Razer made a big splash at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week… such a big splash, in fact, that someone just had to have two of the company’s prototypes for themselves. CES became a crime scene when the company informed law enforcement of the thefts. And CEO Min-Liang Tan announced the crimes in a Facebook post overnight.
Razer prototypes stolen from CES booth
Tan said that the prototypes were stolen from the company’s booth at the show and that they have filed reports on the thefts. They’re also working with law enforcement in Las Vegas. In his Facebook post, he spoke out against cheating and “industrial espionage.”
“At Razer, we play hard and we play fair,” he wrote. “Our teams worked months on end to conceptualize and develop these units and we pride ourselves in pushing the envelope to deliver the latest and greatest. We treat theft/larceny, and if relevant to this case, industrial espionage, very seriously – it is cheating, and cheating doesn’t sit well with us.”
He warned that penalties for crimes such as this are “grievous,” adding that “anyone who would do this clearly isn’t very smart.”
Razer wins title for Best Concept/ Prototype
Although Tan neglected to reveal which two prototypes were stole, one possible candidate is Project Valerie, which won the title of Best Concept/ Prototype.” The device is a laptop computer with three screens, which Razer describes as the “first automated triple-display laptop.”
The three displays are 17.2 inches in size with 4K resolution. It also features a mechanical keyboard built right in. Upon opening the laptop, the user is greeted by two sliding monitors which come out of the sides from the main display and then adjust. Project Valerie is 1.5 inches thick, weighs about 12 pounds and packs the power of a desktop PC.
Another Razer prototype that could be one of the two stolen devices is Project Ariana, which Razer bills as “the future of gaming immersion.” It’s a sort of video projection system designed to turn an entire room into a gaming space using an ultra-wide fisheye lens and “advanced processing capabilities.” The projector adapts the size of the projection to the size of the room using two 3D cameras and custom calibration software.
In a world where virtual reality and augmented reality are rapidly becoming the future of gaming, it seems like a device such as this would be welcome. Instead of wearing a headset or carrying a device to immerse oneself in a game, this projector would turn an entire room into a gaming environment.
