i will be heading to CES on Jan 10 and i have confirmed appointments with:

AMD
Diamond
EVGA
Genius
Intel
Kingston
Nvidia


i am also trying to arrange briefings with ASUS, ECS and maybe 2 more vendors - that is all i really have time for.

i just got an invite from Belkin; interested?
http://www.belkin.com/

... who else should i attempt to meet with there? Any interests you have for me to check out at CES for ABT? i am going to be looking at 3D and mobile products also.

I'd be trying to talk to Asrock before ECS if it were me.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way .. i don't have any contact yet with ASRock. You need an invite before you can just do a cold contact
- i will contact their PR this year after i review their z68 MB ... and i will stop by their booth, but i am talking about BRIEFINGS .. the *exclusive* kind companies do with their Trusted Media partners (behind closed doors in 1:1 meetings with me and their PR; under NDA information and product roadmaps are often given)

The ECS rep doesn't reply to me. But he keeps sending news which i am now going to ignore until i hear back personally from him. This is a very strange business of running a tech site.
-- e.g. ABT evidently is a trusted media partner with AMD CPU division but not with AMD Graphics any longer. And a lot of this is because of personality issues and misunderstandings; it's very strange for large companies that claim to want media "friends" and it is not always business (as it should be).

Squeeze any information out from Nvidia regarding Kepler. Even ask them what they think of the hd7970's performance, power draw, and ultra low-power state. I'm always curious as to what a company thinks of it's competitor's products if they are a little behind in release schedule. Ask them if/when Tegra 3 will get a die shrink to 28nm (interim solution before Wayne comes out). Ask them if Wayne's GPU is going to be more of a focus than it has been with Tegra 2 and 3.

There won't be any Kepler information at CES. And i already know what they think of the HD 7970; they must be as puzzled as we are; i doubt that they are impressed by it for a next gen part.
--i believe my meeting with Nvidia will mostly be about 3D Vision 2 and i'll try to get Tegra info too

Nix on ECS. No CES presence. Not upset with ABT.

Anything else?

Get them to say something about the hd7970. I just want to hear what they have to say "on record" about it. But yeah, any tegra information will be much appreciated. I will look into buying my first tablet next winter.

i'll ask Nvidia on one condition

Find a precedent for me that i can point to where they have commented on their competitor's products on release



I'll ask today if you can give me something to show them

what about apple? there have been rumors of an ipad 3.

If you do speak with Belkin, tell them to make better products. Any product of theirs that I've bought never ended up without a fairly large amount of aggravation.

Odd, I've never had a problem with a Belkin product.

What do you mean by aggravation?