Getting Out of Your Own Way

Anyone who knows me in person knows that I am incapable of passing up an opportunity to make a “Dune” reference. (Which is timely right now as “Dune: Part Two” is in theaters!) I’m also incapable of passing up an opportunity to make references to the movie “Airplane!” (1980), but that’s not important right now. […]

Getting Out of Your Own Way

Award-Winning “Walk-in Sound Body” Project

It’s the Opus AVant-garde award for the Ensemble Modern for its “walk-in sound body” at the cresc — Biennale for contemporary music in Frankfurt, Germany. Now in its second year, Opus Avantgarde is given for works that go beyond the classic stage performance and depict current technological trends (or future staging trends). The jury and […]

Award-Winning “Walk-in Sound Body” Project

Retiring in the AV Industry: Advice From Someone Who’s Done it Twice

By Ron DeVoe Since I have retired from the AV industry TWICE, I have been asked to offer advice or recognition of possible fallacies in retirement enjoyment. Because ownership of an AV business requires an enormous amount of mental energy for time and resource management, goal setting and attainment, cash flow and keeping up with […]

Retiring in the AV Industry: Advice From Someone Who’s Done it Twice

The Power of Low Voltage in the Sustainability Movement

Whether you know it or not, low voltage is an important key to energy conservation now and in the future. We are seeing demand for electricity increase year over year due to the increase in high consumption electrical devices (such as electrified vehicles, heat pumps, air conditioners, on-demand water heaters and so on). Married with […]

The Power of Low Voltage in the Sustainability Movement

5 Reasons You Should Join LAVNCH WEEK 9

If you’ve been following us or reading our content for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we host a lot of virtual events. Most notably, twice per year, we host something called LAVNCH WEEK. But really, it’s a “LAVNCH four days.” Why? Because it’s four days of panels, product announcements and fireside chats that we […]

5 Reasons You Should Join LAVNCH WEEK 9

How Gaming Engines and AI are Shaping AV

In 2016 I wrote a blog called, “Why aren’t we talking about NVIDIA?” If you missed it, the general conclusion was that AI and large-scale video applications would drive NVIDIA to success well beyond gaming. When I wrote that blog in April of 2016, NVIDIA was trading at $8.50. Today, NVIDIA is at $776 with […]

How Gaming Engines and AI are Shaping AV

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Managing Complex Projects

If you’ve been in technology for any amount of time, you understand that managing a large project can be tricky to say the least. Strong project management skills are a must to create a schedule, assess dependencies, isolate lead times, organize installation crews, coordinate with other trades and keep all of this organized over the […]

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Managing Complex Projects

Sora Text-to-Video AI Changes the World: Artists Dread It, Producers Love It, Governments Both Fear and Embrace It

We all knew it was coming, but we didn’t expect it so soon. OpenAI, famous for its ChatGPT and Dall-E free-to-use AI system, unveiled a new text-to-video service to select researchers, beta testers, developers and policymakers. “Sora” generates up to one-minute videos from text prompts. You type in a sentence or two as a prompt […]

Sora Text-to-Video AI Changes the World: Artists Dread It, Producers Love It, Governments Both Fear and Embrace It

Security Versus Convenience

It does not take much time browsing the internet recently to find an instance of a cyber breach, data theft, invasion of privacy, or to read the expectations of an impending threat. Just Google what the FBI director told Congress recently about the threat that China poses to our critical infrastructure. I often find that […]

Security Versus Convenience

Kayye’s Krystal Ball: 2024 Edition

Welcome to my 24th annual Kayye’s Krystal Ball! It’s been an honor to have written this for 24 straight years and even more of an honor for it to have so many thousands of readers annually — it’s almost always our most-read article of the year on rAVe [PUBS]. So, if you’re reading this right […]

Kayye’s Krystal Ball: 2024 Edition

My 2024 E4 Keynote Includes 9 Cool New Products and 4 Cool New Technologies That Will Change AV Forever

I love opening up the Exertis Almo E4 Experience with a keynote presentation — and, I always give attendees the opportunity to see and hear the products and tech I talk about following my speech when they walk on to the E4 show floor. And this year, more than any other in the past, I […]

My 2024 E4 Keynote Includes 9 Cool New Products and 4 Cool New Technologies That Will Change AV Forever

Dark Matter Wins German Systems Integration Award

Not all Dark Matter is found in outer space. This Dark Matter can be found in an industrial area in southeast Berlin, Germany. In the pitch-black rooms of a former factory site, visitors embark on a journey through seven immersive rooms brought to life with elaborate light installations, kinetic elements, projection mapping and 3D sound. […]

Dark Matter Wins German Systems Integration Award

Have You #AVtweeps Heard About the One With the 3 Million Hacked Toothbrushes?

A few weeks ago, a Swiss newspaper story about “3 million hacked toothbrushes” went viral. I personally shared a link about the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack with my cybersecurity coworkers via Teams message, prompting a number of comments and “Jurassic Park” memes. We all fell for it, but there is very little evidence that this […]

Have You #AVtweeps Heard About the One With the 3 Million Hacked Toothbrushes?

AV Sales Approach and the Need to Change

The genesis of this article is recent research that has been done with interviews of salespeople in the tech field. Two elements stood out to me. The first is that the majority of those salespeople interviewed said that “sales is harder today than they were before.” The second and most disconcerting element was that salespeople […]

AV Sales Approach and the Need to Change

Work Friendlier, Not Harder

There’s a self-help aphorism I keep coming back to that goes, “The universe will keep sending you the same lesson until you finally learn it.” Human nature is what it is; sometimes, even when you think you’ve learned a lesson, you may need to relearn it again. One of the things I’ve learned over time […]

Work Friendlier, Not Harder

Is CES an ‘AV Show?’

As a techy person, I have always been intrigued by the Consumer Electronics Show. It has always been a mix of amazing new technology and useless new technology. I am surprised, though, that the show does not get much coverage in our industry, particularly in the education sector. I think there are a couple of […]

Is CES an ‘AV Show?’

Grow Your Business and Expand Your Reach: A Comprehensive Guide to Commissioning Services

By Sophie Gustafson Exertis Almo Over the past few years, interest in commissioning services has transitioned from desire to demand. As the final step in the system integration process, commissioning services serve as the last piece of effort before the project goes into live production — and therefore, the end user’s ownership. These finishing touches […]

Grow Your Business and Expand Your Reach: A Comprehensive Guide to Commissioning Services

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 4 Thoughts

Wow. Wowowowowow. The show is officially over. We did it! Our final video count? 2,128. It’s been years since we shot this many videos and I am so impressed with how hard our team has worked to achieve such a feat. Let’s talk about ISE for a second, shall we? The show officially announced that […]

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 4 Thoughts

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 3 Thoughts

Well, somehow we’ve made it to Day Three. And if you’re thinking, “the crowds may have thinned now,” you’re very wrong. The crowds have not thinned in most halls — it’s stayed consistently busy. If you have to get across Hall 3 for any reason, good luck. I actually spoke to Mike Blackman, managing director […]

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 3 Thoughts

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 2 Thoughts

Hello, everyone! Welcome to ISE 2024 and therefore, your ISE 2024 Day Two Daily Raff article. I’ll be honest. Today, I mostly ran around the show floor (quite frequently between Halls 3 and 5) and GOOD LORD. Hall 3 was so packed, you couldn’t move. It was almost like a general admission concert. And maybe […]

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 2 Thoughts

ISE 2024 Keynote: Kicking Open All the Doors

On Tuesday, Jan. 30, I attended the first keynote of ISE 2024. This was extremely exciting and one of the first household names (since my time) I’ve seen give a keynote address at this show. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a journalist turned documentary filmmaker turned big blockbuster director. I was so excited to hear about her […]

ISE 2024 Keynote: Kicking Open All the Doors

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 1 Thoughts

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to our ISE 2024 coverage and officially Day One of the show! What a first day it has been. I made sure to carve out some time to run around and grab some information on some newly released products, I interviewed executives at Shure, Xyte and Lenovo and I even met […]

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 1 Thoughts

Jabra Research Shows That Gen Z (26-and-Unders) Are Unhappy at Work

New research from Jabra found that the return to office continues to impact working preferences — especially among Generation Z (those age 26 and under). The research was quite surprising in some cases but also predictable in others. Some unwritten rules seem to have been overturned as the newest generation enters our working world. Flexibility […]

Jabra Research Shows That Gen Z (26-and-Unders) Are Unhappy at Work

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 0 Thoughts

Hi, everybody! Welcome to our ISE 2024 coverage and your first Daily Raff of the show. (If you are new here, Gary sends a show wrap-up newsletter each day called “The Daily Riff” and we named this blog series to match. Get it? Riff-Raff? Because that’s what Gary and I are? (Gary, if you’re reading […]

The Daily Raff: ISE 2024 Day 0 Thoughts

My Review of the Projection Mapping Show at Casa Batlló for ISE 2024

On Jan. 28, most of the rAVe team was spending their first full day in Barcelona, enjoying free time and exploring the city. We chose to end our day by visiting Casa Batlló, on the iconic Passeig de Gràcia avenue. A special event to mark the beginning of ISE 2024, there would be a projection […]

My Review of the Projection Mapping Show at Casa Batlló for ISE 2024

Disney Debuts HoloTile; a Game Changer in both VR and MR Gaming And Maybe Live Events Too!

Usually, Disney is very secretive with the new tech it develops but, in this case, it wants brands to make it better, faster and start integrating with it in real-life VR environments. It’s called HoloTile. So, here’s the scenario … You develop a VR or XR game — one where the players wear either a […]

Disney Debuts HoloTile; a Game Changer in both VR and MR Gaming And Maybe Live Events Too!

Surviving Spin Season — Categorizing New Product Releases

Well it’s that time of year again. No it’s not Rabbit Season, it’s not even Duck Season, it is Spin Season. CES kicked off the year, NAMM is happening now, ISE is next week, NAB in the spring and then InfoComm in June.  It’s a steady flow of industry shows and product announcements, some of […]

Surviving Spin Season — Categorizing New Product Releases

rAVe’s Guide to Educational Sessions at ISE 2024

Integrated Systems Europe 2024 is right around the corner, and there is no shortage of things to keep you entertained. Once you’re on the show floor for a while, though, you may find yourself eager to take a load off of your feet. Here is a quick list of educational sessions you should consider attending […]

rAVe’s Guide to Educational Sessions at ISE 2024

AI: A Year Later

In late 2022, ChatGPT was released and the expectations were sky high. The technology was amazing. You could ask it to write a paper on Shakespeare in the language of a pirate and ten seconds later it pops out. You could ask it to program a Crestron control system with an Epson projector, and again, […]

AI: A Year Later

What’s Up With Smart Homes Today?

Every so often I check in on the state of what’s still being called “Smart Home” tech and I find myself coming away with a sense of déjà vu. Or, perhaps more specifically, a sense that “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” or “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” […]

What’s Up With Smart Homes Today?

COVID-19, Houses of Worship and the Livestreaming Renaissance

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, houses of worship were forced to make some changes as many saw a decrease in physical church attendance but an increase in online viewership. But now, in 2024, what were the lasting impacts? Are in-person worship services being fully replaced by virtual services and livestreams? According to Paul […]

COVID-19, Houses of Worship and the Livestreaming Renaissance

23andMe, and You, and Your Mama and Your Sister

On Oct. 1, 2023, a small percentage of 23AndMe user profile information was improperly accessed and downloaded from individual 23andMe.com accounts on its website. The company found out after an anonymous hacker began advertising “millions” of stolen genetic profiles that were supposedly from 23andMe customer accounts. The profiles included emails, photos, gender, date of birth […]

23andMe, and You, and Your Mama and Your Sister