CES: Alexa, turn the lights on
The world’s largest technology trade show, CES, plunged into darkness yesterday because of a power cut. Yes, you read that right, a show which prides itself on being at the very forefront of technology had an electrical failure. 2018 is off to a promising start.
At approximately 11:15am local time, large parts of the Las Vegas convention centre lost power. Brightly lit company booths were plunged into darkness. Hundreds of journalists found themselves in the dark. Fortunately, emergency lighting stayed on and backup batteries kept WiFi connections functioning.
According to the company’s organisers, power was restored to the South Hall within minutes. This wasn’t the case for other show areas, however. In a statement, CES said power was fully restored at 2:10pm.
The cause of the blackout? Rain.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), NV Energy and Consumer Technology Association (CTA), explained: “A preliminary assessment indicates that condensation from heavy rainfall caused a flashover on one of the facility's transformers.”
As you can probably expect, reactions from the tech media on Twitter were amusing. We’ve rounded up our favourites below.
Main photo credit: Jack Morse, Mashable
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