It should have been the press conference remembered for launching the world’s largest ultra high-definition television, but instead it’s going down as the time Michael Bay panicked and ran off stage at CES.
Bay, the director of such movies as Transformers and Armageddon, was invited on stage by Samsung executive Joe Stinziano to help demonstrate the company’s latest technological marvel, a television that measures in at 105 inches (266cm), has 4K (ultra high definition) resolution and a curved screen. Shortly into the presentation, Bay flubbed his lines. He tried to get back on script but then abandoned it all together and tried to “wing it” with the help of Stinziano. That quickly led to a long, awkward silence, which ended when Bay abruptly turned and walked off stage, leaving Stinziano standing there by himself.
There was some mumbling from the audience, as people waited to see if it was a scripted event. It wasn’t, but Stinziano quickly recovered. “It’s Vegas,” he said. “And this is a live show.”
However, panicking in front of a packed auditorium of tech reporters has its consequences. Journalists began tweeting and posting video showing what happened. Bay was soon Twitter’s second highest trending topic.
Several tech websites later reported that Bay admitted he had embarrassed himself at CES. The director said he had simply spoken the wrong lines, and when the teleprompter tried to back up, it only confused Bay further. He said he then panicked and left the stage.
The press conference was part of the build-up to CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics show, which opened in Las Vegas. Seemingly lost in the celebrity meltdown talk was the news that Samsung will also launch a new flagship UHD TV with a 78-inch screen.
The rest of Samsung’s press conference went more or less according to plan. Nanda Ramachandran, vice-president of emerging business at Samsung, introduced the Galaxy Note Pro and the Galaxy Tab Pro. The Tab Pro comes in three sizes (12.2, 10 and 8.4 inch screens). The new devices will have HD screens, a quad-core processor and run Android 4.4 Kitkat. The devices also support a Multi Window option that allows the screen to be split into quarters.
The Galaxy Note Pro has a 12.2-inch screen and comes with the now standard S-Pen. The devices are expected to ship later this quarter.
