Korean Electronics Show 2006: Personal Experience

Today I had the privilege of attending 37th annual KES (Korean Electronics Show). The show was held at the Kintex Exhibition Center north of Seoul. The show highlights Korean and other East Asian companies cutting edge products and new technology.
On the way into the show there was a small booth on the ongoing Dokdo Island dispute. The dispute often is a flash point for conflict between Korean and Japanese nationalists. I would have kept walking but one of the girls working there was beautiful, so I stopped to sign a petition for something to do with Dokdo and a brief photo-op.
Inside the exhibition I was immediately blown away. As one of my friends described it KES 2006 was my Mecca. The largest booths where set up by Samsung, LG, BenQ, and Phillips. All of them where showcasing almost all of their current to of the line consumer electronic offerings. Here a distinction must be drawn between Korean ‘top of the line’, and North American ‘top of the line’. On cell phones Korea is approximately two years ahead of anything in North America. Average Korean homes are also starting to see home automation and robots coming into the mainstream, while in North America they remain a novelty for upper class.
Other personal highlights included playing tick tack toe on a touch screen with a cute Samsung girl, viewing every Samsung digital picture frame, and a ‘automated’ model home tour.
It was a surreal experience to view the same booths, girls, and products I had read about only days earlier. It was also an eye opening to see how limited and dry some of the coverage was on the mainstream technology sites. Much of the news was lifted from Korean news and technology sites. Little to no coverage was given by people that had actually been there and handled the products. Better coverage first hand coverage of Korean electronics is a necessity.