, who make camera bags with names like Six Million Dollar Home. So the outside continues their irreverent and (apparently) random approach to branding themselves. But if you do random consistently and rigorously, it somehow comes together.
By the way, if you look closely at the outside you'll see the Crumpler logo, as well as James Bond's white Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me.
I'm a sucker for good show booths. Yesterday I got to sneak a peek at Google's Macworld booth while folks were still setting up, and wasn't sure what to expect in the way of new stuff. Today (to my surprise) the Mountain View-based company had one of the most jam-packed booths despite the lack of any new service offerings. What was the big-ticket item, though? The swag, and to be more specific--the Google swag scavenger hunt.
Google was offering four tiers of swag for expo-goers: Cub Scout-style merit badges, a rubbery grip pad for any portable device, some colored tube socks (not the cool YouTube ones from D5), and a pair of black flip flops with the Google logo on the top.
The setup rallied four stations showcasing Google's various product offerings, including Google Earth and Maps, the recently updated iPhone mobile service, and applications for OS X like Google Desktop, Picasa, and Sketchup, which had been showcased at last year's expo. At each station event-goers had to talk to a Google rep about the service in question to get the hallowed red Google stamp of approval. For each stamp you got on your card, you'd get to graduate to a higher level of swag, or get multiples of the lower tiered items.
Here are some shots from the booth. Let's start with some of the stations:
Google's 'Geo' station was just a showcase of its Maps and Earth products, neither of which received any sort of update today besides the mapping add-ons given to iPhone and iPod Touch users.
(Credit: CNET Networks)... Read more
The ubiquity of the cell phone has finally prompted AT&T to pull out of the pay-phone business, the company announced on Monday. By the end of 2008, AT&T says, it will have exited the business completely.
The nation's No. 1 wireless-network operator, AT&T says it expects independent operators to pick up service contracts on its pay phones, which, over the past 10 years, have shrunk in number to about 1 million nationwide from 2.6 million.
For some local operators, AT&T's exit could be good news because, in a few cities, at least, pay phones still generate revenue--though not necessarily from calls. As noted in a New York Times article published in August, New York's still-abundant pay-phone kiosks generate considerable cash from advertising, and the city gets a hefty share of it.
Since 2001, pay-phone revenues from ads have exceeded revenues from calls, of which the city gets a 10 percent cut. The city gets a bigger cut--26 percent--of the ad money. Last year, the article noted, the city took in $13.7 million of the $62 million in annual revenue from ads posted on the kiosks.
(Credit:
Wooster Collective)
I don't think I really need to stress that sharks are pretty hot right now on Crave. That's why we're loving this piece of street art photographed in the Russian city of Petrozavodsk--a telephone booth decorated to look like a hungry shark that wants to eat you for a tasty snack. Jabberjaw would be proud.
Unfortunately, telephone booths here in the States don't tend to be designed in that cool shape that accommodates shark-ifying so well. Besides, when was the last time you actually used one?
(Via Wooster Collective)
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