The Top Seven Weird Things To Spot At CES 2012

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Well folks, this is it. Today is the last day of the 2012 CES event, and we’ve seen a lot. No, really, a lot. We wrote about a ton of it and there was plenty we plain old couldn’t get to. And as such, I took the opportunity, as I generally do on Fridays, to put together a little list. There were some parts of CES that were just plain old too crazy to not take special notice of, and once I started doing the math, such as it was, there were about seven things that really caught my attention. And that’s what I’ve got in store for you today, the Top Seven Weird Things To Spot At CES 2012.

7. Snooki

I know, that sounds like the weirdest non-sequitur ever. In fact, to more than a few of you, that probably sounds like some kind of nonsense word I made up.  But that wasn’t the case.  Not in the least.  Apparently, the Jersey Shore star–Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi–was spotted out at one of the booths, promoting a line of headphones known as the iHip brand.  And while that by itself wouldn’t be so strange, the fact that you could actually say “I saw Snooki at the 2012 CES event” was weird enough for just about anybody. But this is only where the weirdness begins, not at all where it ends.

6. The Flu Card Pro

Of all the things to name an eight gig SDHC card with wi-fi functionality, naming it after a fatal disease is probably lowest on the list of possibilities. And the worst part of it is, the device itself isn’t half bad. It’s still an eight gig card with wi-fi capabilities, and that’s a solid piece of equipment. It works with a variety of devices, giving it plenty of versatility, but it’s impossible to get past that horrible, horrible name.

5. Minimal Pricing Data

I went through a lot of reports coming off the show floor, and a disturbingly large proportion of them, especially early in the week, came out without pricing and release data. Now, you’d think that companies that were bringing products out for launch would be falling all over themselves to put out as much information as possible, but that didn’t seem to be the case, at least not with the items I came across. It’s not that some things weren’t priced, but it’s that many of them weren’t. Why not take the opportunity to put up all the information you can about a product at the biggest show there is?

4. The iPhone Bottle Opener

Now this was just plain old weird, folks. Seems that the folks at Headcase wanted to make an iPhone 4S case. Nothing weird there so much, unless you want to wonder why anyone would walk into an already sublimely crowded marketplace and say “Me too!”. But the Headcase case represents something downright bizarre, as you’ve already surmised from the bullet point. It’s the first ever–that I’ve ever seen–that will serve as a bottle opener. Apparently they’ve built up a module on the back side of the case, such that when you go to open a bottle, you can slip the opener on the cap and pull it back, then enjoy your freshly opened drink.

3. Intel’s Racing Demo

The year of the Ultrabook is how most people are understanding 2012 this year. So it really wasn’t much of a surprise to see Intel out demonstrating part of their Ultrabook lineup. But when Intel’s Mooley Eden took the stage and started playing a game, something went wildly out of phase. It was discovered that he hadn’t been playing a game at all, but rather running a video file and pretending to game. If you’re thinking Milli Vanilli right now, rest assured that you’re not alone. But it’s a black eye for Intel and easily one of the strangest things at the show.

2. The Last Very Awkward Microsoft Keynote

I said that Intel’s racing demo was easily one of the strangest parts of the 2012 CES event, but that didn’t quite match the sheer weird that was Microsoft’s final CES keynote address. It was hard to tell just what was the weirdest part of the event, but between Steve Ballmer’s…unusual…interaction with moderator Ryan Seacrest, the fact that they brought in Ryan Seacrest in the first place, and then Microsoft’s bizarre tweet choir, the phrase “off the rails” really only begins to describe it. And that kind of sheer concentrated weird can only really be topped by one thing. And that one thing is directly below.

1. Two Words: Live Kangaroos

I’m a Dish Network subscriber. Have been for some time now. And frankly, I like Dish Network pretty well indeed. But even though I’ve got years of time with them and many, many great times, even I thought they’d lost it when they brought that kangaroo out on stage. Okay, sure, it was to promote their new line of hardware, which was appropriately named Joey (the TV tuner, Hopper the DVR seemed to be restrained to mascot form), but it’s one thing to name your hardware after kangaroos. It’s one thing to use cartoon kangaroos to promote your hardware. It’s another thing entirely to go on stage at the biggest tech expo known to mankind with live kangaroos in tow.

And so, that’s a rundown of the top seven chunks of pure on strangeness to emerge out of the 2012 CES event. There was a lot going on–between the amazing tech, the exciting news, and the plain old weird, it was clear the thing was stuffed full of news–and we were there for the lot of it. And by extension, so were you. But maybe I’m off base here. Maybe some of my weird just wasn’t really that weird. And maybe I missed some weird that I should have mentioned. So I’ll open the floor up for you guys–just head on down to the comments section below and tell us what you thought about the strangest moments at CES 2012!

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