January 5th, 2006
Sony CES keynote: A DaVinci Code promotion
Engadget has the play-by-play of the Sony CEO Howard Stringer’s CES keynote, which highlighted Blu-ray, Sony’s eBook, HD programming and Digital Cinema projection. But the real star of the show was Sony’s forthcoming movie, The DaVinci Code. Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code trotted on stage to promote e-books, which he said would assist lesser known authors in getting an audience–a more frictionless distribution model. Then The DaVinci Code mega-producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard came on stage to promote Sony’s film version of the book, followed by the star of the movie, Tom Hanks, who gave a humorous telepromter line reader. As Engadget’s Paul Boutin said, "They’re pimping the movie." On the tech side, Michael Dell was called upon to pimp the Blue-ray disc format.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
