Two Razer Prototypes Stolen From CES - UPDATE

Lizzy Finnegan

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Two Razer Prototypes Stolen From CES - UPDATE

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan has revealed that two prototypes were stolen from Razer's CES press room.

Update: In a statement issued to Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/9/14211496/razer-prototype-theft-ces], Razer confirmed that the two stolen prototypes were of the company's Project Valerie laptop concept. The laptops were taken from Razer's press room at approximately 4pm. The company is offering a $25,000 reward "for original information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of a criminal suspect."

Original: Two prototypes were taken from Razer's CES press room Sunday night, CEO Min-Liang Tan announced on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/minliangtan/posts/1283410441716735].

In the announcement post, Tan stated that the company is working with both show management and law enforcement on the matter, and requests that anyone with any information contact them at the email address below.

"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," Tan wrote. "Penalties for such crimes are grievous and anyone who would do this clearly isn't very smart."

It's not clear which prototypes were taken. Razer showed off Project Valerie [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169188-Razer-Project-Valerie-Triple-Monitor-Laptop-Concept-Announced-at-CES-2017#&gid=gallery_6752&pid=1], a laptop concept with three monitors, as well as Project Ariana, a projector that covers your entire wall.


You can read the post, in full, below.

I've just been informed that two of our prototypes were stolen from our booth at CES today.

We have filed the necessary reports and are currently working with the show management as well as law enforcement to address this issue.
At Razer, we play hard and we play fair. 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. Penalties for such crimes are grievous and anyone who would do this clearly isn't very smart.

If you were at the show and/or if you can provide us any information, please do reach out to us at [email protected] - all information provided will be kept in the strictest of confidence.
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Kenjitsuka

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Either some thief is very stupid, or Razer is trying to create a lot of media attention in a stupid way... (maybe they will magically show up again).

In any case; not keeping a very good eye on stuff that you think can be used as "industrial espionage" is quite stupid.

So there are only losers here. Sigh...
 

fix-the-spade

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Kenjitsuka said:
Either some thief is very stupid,
In my experience of trade shows it's most likely this. It'll be some idiot who thinks he's going to be able to pawn it off to another company for megabucks. Many years ago two of Honda's infamous RN-01 mountain bikes got stolen like this never to bee seen again. Until some idiot tried to sell them...

The industry types will have been all over these things with their cameras during the show anyway, anything they need to know they'll have in their pictures.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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If the thief intends them for his own use, good luck using them without an Internet connection. Assuming the developers were smart enough to put anti-theft tech like that in them. Which you gotta think they did. Prototype tech at a trade show, you'd have to be the worlds biggest moron not to.
 

enginieri

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One of the prototypes has working screens but cannot fold, the other was the opposite, maybe the thief(s) can make Razor a favor and solve the remaining hurdles and finish the project for them...
 

Death Carr

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It's really nice that razer is trying to innovate like this
but I feel like the triple folding screen thing should be reserved for a desktop environment rather than severely misunderstanding the "laptop" part of "laptop"
it just seems that having a massively heavy, triple monitor laptop that will likely run a desktop gpu and have a battery life of 15 minutes doesn't lean too far towards portability

and I'd be surprised if this theft wasn't just some idiot trying to make a few bucks by industrial espionage
 

Saulkar

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Death Carr said:
it just seems that having a massively heavy, triple monitor laptop that will likely run a desktop gpu and have a battery life of 15 minutes doesn't lean too far towards portability
It is supposed to be a desktop replacement computer; Portable in the sense that you could take it to class/work/on-site for things like CAD, CGI, and Photo editing without wanting for power before taking it home again to work on it some more before easily storing it in a compact space.

I am talking from experience here, on all three points, when I say that it is very, very convenient. I normally use a Cintiq as a secondary display/tablet when doing things like 3D modeling and Sculpting when I am not painting on it but it is very cumbersome as it has its own sets of cords and power requirements which can be a real hassle.

Having three screens that can unfold and not having to worry about anything more cumbersome than an Intuos tablet which is powered through a single USB cord would be a GOD send as you can never have enough screen space reale-state for photo references, programs, and such.

This is of course ignoring its gaming potential which has yet to be seen as far as I know but would be easy to transport to LAN parties.
 
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Didn't MS have some room-projector thing a few years back? They've shown off some exciting stuff, like the 3D table and what not, but none of it ever sees the light of day. Too bad...everyone's touting VR which is failing in front of our eyes, and this room projection thing is actually exciting. Increases immersion and heightens the experience without fundamental changes to how we already play.
 

Petromir

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KingsGambit said:
Didn't MS have some room-projector thing a few years back? They've shown off some exciting stuff, like the 3D table and what not, but none of it ever sees the light of day. Too bad...everyone's touting VR which is failing in front of our eyes, and this room projection thing is actually exciting. Increases immersion and heightens the experience without fundamental changes to how we already play.
Was linked to kinect (that was how it scanned the room for distortion correction) so may well have died with mainstream support for that.

On the main thread theft thing, a PR stunt seems unlikely as it seems that official reports have been made which means that wasting police time etc comes into force, and given industrial espionage has been alleged, which apparently puts it in FBI territory (who have likely even less of a sense of humour about such things), seems foolish for something that already had massive amounts of PR.
 

Petromir

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Saulkar said:
Death Carr said:
it just seems that having a massively heavy, triple monitor laptop that will likely run a desktop gpu and have a battery life of 15 minutes doesn't lean too far towards portability
It is supposed to be a desktop replacement computer; Portable in the sense that you could take it to class/work/on-site for things like CAD, CGI, and Photo editing without wanting for power before taking it home again to work on it some more before easily storing it in a compact space.

I am talking from experience here, on all three points, when I say that it is very, very convenient. I normally use a Cintiq as a secondary display/tablet when doing things like 3D modeling and Sculpting when I am not painting on it but it is very cumbersome as it has its own sets of cords and power requirements which can be a real hassle.

Having three screens that can unfold and not having to worry about anything more cumbersome than an Intuos tablet which is powered through a single USB cord would be a GOD send as you can never have enough screen space reale-state for photo references, programs, and such.

This is of course ignoring its gaming potential which has yet to be seen as far as I know but would be easy to transport to LAN parties.
Yup can think of plenty of things that this would be useful for professionally, where a desktop or even laptop with 2 additional monitors is still noticeably more cumbersome to transport and use.

Even as a desktop replacement if you need something that takes up little space when not in use this has merit.

Much of what makes this impractical as a regular laptop are true for many machines in the desktop replacement class anyway.

Sure making this as an exoskeleton style affair with USB C power/graphics connection for something like a blade pro may be a better compromise, so you have something more portable if need it, but I'd suspect that may well make the engineering more complex for little gain.