A word about Crocs

Crocs, one of my favorite shoe brands. Not the "clogs"...hate them. But, luckily, Crocs has a vast collection of styles.
Better yet, they are made in such a way that my back, tender as it is, does best in them.
But, I'm not here to tell you how much I enjoy them, but to tell you what I've learned from my latest shopping trip.
While in Maine and driving through the shopping area of Kittery, I spotted a Crocs store. Wow...nothing but Crocs!!! This being an outlet area, the shoes were also all at great sale prices.
Bins and bins of shoes.
While going through the bins and trying on numerous pairs, I chatted with the gal in charge since I was the only shopper there on an awful rainy day. When she asked what size I was looking for I mentioned that I wasn't really sure because it turns out that I've purchased them in two different sizes before. At that point she told me that she herself buys in 3 sizes. Wow...how could that be I wondered.
She told me that the sizes all depends on where exactly the shoes are made. Seems the company has them made in numerous different countries, all of which have varied reasons for the size difference...right down to the weather in that country!!! Who knew!!
I then mentioned that even though the sales were pretty good at the store, I've actually purchased for less at the online Crocs site.
This didn't surprise her
at all and admitted that they often sell for much less. She agreed that this is putting shops out of business and feels that this is the end goal.
Problem with this?? Yes.
As she explained about the sizes and countries, she said that when buying them online, you do not know where they come from...so if there is one country that makes your size consistently right for you, you won't be sure that you'll get one from there. Could be the same size but not fit at all.
After hearing this I had to agree that buying in person where you could try them on was indeed the best way to get the right fit.
After spending far too much time here and finally picking out two new pairs, I was quite impress to see this sales person actually check online for the ones I picked out to see if I could actually purchase them at a lower price from the site. Wow...nice customer service.
I purchased both pairs from her!
Crocs....don't go putting your shops out of business. I, for one, loved being able to try them on.
If you do end up becoming "only" online...please do your customers a favor..."list the country" for where each pair is made, and make sure those are the one's you send in the order.
See...that won't be half as easy as you think.

Reality augmented

Back from the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) for just over a week now, I can say that I accomplished seeing some of the specific types of new and great ideas & products I had hoped to see.

One of these things had been "virtual reality", but, while I enjoyed getting some time with VR, I hadn't even heard of what really left me speechless. Augmented reality. AR wasn't even on my radar, but Wow, it left an impact.
Before this day I hadn't even heard of augmented reality, let alone see it. In fact, I almost walked right by this booth at the show. I mean, all that was there was a book on a table and a phone propped up in front of it.
Still not sure what made me look other than the idea that there must be more than met the eye since everything else around me was larger than life.
I was right.
The person tending the display motioned to me to look into the phone screen after they demonstrated that the dinosaur book laying there was indeed a simple book.
As I watched the person turn the page, through the screen on the phone (as if the screen were simply a piece of clear glass) I saw movement.
The person picked up the phone and tilted it and I watched as the dinosaurs suddenly came alive.
Without any visible aid, the pterodactyl on the page sat up, spread it's wings, and suddenly began to fly. Yes, fly, right off the book!!! The person holding the phone simply followed along watching it as it flew. A thing of note...everything behind the flying pterodactyl was exactly what I was looking at. The entire room in real time. Eventually the pterodactyl flew back onto the page.

Yes, I was still completely at a lack for words.

I was shown a couple more pages where dinosaurs suddenly started walking around the page and off the edges.
In the last page I watched even as a couple of trees stood off the surface of the page and the dinosaur started eating from them.
Taking the camera at the end of the short third video, I put it around to the back of the phone screen to show that there was indeed nothing but a flat book opened to the dino page.

All I can say is, as fun as some of the virtual reality was, there is something to be said for all this amazing fun and mind blowing visual to be going on in front of you without the aid of all those big heavy headsets and eye gear.
It's a bonus to see these things happening in front of you without the weight of all that gear as well as the ability to still look around at your surroundings and not be enclosed in a dark world all you own.
Given the choice, right now, this has my vote.

I imagine at some point there may be a combo VR & AR in our future!

Behind the Scenes at CES

I'm just back from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas.
While I had originally intended to write here "during" the show, I found that the whole thing was so incredibly vast, that it was all I could do to find time to see what I could see. I also misled myself thinking that I could actually do everything I needed to on one of two tablets I took with me instead of taking my laptop. Not true. While one table decided to act up and not play fair, the other simply didn't have the functionality I needed to work. So, here we are.
I arrived in Vegas with my daughter (who is the one actually in the industry, and my key to going) several days ahead of the show. This gave me an insight into the work and structure of the "building of the CES".

So very much goes into all those amazing displays that look inviting and effortless by the start of the show. In actuality, there are people and machines scrambling everywhere and into all hours for days on end to make it happen. Thankfully, the booth that we had to get set up for Robotic Trends was rather small and simple in comparison and even that took a couple of days. The devil is always in the details!!
Yes, I will go into giving you pictures, thoughts, and write-ups on what I saw there, but thought you just might enjoy starting with what most people never see...some behind the scene shots of the making of the show.