LAS VEGAS -- This is the refrain of agency grunts as we take our hungover strolls among the pleated pant masses and endless aisles of tech on display here. We tend to be an egocentric bunch in advertising and are sometimes surprised when we realize that CES is not actually built for us. Believe it or not, people are mostly here to sell technology products to retailers and suppliers. Yet we dutifully learn everything there is to know about autonomous cars, as if it is central to our jobs as advertisers.

While CES' 2.2 million square feet of exhibit space is dominated by giant corporations making incremental advancements, the real magic of the convention happens off the main stage in private innovation gatherings and at Eureka Park where the upstart entrepreneurs can shine. I spent CES meeting with emerging media companies, attending start-up cocktail sessions and networking events to find "diamonds in the sand"- the companies that give advertisers a unique or better way to market. Here are five companies that will emerge and stir things up in the years ahead. Hopefully a few of the 170,000 people waiting in the …

As virtual reality becomes more of an actual reality, there was virtually no shortage of it on display at CES. Based on some of the sets I viewed, the quality of the immersive experience is now quite high. But aside from what happens inside, as individuals at CES wore any of a number of VR headsets, those outside that world indeed got a totally different view. While the people wearing the headsets (often with headphones) moved their heads around as part of a 360-degree experience, onlookers only got to see the person with head and ear gear gyrating around in …

As expected, there were robots at just about every major CES venue this week. I came across one very sophisticated looking robot lineup from a string of Asian companies displaying the devices. Based on the featured robot on the tabletop I asked for a demonstration from the exhibitor so she could walk me through some of the robot's capabilities. She flipped a switch that turned on some music and the robot started to dance along, with moves perfectly in line with the music. As the robot finished its dance, I asked: "So what does it do?" "It dances. It's a …

Pretty much anything you can imagine (and beyond) pops up at CES in Las Vegas each year. Coming this summer is now a small, wearable device that provides real-time language translation. This wearable translator, expected to cost a few hundred dollars from Iamili, has a limited dictionary but promises to provide actual language translation in real time. There is no cloud involvement here; the device has a built-in dictionary of words in one language to the next. The consumer decides in advance which module they want. Speak it in one language, hear it in another. That's the idea. Hey, it's …

It's one of the great ironies of a CES, a conclave of people gathered for some of the most bleeding edge new technologies, all of whom succumb to a very low-tech one: a shortage of taxi cabs, traffic and ridiculously long queues.

And now a new category: the Smart Fitness Watch. Just introduced: the Fitbit Blaze. That is Fitbit co-founder on stage.

If nothing else, CES International in Las Vegas this week boasts some impressive stats. In a pre-CES briefing, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research at the Consumer Technology Association, laid out a few stats from this year: The event covers 2.4 million square feet Space taken is the equivalent of 50 football fields There will be 150,000 attendees Of attendees, 45,000 come from outside the U.S. Attendees come from 150 countries There will be 20,000 new products introduced The Eureka Park exhibit host more than 500 startups from 29 countries One of the most interested stats for …