If you compare the star quality of last year’s CES celebrity lineup to 2014’s show, CES has dropped big time in terms of star power. CES 2013 featured big name stars from Hollywood, sports, news, music, comedy and reality TV. For example, Danny DeVito, Arianna Huffington, Maroon 5, Will.i.am, Tim Tebow, Carrot Top and Snooki were all on hand for the show. Ok Snooki’s star power is debatable.
Click here to view that slideshow: Top celebrities at CES 2013
But the only upgrade this year in terms of star power was in the sports section with basketball legend and part-time actor Shaquille O’Neal over Tebow. Tebow was also there but his star power has dropped significantly since he was unable to crack an NFL line up in 2013.
Another blow to CES was the behavior of film director Michael Bay, who abruptly left the stage during a Samsung presentation because of a technical glitch. CES and Samsung people must feel embarrassed somewhat, but then again Bay is at best a C-List celebrity.
When you have to rely on retreads such as Tebow and a chess champion you know that you have some work to do for next year’s CES.
So click on the next slide to view the top rated celebrities from CES this year.
Katie and company
Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer was joined onstage at CES 2014 by former CBS Evening News and Today Show anchor Katie Couric.
Couric is a recent hire by Mayer. She provides new video features to the Web site.
What the vision? Well, Mayer said Yahoo is about making the world’s daily habits inspiring and entertaining, and there are few places as inspiring and entertaining as CES. “We have been hard at work re-imagining Yahoo’s core businesses across search, communications, media and video – all powered by two powerful platforms, Flickr and Tumblr. The response has been tremendous. This fall, for the first time ever, we surpassed 400 million monthly mobile users, which is about half of our 800 million total monthly users.”
Monster Cable Products has been notorious for its celebrities at CES and this year was no exception. The audio and speaker vendor consistently brings A-list celebrities to CES. In 2014 the company introduced four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal. O’Neal, who once said “I’ve succeeded at every level, except high school and college” was the star attraction at Monster’s press conference at the Mandalay Bay.
This is what Shaq had to say: “In sports size was always an advantage for me. In the world of technology though, the opposite holds true. I always can carry my small, sleek Monster PowerCard Turbo with me everywhere I go, making sure I remain connected all day, every day.”
This reminded me of another famous Shaq quote: “I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.”
Last year Rap star 50 Cent, also known as Curtis Jackson, came by the SMS Audio booth to talk about style, fashion, and functionality of sound. This year 50 Cent came to the SMS Audio booth to sign autographs and talk about technology, function, fashion and style.
Despite signing a multi-year deal with the sports network ESPN to talk about U.S. college football, Tim Tebow still wants to pursue his quarterback career. Seemingly not interested in trying out for a CFL team, Tebow ventured back to CES this year to be part of the Soul Electronics press conference. Tebow did the same thing last year at CES. But this year he brought a friend: mixed martial art fighter Brendan Schaub.
Both Tim Tebow and Brendan Schaub did not stay long at CES and I wonder if the thought of confronting mixed martial art champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson had anything to do with it? The former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Jackson had a knack of knocking out opponents in the first round. Jackson visited the Trident Case booth the 2014 CES.
As part of the Nordic Semiconductor team, World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen played 20 simultaneous games with amateur players at CES. Carlsen is currently the World`s No. 1 chess player and the amateurs were no match.
Carlsen was also part of Nordic’s press conference where the company announced an armband-based RF remote control that can monitor your heart rate.
Three Legends Football League (LFL) stars Danika Brace (pictured), Carmen Bourseau and Cynthia Schmidt, who play for the Las Vegas Sin in the women’s professional football league — it used to be known as the Lingerie Football League — brought a lot of attention to CES exhibitor NetRange.
The company, based in Germany, launched a new LFL Smart TV app in collaboration with the league.
