Crave

(Credit: Peter Endig)

Don't be scared. In the photo above, it's just workers putting up gargantuan ads ahead of Europe's largest computer games trade fair, the Games Convention. The annual GC will be held at the trade fair center in Leipzig, Germany, from Wednesday through Sunday.

The show is essentially the European version of E3 (before that giant game show scaled way down). Last year, some 500 exhibitors from 28 countries converged on Leipzig to show the public their games and game-related products. The event drew more than 180,000 visitors. CNET News' sister site GameSpot will be covering the GC this year, so be sure to head over there to see what's going on.

Update 11:55 a.m. PDT: Webware associate editor Josh Lowensohn originally identified the grumpy guy staring out from the poster as Marcus Phoenix from the Gears of War series. However, due to the guidance of a wise reader, he now believes it to be Tychus Findlay from StarCraft 2 and excuses his error by saying, "Starcraft doesn't have chainsaw guns."

The only "Philips" you'll see at CES 2009 will be at the Funai booth.

(Credit: CNET)

Philips will not be exhibiting at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. The Philips brand, however, will still be on display at the Las Vegas Convention Center, thanks to the expanded presence of Funai--the Japanese company that will be producing TVs sold in North America under the Philips name starting later this year.

A Philips representative confirmed to CNET that the Dutch electronics giant will not have a presence on the show floor at the mammoth Las Vegas trade show, verifying rumors that had surfaced earlier this year.

Traditionally, the Consumer Electronics Association's massive January event is used by industry stalwarts to highlight emerging trends and key products that will be introduced over the course of the subsequent year and beyond. Philips' exit from that high-profile showcase comes in the wake of its recent announcement that it's outsourcing TV production to Funai for Philips- and Magnavox-branded sets sold in the North American market.

Indeed, Funai is doing its part to fill the void left by Philips' exit from the show. A spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association, the industry group that runs CES, had this to say:

Philips has been a pioneer in the consumer technology industry, and a well-known brand for consumers in the U.S. and around the world. The recent license agreement between Philips and Funai was a strategic business decision between two consumer technology companies. CEA respects the strategic decisions that all of our 2,700 exhibitors make regarding their business model and the International CES. We look forward to welcoming the Philips brand back to the 2009 CES in a new way, through its partnership with Funai, which has significantly increased exhibit space for the 2009 show to approximately 10,000 net square feet.

Keep in mind that 10,000 square feet may sound like a lot, but it's small potatoes compared with the megabooths that house major manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, and--up through last year--Philips.

While not having to pay for all that space on the show floor will undoubtedly save Philips considerable expense, it will also mean forfeiting the publicity and intangible buzz that comes from being at the center of the industry's biggest annual event. Just last year, for instance, the company snagged the Best of CES award for its energy-efficient Eco TV (though its admittedly impressive low power consumption couldn't overshadow the middling picture quality evident when we reviewed the final product).

The company could still use the show as a springboard for new product announcements, however: it's all but certain Philips will still have some personnel on hand at CES for meetings with journalists, analysts, retailers, and other industry insiders. And plenty of CES no-shows still crank out the press releases during that week--with the seemingly endless list of gadget blogs and tech sites covering the show, all a company really needs is a product photo and a descriptive blurb to get some virtual ink.

To be sure, skipping CES doesn't necessarily confine a company to also-ran status. Nintendo and Apple, two of the hottest names in the industry, have long since spurned the Vegas show. Likewise, Onkyo and Yamaha have opted out in recent years. Furthermore, Philips is quick to point out that the company is still producing, selling, and marketing all of its own non-TV products for North America. And it will continue to produce TVs for other global territories--most notably Europe--where its brand remains stronger.

Still, when one considers that Funai already produces electronics that are sold under the labels Sylvania and Emerson, you have to wonder: is Philips on the road to joining those once hoary companies as a ghost brand--a holding company that just licenses its Western name to give better brand cachet on store shelves to an anonymous Asian manufacturer? Maybe, maybe not. But skipping the world's biggest consumer electronics show doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

What do you think: Is the Philips brand in decline? Does Philips' no-show mean CES is losing some of its luster as the consumer electronics industry's ultimate sneak preview? Or is this just more "inside baseball" industry gossip that will have little impact on the future of consumer electronics? Share your thoughts below.

If you're the kind of person for whom every year is centered around Burning Man, then there's a certain problem you have with the calendar: you can't go to other Labor Day weekend events.

Not that I would know anything about this, of course, because I only go to Burning Man some years, and it's only coincidence that it's happened 10 years in a row.

But anyway, I noticed today that there's going to be a great Lego fan festival in Washington, D.C., next year, called BrickFair. "Fantastic," I thought, as I love attending Lego events.

And, then, sadly, I noticed that it was scheduled for Labor Day weekend. Sigh.

It turns out that there are always so many great, geek-friendly events planned all over the country during that weekend, and if you're a burner, you can't go to any of them. The same is true if something is scheduled immediately before or after Burning Man.

I think to myself any time I come across one of these things, "What were these people thinking? Don't they know that means that burners can't go?"

Well, I suppose the reality is that there is a whole world outside of Burning Man, and that there are even a few geeks who don't go, or at least who don't go every year, but who still want to do something fun that weekend.

Who knew?

Still, as someone who regularly finds myself in the sad position of having to skip one great event after another in order to go to Nevada's Black Rock desert, I'd really like to urge the folks organizing these gatherings to consider the calendar.

I mean, already from what I gather, we've managed to convince the organizers of at least two events I can think of, the Austin Game Developers Conference and the Second Life Community Convention, to move to different places on the calendar.

That wasn't that hard, right? Who's next?

On Tuesday night at an event space across the street from the Jacob Javits Convention Center, DigitalLife convention parent company Ziff Davis Media held its press kickoff event, but it might as well have been a Guitar Hero III party.

Members of the media could obtain their semi-coveted credentials; New York City technology commissioner Paul Cosgrave gave a brief talk officially designating September 24 to 30 as "Digital Technology Week"; and a set of "Hot Five" featured products--Trend Micro's Internet Security Pro, electronic music company M-Audio, the HD DVD Alliance, the Ford Sync voice-activated in-car entertainment system (a project in conjunction with Microsoft), and the latest Guitar Hero video game title from Red Octane--were given the opportunity to show off their wares before the actual convention started.

That was key. At an event with 60,000 expected attendees, many of the 200-plus Digital Life exhibitors would jump at the chance to show off a piece of hardware or software for a few dozen journalists and analysts in advance.

Cosgrave, however, was all about business. Apologizing for the presence of a whole host of other conventions clogging the city's streets, Cosgrave quickly admitted that "the U.N. (General Assembly) kind of preempted us," and instead chose to focus on a few municipal initiatives that he considered highlights of the city's role as a technological innovator: the 311 non-emergency hotline, the NYC TV media initiative, and the current plan to wire the New York subway system with cell phone access.

He then shifted his discussion to online security, an understandable topic for a government mouthpiece. "With that role (as a digital hub) comes a responsibility," he explained, "and that responsibility is in the form of cyber safety."

The first, and longest-winded "Hot Five" company representative to speak was Trend Micro North America President Lane M. Bess; the security company's new Internet Security Pro consumer software was, after all, the one that fit Cosgrave's theme of cyber-defense most closely. Trend Micro, he said, counts the New York municipal government among its clients.

Unfortunately, Bess was somewhat flustered at the lack of attention he was getting from the crowd. "There's more," he said with regard to his brief speech. "I know you want to get to that Hero Guitar thing. My son loves it!"

That just about summed up the evening. Although Red Octane's hot new game, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was only one of the companies showcased, it was clearly the one that everybody wanted to see. (The Ford Sync came in a distant second, to be fair.) Which led to not only a lack of attention toward the other "Hot" four, but also an overload of Pat Benatar's '80s hit "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on repeat as members of the press crowded in to show off their shredding skills.

The DigitalLife convention kicks off at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Is Pikachu as scary as Hello Kitty?

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)

From Friday through Sunday, the New York City Comic Convention took over Manhattan's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and Will Greenwald and I were there to brave the hordes of Star Wars cosplayers to bring you plenty of super sweet news coverage. Actually, scratch that. We get along just fine with Star Wars cosplayers. No horde-braving is necessary.

--Digital age plays villain, hero in future of comics (CNET News.com)

--Halo ActionClix and other nerd games (Crave)

--Web comics, print comics, and really really big print comics (Crave)

--More than comics at comic convention (CNET News.com)

--Photos: The best costumes at NYC ComicCon (CNET News.com)

--Photos: Anime's alive at NYC ComicCon (CNET News.com)

Pi-kaaaaa!