The Consumer Electronics Show Is a Massive Waste of Time ⇥ slate.com

Farhad Manjoo of Slate:

The fact that CES is an enormous waste of time isn’t news to tech journalists. In private, gadget reporters will tell you that covering the show is a tremendous hassle and rarely yields any interesting news. But because CES demos make for great headlines and visuals—hey look, Steve Ballmer unveiled a tablet PC even before Apple did!—and because of the sheer volume of new stuff to post about, CES is a boon for gadget blog traffic and a honeypot for advertisers. To be sure, I’m very grateful that my reporting colleagues are all out covering the show; in the unlikely event that something of consequence is announced at CES, I’ll happily scour Engadget, Gizmodo, and other sites from the comfort of my home.

CES is full of products that either:

1. You won’t ever be able to buy, or
2. You won’t ever want to buy, because you have taste.

Lots of plasticky garbage and lots of vapourware make this a wasted week.