This morning you can see the entire presentation at http://www.polaroid.com/en/stream so I'll just include some stills.
CEO Bobby Sager and Lady Gaga opening at the CES, Vegas, 6 January 2011
Gaga's sunglasses which also take photos
Gaga taking a photo of the audience with her non-Polaroid camera phone.
She's saying, "Smile, you're so f**king famous." What? [How long will it take to remove that from the video?]
When they got around to taking the wraps off the much hyped GL30 camera,
Gaga says to Bobby, "Ooh, don't drop it!"
After twelve mostly awkward minutes, Gaga wraps with "I guess we're done."
During the 45 minute wait from 6:30 to 7:15 PM (EST) there were comments from viewers all over the globe. I caught a few in English:
"WTF?" There were many of these.
"All I hear is ugly elevator music"
"This is BS"
"LOL"
And, of course, "Hurry up"
Now let's look at the products --
This was the only product that was demonstrated. It spit out a color photo taken with Gaga's non-Polaroid camera phone. She explained that it would not work with an iPhone.
These are the sunglasses that were promised to take photos. They were not demonstrated.
This is the camera that all the prior tease was about. It was not demonstrated. The promised date was end of this year in time for Christmas. No mention of price. From a design point of view, it has the grace and beauty of an old Ford tri motor prop plane of the late 1920s.
Yes, I will admit to being an old curmudgeon, but I knew Edwin Land and Bill McCune, and somehow I can't imagine them in such a situation. Nor would they have tolerated such language from Gaga, who thanked Polaroid for letting her "design this sh*t myself."
In my 28 years of being involved with the real Polaroid, I can't imagine Land or McCune signing off on an important introduction such as this with two new products that weren't operative.
But this is now and that was Vegas.
Images courtesy Polaroid Corporation.
