January 23, 2013 • 32 mins
Jonathan has recently returned from CES 2013, and he has loads of information about the newest tech hitting the marketplace. What were the big winners of CES 2013? Were there any surprises? Tune in as Jonathan and Lauren catch you up on the details in the second part of this two-part video.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Stuff Look stop com Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
tech Stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, both
of them, and today we're going to conclude our epic
two part episode about c E S two thousand thirteen
(00:25):
and the adventures of Jonathan in Vague. Well, you know,
let's talk a little bit about health. Health. What does
that have to do with technology everything? As it turns out, well,
first of all, the trend of creating fitness tech has
not slowed down at all. I saw lots and lots
of examples of various gadgets that will track how many
(00:47):
steps you take and upload that data in some way
or or or analyze your activity in various ways to
let you know exactly how active or not active are. Yeah,
you know which, which is really cool and I think
a lot of people are. If my Facebook feed is
any indication using that kind of thing to um to
just kind of crowdsource their their own ability to to
(01:08):
level up in health. That's the nerdiest thing that I've
said in a very long time. And I'm podcasting about
tech things right now, so that's really impressive. But but no,
you know, it's it's it's a great motivation to be
able to connect with other people share that sort of Yeah.
I've seen people who use things like like the fitbit
as a means of competing against their friends, where you know,
how many they see how many steps they log, and
(01:30):
then they see how many of their steps their friend logs.
They're like, oh, I need to fit another fift steps
so that I could beat them. And you know, in
the end, we're talking about activity and exercise and a
healthier lifestyle. So even though there might be some sort
of goofy competitive edge on one side, yeah, the the
outcome is fantastic. I heard that fit that actually had
(01:52):
a new piece of tech called the Fitbit Flex Activity
Track or bracelet that you basically just wear all the
time and very pretty, it's very pretty. Uum in the
United States, it's on sale for pre order for Yeah,
so it's we're talking a hundred dollars. But it does
track all this information and then you can actually view
(02:15):
it through various apps or programs and get more of
an insight into what your activity levels mean for your
general health. And this means that you can use that
information to try and adopt a healthier lifestyle, or you know,
maybe you realize like, um, I need to make more
time in my day for this sort of thing because
(02:36):
it is important to me in order to have a
happier life experience. I mean, the healthier we are in general,
we tend to be happier. That is actually a science
fact that has been proven that that healthier people are happier.
It's better quality of life. Yeah, poor health means higher
stress levels, which in turn leads to more poor health.
(02:56):
It's a terrible, terrible cycle. And we've got to get
out of that. So uh so we have terrible cycles. No, No,
I saw I saw a lot of exercise equipment. But
one of the things I saw was kind of interesting.
Um it was actually I think it was up for
one of the c E S Innovation Awards. It was
a thing that you would attach to a stationary exercise
bike that will allow you to control the bike's um
(03:20):
uh pressure and everything so that you know you would
have greater resistance. You can control it from a smartphone.
So in other words, you think like I want to
go up a hill now, and on your smartphone, which
is already playing your music, you just go ahead and
adjustice a little thing and suddenly you're you're now. I
don't know how necessary that is. I guess it depends
upon what kind of stationary bike you're writing. But I
thought it was an interesting use of health technology. Yeah,
(03:42):
that's great. Yeah. The big one that I heard about
was the rp VITA by I Robot and in Touch,
which um it stands for Remote Presence, Virtual and Independent
Telemedicine Assistant, which means that it's a hospital butler essentially. Yeah,
it's it's a it's jarvis or the spittle and um,
let's see, let's see you telecommunicate with your doctor if
(04:04):
he's in a remote he or she. I'm sorry, that
was terrible and met the worst feminist. Um if you're
pretty bad too. If you're if your doctor is in
is in a remote location, Um, you can you can
see them. You can plug your your ultrasound or whatever
other equipment into this thing, and it will send all
of your biomedical statistics over there. Really great for emergency
(04:26):
situations and things like some remote locations where getting a
doctor there might not be uh might not be easy
to do, but a doctor could take a look at
that that data and find out like oh no, we
we really do need to send medical help there. Or
they could say this is something that you can treat
on your own, or perhaps even say this is something
(04:47):
you can do until we can get help to you.
It's it's really a cool way of using technology to
help people. Um. There was one other one I wanted
to talk about in this area which kind of relates
back to the sport stuff in a way. Um, and
it was Belkan had what was called the Wemo Baby Monitor. Now,
Wem is a technology that they've used for things like
(05:10):
home automation and smartphone control. You know you were talking
about controlling everything from your smartphone. A lot of the
Wemo technology is all about that, things like controlling lights
from your phone, things like that. Well, the Wemo Baby monitor,
uh is a device that has a crying algorithm as
an algorithm that's designed to pick up sound and distinguish
(05:34):
one sound from another, and it's specifically meant to alert
you when your baby cries. So when your baby cries,
you get a message on your phone saying, hey, baby
is not happy. You might want to go check on baby.
But if if a big truck goes by and the
noise is loud, enough to hear inside the house. The
monitor doesn't send you a false positive saying babies crying.
(05:55):
It also does not send you a message saying a
big truck just went by. That's get a little bit
ted and be like, wow, I'm getting a lot of
data about the noise is coming from baby's room. But
the other thing that this this device does is through
a partnership with a piece of software called evo uh,
it tracks the information about your baby's crying habits and
(06:17):
sleep patterns. So it actually plots this information so that
parents can see when their baby is crying, when their
baby is sleeping, and perhaps if they see that the
baby is crying at a consistent time each day, maybe
they change the feeding schedule, or maybe it might be
there there's some other environmental factor that is based upon
time that they can look into to make their baby
(06:39):
a happier baby. So the idea is that to use
this data in a way to become a better parent.
And it's the reason why I say it reminds me
of the fitness information is because a lot of this
the fitness gear is all about tracking your activity and
then relating that information to you in a in a
way that is meaning, right, and that's what when we
(06:59):
talk about the Internet of things. That's a big element
of the Internet of things. It's this idea that we're
going to incorporate not just connectivity to the Internet, but
the ability for various stuff to sense what is going
on in our environment and send us information that we
can understand so that we might improve that environment, right,
improve the environment, or improve our own interaction within that environment.
(07:22):
Now that being said, there's always the opportunity for us
to obsess over this data in ways that you know,
they didn't necessarily intend. But that's a human thing. Yeah, yeah,
well you know, it's all a tiny bit creepy, a
little bit big brother here and there. Yeah, I get
a little bit weirded out by by the things around
me watching me, and I don't. It all depends on
where the data is going to. Well, absolutely, Like if
(07:42):
the data is just coming straight to you, then you're
just like, you start to micromanage your own behavior. But
if the data is going to someone else first, then
you're like, oh, great, now they know they're going to
know everything. Yeah, they know how many times I go
to the refrigerator and open the door and not actually
get anything out but just stare and then closed the
door and walk away. That's you know, and then they're
(08:02):
gonna send me an email about how wasteful I am.
But but hopefully no one, no one is bored enough
to watch and judge that data fingers crossed. I don't know.
I met some interesting people at see anyway. Yeah, so
that's that's health technology. Um. We also had a lot
of car technology. Now, some of that was things like
(08:23):
various new kinds of car stereos, which you know, even
louder and more basier than before. But I mean that
has a place, right, but it's not something that that
I mean, unless you write about specifically about about cars
sound systems, it's not terribly interesting to a general to
the average consumer. The really interesting thing that I saw
(08:43):
was audis self driving. Lexus also had a car that
was practically self driving. It had this is technology that
we've seen developed and implemented in two cars. It's just
on a level that goes beyond what we norm see
in the consumer marketplace. So things like lane change software
(09:04):
that helps you change lane safely, or collision detection or
automatic breaking or uh, you know, the parking assist features
right right, parking assist being where um, you know, if
you have your car parked and it has to be
a specialized garage outfitted with this array of laser scanners
so that your car knows where it is, but you
can you can then, like Batman, just just press a
(09:27):
button on your smartphone and call your car to you
and it will just drive up from the garage and
the Joker will attack Gotham and you have to be
on your way to save the world. Yeah, like a boss,
as as my buddy say. Yeah. Both both Lexus and
Audi were showing off some features of this, and uh,
(09:48):
Toyota has been really really active in developing self driving cars.
That news broke just as CES was starting. There was
news about this Toyota self driving car prototype, and it's
really there's a lot of excitement around this because not
not to say that all cars are going to be
driving themselves within a few generations. Yeah, we're a little
(10:12):
bit off from that. But even if even if that
technology is capable, none of these car manufacturers were suggesting
that that's going to become the norm. They were saying,
this is the technology that will make us all safer drivers,
and uh, if we go beyond that, if we start
creating networks that these cars can communicate to UH in
a way that protects our privacy because we don't want
(10:32):
we don't want the world to know where we're going
all the time, but in a way that allows the
the infrastructure to adapt so that traffic becomes less of
a problem. So let's say that you are in a
city that's outfitted with one of these networks, and the
grant this is far into the future because it would
cause it would require a huge infrastructure change. But you're
(10:52):
in a city where this this is a reality, then
your car could navigate through the city without the problem
of traffic. If you're going one way, UH, if a
lot of cars are going one way, the traffic lights
could adapt h dynamically to the flows of traffic, so
that you know, you don't sit there and wonder like,
why is this light red for so long? There's no
(11:13):
one coming the other way? You know that would be
less likely to happen. Or if there was an accident somewhere,
your car could automatically root you through a different way right,
or you could get to a point where there's no
more accidents. That would be nice. Hey, that would be
That would be lovely. Let's take a quick break to
think our sponsor and now back to the show. So, Lauren,
I know you're really eager to talk about the next
(11:34):
category of stuff, which is gaming technology. I am. I'm
excited about it. You. Um, I think I think he
said in your I I listened to your podcast with
Chris about two thousand twelves ces um and you said
that you had seen Project Fiona there. Yes, has since
become the Razor Edge. Yes, and that's not a finishing
move in the w w E in this case, I
(11:58):
that that that reference. Just wooh, don't I just what? Okay?
I know I need to educate Lauren, but we can
do that after the show. Uh So, Yeah, the the
Razor Edge is a gaming tablet, and this is a
heavy duty tablet. It's a Windows eight machine capable of
(12:18):
running full video games on it. Uh you can run
games and use the tablet like tilting the tablet to
make it do stuff, or if you want to spring
for uh an optional case. The Razor Edge pro Version
at least has a case that has controllers built into
the size that buttons and thumbsticks that you would expect
(12:40):
from any other controlling right, so you can play first
person shooters or other types of games. Uh, directly from that,
the resolution was amazing, the animation fantastic video gameplay. I
mean it looked I mean we're talking like forty eight
gigs of RAM depending on what model. Yeah, this is
this was a very impressive piece of technology. And uh,
(13:02):
they had some where they were using I believe HDMI
out to larger displays, so they were running games on
this tablet showing it on the big display. So that
was kind of fun too. And I wonder, I wonder
if they could start integrating stuff like the we you
does with you know, having a small screen big screen,
that would be interesting. I wonder, you know, I assume
(13:22):
you could do that where you would have the h
d m I feed out be different from what you're
actually looking at on the screen. I don't know that
there's any reason why you couldn't do that, But as
far as I know, no one's no one's actually developed that.
That could be wrong. That yeah, someone someone do that thing,
she said, But yeah, that was that was pretty impressive
that one. As I recall, there the two basic two models,
(13:43):
a basic model and a pro model, and the basic
model I think is going to retail for around just
under a thousand, just under thousand, then going up to
like for the pro model. Yeah, so that's that's a
healthy chunk of change for a tablet. But again, this
is a fully functional computer tablet like, this is not
this is not some uh stripped down mobile device. This
(14:07):
is a full computer in tablet form. Yeah. Yeah, which
which just by itself I think is completely fascinating because
the problem that I have with tablets anyways, the reason
that I don't own one is that they're not powerful
enough for me to do what I want to do
with stuff. You know, I need something that's gonna run
some kind of photo editing program. And you know, also
Microsoft Word and I had I had the same issue
(14:28):
when I was I eventually did buy a tablet. I
very rarely use my tablet, which, again, and I've said
this before, it proves to me that the tablet form
factor just isn't where I need it to be for
to be a truly useful, indispensable part of my tech life. Now.
I know other people who, you know, they never dropped
their tablets constantly in their hands, and they have plenty
(14:49):
of reasons why they use it, which is great, it's
just not the way I use stuff. Beyond that, in
gaming technology, you also had the Invidios Shield Project Shield,
which was that was a big secret. I mean that
was when that was unveiled on the floor. You there
was an audible gasp. Yeah. No, it was pretty neat.
It was. So if you if you don't know what
(15:11):
the Nvidios shield is, imagine, uh, an Xbox controller, because
that's what it looks like. It's not an Xbox controller,
but it kind of looks like one. And uh, and
you know it just think of it as having a
blank face. So there's no buttons, there's no thumbsticks or anything.
It's just a blank face. And then you open up
a clamshell and it it opens to reveal the buttons
(15:33):
and thumbsticks underneath the clamshell and on the underside of
the clamshell is a screen. It's a five inch screen touchscreen. UM.
So the the shield is a controller and screen all
in one. And it does have this clamshell design, so
you open it and close it. Uh. It runs a
version of Android, so you can play Android based games
(15:55):
anytime you want. It can be stored locally on that device.
But the the selling point is that it has software
that allows you to stream content from a PC over
WiFi to the project Shield controller, so you can play
full PC games on this little controller over the screen. Now,
(16:17):
the big downside as far as I'm concerned, is that
you have to be over WiFi to do this because
the act the game is actually running on the PC,
not on the shield like the Sheeld if you if
you've heard of the on Live video game consoles, the
same sort of thing where somewhere on the cloud there's
a machine running the game and you are just running,
(16:38):
and you know you're you're you're running a window that's
looking into it. Latency didn't seem to be a problem.
It seemed very responsive. So it wasn't like there was
a problem between when you pressed a button and when
your character did something. That seemed pretty seamless. But it
makes me wonder how practical is this. I mean, are
there a lot of gamers who would love to play
more computer games but they don't like having to sit
(17:00):
at their computer? Well, I mean, you know, maybe you
know it's for for the adventurous types that they really
want to play Call of Duty from the bathtub or yeah,
I guess. M Yeah, I'm not sure because yeah, the
other problem I had was that, you know, you could argue, well,
it also has an hd my out, so you could
play it on your television, But you could build a
(17:21):
video game gaming rig that you can play on the
TV already, and there's some companies like Valve that make
that really easy to Yeah, you know, and you know
it's about to get easier. I heard the Valve was
also there mostly to talk to hardware partners about steam Box. Yeah, yep.
Steam Box is one of those things that we still
don't know a whole lot about other than the fact
that it's on its way. But yeah, we understand that
(17:44):
it will probably be a pretty lockdown experience, but it
should be. Um, it should be about as good an
experience as you can expect to to get with a
system that you cannot customize yourself. Right. It's it's meant
for the consumer who wants something they can plug into
their entertainment system without having to worry about installing drivers
or managing other kinds of connections. So serious gamers have
(18:10):
been doing this stuff on their own already for ages,
but now it's getting to the point where the average
consumer who may not have that kind of technological savvy
can do it easily. Yeah. Yeah, you know, for for
the PC gamer who wants to who wants to also
be a concert. It's blurring the line between PC and console.
And I think it's fascinating and I'm not entirely sure
what space it has. I'm happy to see it happen
(18:31):
simply because I think anytime you have more competition within
a field, it benefits the consumer. Of course, absolutely, so
it puts pressure, like all of these products put pressure
on companies like Microsoft and Sony because these could potentially
start to siphon away gamers from the established consoles. Nintendo
(18:54):
should already be worried. That's why I didn't mention it. Todo. No,
they really should be. I mean, I love no Pindow,
don't get me wrong, but I think I think that
we You is not enough to answer the competition. We
talked about this one in our two Predictions show. And yeah,
and I do think that, you know, it's I like
the WEU, I like the concept, but I'm just not
(19:14):
sure if it's you. Um but but but some of
those smaller players, Um, there was the Oculus rift. Okay,
This kind of transitions us into another discussion about how
Kickstarter was an incredible presence at c e S. Not directly,
but there were projects that had been had received Kickstarter
backing that had a presence at c S and you
(19:36):
gotta think, you know, without that crowdfunding, they never could
have made it out to see Yes, and yet there
they were showing stuff off and these are these are enterprising,
innovative individuals or groups that are coming up with technologies
that are surprising people. And I heard several people within
the technology journalism fields say their opinion is that some
(19:58):
of these big companies, they have so many different lines
of products that they have to nurture and maintain that
it's really hard to innovate and create new stuff because
they're mostly looking at, Okay, well, what features can we
add to this existing stuff so that we continue to
sell them yeah, yeah, and so that we get this
big product name to continue, whereas well, these small groups
(20:20):
they're saying what cool stuff can we make happen? And
then the Oculus Rift is a virtual reality gaming headset
that has stereoscopic screens, so there's a screen dedicated to
each eye that gives you a three D effect when
you put it on, and it's really amazing. There's there's
(20:41):
the latency is not an issue, so you don't get
the swimmy effect when you turn your head and look around. Um,
and you can control it using a video game controller. Uh.
And they even showed off some unreal tournament using this thing,
so it's like you are actually there and uh. Instead
of they talked about how it helped or so so
(21:04):
one journalists talked about how it helped, uh even out
the playing field between console based gamers who use controllers
and PC based gamers to use the keyboard mouse set up,
because that's one of those things people who use keyboard
and mouse are like, well, I'm much more accurate and fast.
You have a controller, you're slower. Well with this you
aimed by looking at stuff. You're all right, let's see
(21:25):
how fast your mouse is now, buddy boy. So but
that was a huge success story. It was a Kickstarter
backed project that actually had space at CS and it's
not not it's not out for consumer purchase yet. There
in the development or developer kits stage. Yeah, they're there's
they're offering up kits for developers and what they call
(21:46):
hardcore enthusiasts. So if you're an enthusiast who doesn't care
that there's not really any content to play, you can
get one of these. But that's the thing, that's why
they call it developer kits because they don't want consumers.
They oh, I can get this on it right now, Xbox.
It doesn't work that way. Um, but but you you
(22:07):
actually you actually pre ordered I think something. Yes, I did.
I was while I was at c S. I put
in my pre order for a Pebble smart watch, which
I'm kind of jealous about him. I really, you know,
if I had had however many dollars it was when
it was up on Kickstarter, did I really not have? So?
(22:29):
But at ninety nine, if you had backed at the
ninety nine level or higher you were you were given
that that would earn you a smart watch, assuming that
they made their goal. Now, the big story about Pebble
is their goal was one dollars. They raised ten million
starter kids. It's wonderful. Wow, that's like, yeah, ten million dollars,
(22:52):
and so they actually they were They had to deal
with some controversy because controversy might be too strong a word,
but some criticism because they had originally anticipated they would
start shipping the watches in September of two thousand twelve.
That date came and went and they didn't ship. But
the the explanation was actually quite logical. They said, well,
(23:13):
originally we thought we were going to raise a hundred
thousand dollars and that we would produce maybe two thousand watches,
and we were going to do all of that in
the United States in a California facility that was a
small facility that could handle two thousand. Yeah. Yeah, they
knew what they were dealing with and had some deadlines
based on it. But then ten million dollars happened, and
(23:34):
then they realized, well, in order to do this, we
need to actually shift to a much larger manufacturing process,
and they went overseas from manufacturing. That complicated the whole
supply chain and made things slower. So they said, yeah,
it turns out it was way more complex than what
we had originally anticipated, which is why we we missed it.
But we will start shipping the smart watches to Kickstarter
(23:58):
backers starting anyway twenty three. It would take six to
eight weeks to get all the Kickstarter orders out, and
they were going to deliver them in the order that
people backed the project. So if you were one of
those first people who backed the project, you're going to
get your watch first. Now. I pre ordered while I
was there, so I'm going to have a few months
before I get mine. Cherry red, by the way, that's
(24:20):
the color I went with. They have five colors available.
I went with cherry red. Sounds very silent. If you
guys start watching tech stuff videos and you see me
wearing a cherry red watch, that means my my pebble
watch finally arrived. But yeah, they were another Kickser project
that had a presence at the floor, and that's amazing.
You know, there was a time where unless you were
(24:41):
a major player, you didn't have a presence at CS.
If you did have a presence and you weren't a
major player, it was a tiny little booth that was
shoved way off in one corner that most people would
never see. So it was kind of cool. Um, and
then we got the weird stuff. We we we do
the weird stuff. We do not do the weird stuff.
That's I can't even say that here. Now you can
say that we do the weird stuff. That's a doctor
(25:02):
horrible reference that all of our listeners will appreciate for
sweater vests. Yeah, not all of this is weird, but
it's stuff that doesn't easily fit into other categories. There
was the track dot luggage sensor and uh that has
it was a battery operated or it is a battery
operated sensor that will text you where your luggage is.
(25:25):
So let's say you go traveling, you get to the airport,
you check your bag. It happens to have one of
these trackers inside it. Uh, it will text you where
it is. So let's say you end up in San Francisco,
but your bag is in uh, Tierra del Fuego. It
will send you a text message saying, what the heck
I'm in Tier del Fuego. It also has a Bluetooth
sensor in it, so that when it reaches your near you,
(25:48):
assuming that you have your phone paired up to it
and it's once it comes into range, your phone will
alert you so you'll know, oh, I need to look
at my attention to Yeah, let me look at all
of the black bags there and figure which one is mine. Oh, well,
I got a message, so it's it's coming in. It's close. Uh.
So that was kind of neat. Um. There was the
Plastic Logic had some flexible displays. This was not on
(26:11):
the show floor. That was a closed door meeting that
you had to rs VP two, so I went to
see it. These were really cool. There were these flexible
displays that they were explaining in one in the future
could be really really flexible in more ways than one.
They showed off, uh an implementation that was pretty neat
where they had a flexible e paper display. So it's
(26:32):
e ink okay, so it's a very low energy needed
to to create the image. They lay it down, it's
showing a map, okay, so it's it looks like a
sheet of paper that's showing a map. They lay a
second one, a blank one, next to the first one,
so that the edges overlap and then the map extends
automatically across both pages. It was just neat, right, and
(26:54):
they explained that this was just a basic application that
could be used in this sort of stuff, And mainly
they're talking about using it for flexible display so that
you could create a display that conforms to a curved wall.
But I could see so many more applications for this,
and UH, that was really exciting, So shout out to
plastic logic. Uh As for the weird, I've got a
(27:15):
tie between the two weirdest things I saw. Keep in
mind there are some weird stuff. It's the e s
and I never saw there was the happy fork, which
is a thing. It's it's yes, that is stelled h
A P I. Yeah, it's it's a haptic feedback fork.
And the concept it's actually kind of interesting. The concept
is that if you are eating and you're eating too fast,
(27:38):
that can be unhealthy. You could eat more than you
need to. It's it's something that can lead to overeating
and think dust can lead to weight gain or obesity.
So what the haptic fork allows you to do is
set an interval that you do not wish to exceed
when it comes to putting your fork to your plate
and bringing it to your mouth and going back to
your plate again. And if you exceed the speed, then
(28:01):
the haptic fork will vibrate in your hand to alert
you to the fact that you are eating far too
quickly and you need to slow down. I'm not I'm
not entirely positive that I need a smart fork in
my life. I think that that normal intelligence level forks
are fine for me. It will also tell you by
tracking your data. You can plug it into a computer
(28:21):
and find out how many times and how frequently your
fork went from plate to mouth. So then you can say, wow,
not only did I eat quickly, I eat a lot
or at least I took a lot of bites. Hey, Yeah,
because there's a difference between the number of bites you're
taking and the size of the bites your take. That's true.
If you if you grab a steak in one big
stab and just eat the whole thing in one go,
then your fork went to plate to mouth once that
(28:44):
fork cannot tell the difference. Yeah. No, there was no
weight sense or anything. And it also would allow you
to remove the electronics components so that you could put
the shell into the dishwasher. Yeah. Um. And you would
charge it via USB of course, so make sure your
your silverware is charged before you serve dinner. The other
weird thing was the Hi ME w H E M
(29:05):
E robot. It's a massage robots massage robot. Yeah, you
want to know what it looked like. Oh, I know
you do, Lauren. I'm sure you've got some things running
through your head. More more than anything really boring. Actually,
so it looks like uh, as far as the designs
that are probably going through your head, imagine a remote
control car, but it has kind of bumpy wheels and uh,
(29:29):
and it has sensors that tell it when it's getting
towards the edge of your body so that it can
reverse its motion. So essentially is rolling over your back
and you lay down, face down with this massage robot
on your back and it just rolls across your back
and gives you a massage that way. I guess that's cool. Yeah,
it's not some sort of humanoid robot with like well no, no,
(29:53):
I mean, you know. Nonetheless, I still I don't know.
I would feel I would personally, Then again, I might be.
I might be a terror both candidate for tech Stuff
co host Aora because at a certain point, I'm like,
I don't really want robots to touch me. See, I
was thinking, I was so sad you were not with me,
because I would totally shoot a video segment with you
(30:13):
laying down with a robot rolling across your back because
I interview you. Now we've agreed that you get to
do the embarrassing things. No, no, no, no, no no,
embarrassing things. We totally have to share crap. I will,
I will get on the electronic saddle. If you get
the massage robot, that's the that's the rule. All right. Well,
if that's if that's the something to look forward to
(30:33):
and see us two thousand fourteen folks, all right, Well,
that that's just an overview of what I saw. Of course,
there was so much more at this show. I mean
way more. It's impossible to to a talk about it
and to be even see any all of it when
you're at this kind of thing right now, the big
themes I would walk away from were connectivity, smart applications,
(30:54):
and ultra high definition. Those were the big ones that
came back over and over and over again. But there
was a lot of other stuff there too, and and
it's diversifying more and more each year, so you're seeing
lots of breakout areas like technology specifically for senior citizens
or green tech, although that wasn't as big a thing
this year. I'm worried that green tech was sort of
(31:15):
a buzz trend that has already some of its incorporated
technology mainstream already. Yeah, I feel like it's mostly been incorporated.
I think that people don't need to talk about it
quite as much because all of the you know, all
of the efforts to conserve energy are useful for anyone
who's putting any new kind of technology together, so they
they you know, they want to use it, hopefully, I hope, So,
(31:36):
I hope. So the other side of that is saying that, well,
you know, consumer electronic show ultimately is all about consumerism
and consumption and therefore is kind of antithetical to the
whole green movement in the first place. And there's something
to that. I mean, you you walk around, you take
a look at one of these show floors, and if
you just sit there and think this is this is
a lot of lights. We're running a lot of electronics
(31:59):
right now. Yeah, there's some conflict, but anyway, mostly it's
kind of cool. So um, yeah, if you guys have
any suggestions, like if there's anything we talked about that
she said, you know, that's not interesting, but I really
want to know more about that. How does ultra high
definition work? Or uh, tell me more about this idea
of being able to see two different screens on the
(32:20):
same set or anything along those lines. Let us know
s this an email our addresses tech stuff at Discovery
dot com or drop us a line on Facebook or
Twitter are handled there as tech stuff. Hs W, Lauren
and I will talk to you again really soon for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how staff works dot com
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Stuff Look stop com Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
tech Stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, both
of them, and today we're going to conclude our epic
two part episode about c E S two thousand thirteen
(00:25):
and the adventures of Jonathan in Vague. Well, you know,
let's talk a little bit about health. Health. What does
that have to do with technology everything? As it turns out, well,
first of all, the trend of creating fitness tech has
not slowed down at all. I saw lots and lots
of examples of various gadgets that will track how many
(00:47):
steps you take and upload that data in some way
or or or analyze your activity in various ways to
let you know exactly how active or not active are. Yeah,
you know which, which is really cool and I think
a lot of people are. If my Facebook feed is
any indication using that kind of thing to um to
just kind of crowdsource their their own ability to to
(01:08):
level up in health. That's the nerdiest thing that I've
said in a very long time. And I'm podcasting about
tech things right now, so that's really impressive. But but no,
you know, it's it's it's a great motivation to be
able to connect with other people share that sort of Yeah.
I've seen people who use things like like the fitbit
as a means of competing against their friends, where you know,
how many they see how many steps they log, and
(01:30):
then they see how many of their steps their friend logs.
They're like, oh, I need to fit another fift steps
so that I could beat them. And you know, in
the end, we're talking about activity and exercise and a
healthier lifestyle. So even though there might be some sort
of goofy competitive edge on one side, yeah, the the
outcome is fantastic. I heard that fit that actually had
(01:52):
a new piece of tech called the Fitbit Flex Activity
Track or bracelet that you basically just wear all the
time and very pretty, it's very pretty. Uum in the
United States, it's on sale for pre order for Yeah,
so it's we're talking a hundred dollars. But it does
track all this information and then you can actually view
(02:15):
it through various apps or programs and get more of
an insight into what your activity levels mean for your
general health. And this means that you can use that
information to try and adopt a healthier lifestyle, or you know,
maybe you realize like, um, I need to make more
time in my day for this sort of thing because
(02:36):
it is important to me in order to have a
happier life experience. I mean, the healthier we are in general,
we tend to be happier. That is actually a science
fact that has been proven that that healthier people are happier.
It's better quality of life. Yeah, poor health means higher
stress levels, which in turn leads to more poor health.
(02:56):
It's a terrible, terrible cycle. And we've got to get
out of that. So uh so we have terrible cycles. No, No,
I saw I saw a lot of exercise equipment. But
one of the things I saw was kind of interesting.
Um it was actually I think it was up for
one of the c E S Innovation Awards. It was
a thing that you would attach to a stationary exercise
bike that will allow you to control the bike's um
(03:20):
uh pressure and everything so that you know you would
have greater resistance. You can control it from a smartphone.
So in other words, you think like I want to
go up a hill now, and on your smartphone, which
is already playing your music, you just go ahead and
adjustice a little thing and suddenly you're you're now. I
don't know how necessary that is. I guess it depends
upon what kind of stationary bike you're writing. But I
thought it was an interesting use of health technology. Yeah,
(03:42):
that's great. Yeah. The big one that I heard about
was the rp VITA by I Robot and in Touch,
which um it stands for Remote Presence, Virtual and Independent
Telemedicine Assistant, which means that it's a hospital butler essentially. Yeah,
it's it's a it's jarvis or the spittle and um,
let's see, let's see you telecommunicate with your doctor if
(04:04):
he's in a remote he or she. I'm sorry, that
was terrible and met the worst feminist. Um if you're
pretty bad too. If you're if your doctor is in
is in a remote location, Um, you can you can
see them. You can plug your your ultrasound or whatever
other equipment into this thing, and it will send all
of your biomedical statistics over there. Really great for emergency
(04:26):
situations and things like some remote locations where getting a
doctor there might not be uh might not be easy
to do, but a doctor could take a look at
that that data and find out like oh no, we
we really do need to send medical help there. Or
they could say this is something that you can treat
on your own, or perhaps even say this is something
(04:47):
you can do until we can get help to you.
It's it's really a cool way of using technology to
help people. Um. There was one other one I wanted
to talk about in this area which kind of relates
back to the sport stuff in a way. Um, and
it was Belkan had what was called the Wemo Baby Monitor. Now,
Wem is a technology that they've used for things like
(05:10):
home automation and smartphone control. You know you were talking
about controlling everything from your smartphone. A lot of the
Wemo technology is all about that, things like controlling lights
from your phone, things like that. Well, the Wemo Baby monitor,
uh is a device that has a crying algorithm as
an algorithm that's designed to pick up sound and distinguish
(05:34):
one sound from another, and it's specifically meant to alert
you when your baby cries. So when your baby cries,
you get a message on your phone saying, hey, baby
is not happy. You might want to go check on baby.
But if if a big truck goes by and the
noise is loud, enough to hear inside the house. The
monitor doesn't send you a false positive saying babies crying.
(05:55):
It also does not send you a message saying a
big truck just went by. That's get a little bit
ted and be like, wow, I'm getting a lot of
data about the noise is coming from baby's room. But
the other thing that this this device does is through
a partnership with a piece of software called evo uh,
it tracks the information about your baby's crying habits and
(06:17):
sleep patterns. So it actually plots this information so that
parents can see when their baby is crying, when their
baby is sleeping, and perhaps if they see that the
baby is crying at a consistent time each day, maybe
they change the feeding schedule, or maybe it might be
there there's some other environmental factor that is based upon
time that they can look into to make their baby
(06:39):
a happier baby. So the idea is that to use
this data in a way to become a better parent.
And it's the reason why I say it reminds me
of the fitness information is because a lot of this
the fitness gear is all about tracking your activity and
then relating that information to you in a in a
way that is meaning, right, and that's what when we
(06:59):
talk about the Internet of things. That's a big element
of the Internet of things. It's this idea that we're
going to incorporate not just connectivity to the Internet, but
the ability for various stuff to sense what is going
on in our environment and send us information that we
can understand so that we might improve that environment, right,
improve the environment, or improve our own interaction within that environment.
(07:22):
Now that being said, there's always the opportunity for us
to obsess over this data in ways that you know,
they didn't necessarily intend. But that's a human thing. Yeah, yeah,
well you know, it's all a tiny bit creepy, a
little bit big brother here and there. Yeah, I get
a little bit weirded out by by the things around
me watching me, and I don't. It all depends on
where the data is going to. Well, absolutely, Like if
(07:42):
the data is just coming straight to you, then you're
just like, you start to micromanage your own behavior. But
if the data is going to someone else first, then
you're like, oh, great, now they know they're going to
know everything. Yeah, they know how many times I go
to the refrigerator and open the door and not actually
get anything out but just stare and then closed the
door and walk away. That's you know, and then they're
(08:02):
gonna send me an email about how wasteful I am.
But but hopefully no one, no one is bored enough
to watch and judge that data fingers crossed. I don't know.
I met some interesting people at see anyway. Yeah, so
that's that's health technology. Um. We also had a lot
of car technology. Now, some of that was things like
(08:23):
various new kinds of car stereos, which you know, even
louder and more basier than before. But I mean that
has a place, right, but it's not something that that
I mean, unless you write about specifically about about cars
sound systems, it's not terribly interesting to a general to
the average consumer. The really interesting thing that I saw
(08:43):
was audis self driving. Lexus also had a car that
was practically self driving. It had this is technology that
we've seen developed and implemented in two cars. It's just
on a level that goes beyond what we norm see
in the consumer marketplace. So things like lane change software
(09:04):
that helps you change lane safely, or collision detection or
automatic breaking or uh, you know, the parking assist features
right right, parking assist being where um, you know, if
you have your car parked and it has to be
a specialized garage outfitted with this array of laser scanners
so that your car knows where it is, but you
can you can then, like Batman, just just press a
(09:27):
button on your smartphone and call your car to you
and it will just drive up from the garage and
the Joker will attack Gotham and you have to be
on your way to save the world. Yeah, like a boss,
as as my buddy say. Yeah. Both both Lexus and
Audi were showing off some features of this, and uh,
(09:48):
Toyota has been really really active in developing self driving cars.
That news broke just as CES was starting. There was
news about this Toyota self driving car prototype, and it's
really there's a lot of excitement around this because not
not to say that all cars are going to be
driving themselves within a few generations. Yeah, we're a little
(10:12):
bit off from that. But even if even if that
technology is capable, none of these car manufacturers were suggesting
that that's going to become the norm. They were saying,
this is the technology that will make us all safer drivers,
and uh, if we go beyond that, if we start
creating networks that these cars can communicate to UH in
a way that protects our privacy because we don't want
(10:32):
we don't want the world to know where we're going
all the time, but in a way that allows the
the infrastructure to adapt so that traffic becomes less of
a problem. So let's say that you are in a
city that's outfitted with one of these networks, and the
grant this is far into the future because it would
cause it would require a huge infrastructure change. But you're
(10:52):
in a city where this this is a reality, then
your car could navigate through the city without the problem
of traffic. If you're going one way, UH, if a
lot of cars are going one way, the traffic lights
could adapt h dynamically to the flows of traffic, so
that you know, you don't sit there and wonder like,
why is this light red for so long? There's no
(11:13):
one coming the other way? You know that would be
less likely to happen. Or if there was an accident somewhere,
your car could automatically root you through a different way right,
or you could get to a point where there's no
more accidents. That would be nice. Hey, that would be
That would be lovely. Let's take a quick break to
think our sponsor and now back to the show. So, Lauren,
I know you're really eager to talk about the next
(11:34):
category of stuff, which is gaming technology. I am. I'm
excited about it. You. Um, I think I think he
said in your I I listened to your podcast with
Chris about two thousand twelves ces um and you said
that you had seen Project Fiona there. Yes, has since
become the Razor Edge. Yes, and that's not a finishing
move in the w w E in this case, I
(11:58):
that that that reference. Just wooh, don't I just what? Okay?
I know I need to educate Lauren, but we can
do that after the show. Uh So, Yeah, the the
Razor Edge is a gaming tablet, and this is a
heavy duty tablet. It's a Windows eight machine capable of
(12:18):
running full video games on it. Uh you can run
games and use the tablet like tilting the tablet to
make it do stuff, or if you want to spring
for uh an optional case. The Razor Edge pro Version
at least has a case that has controllers built into
the size that buttons and thumbsticks that you would expect
(12:40):
from any other controlling right, so you can play first
person shooters or other types of games. Uh, directly from that,
the resolution was amazing, the animation fantastic video gameplay. I
mean it looked I mean we're talking like forty eight
gigs of RAM depending on what model. Yeah, this is
this was a very impressive piece of technology. And uh,
(13:02):
they had some where they were using I believe HDMI
out to larger displays, so they were running games on
this tablet showing it on the big display. So that
was kind of fun too. And I wonder, I wonder
if they could start integrating stuff like the we you
does with you know, having a small screen big screen,
that would be interesting. I wonder, you know, I assume
(13:22):
you could do that where you would have the h
d m I feed out be different from what you're
actually looking at on the screen. I don't know that
there's any reason why you couldn't do that, But as
far as I know, no one's no one's actually developed that.
That could be wrong. That yeah, someone someone do that thing,
she said, But yeah, that was that was pretty impressive
that one. As I recall, there the two basic two models,
(13:43):
a basic model and a pro model, and the basic
model I think is going to retail for around just
under a thousand, just under thousand, then going up to
like for the pro model. Yeah, so that's that's a
healthy chunk of change for a tablet. But again, this
is a fully functional computer tablet like, this is not
this is not some uh stripped down mobile device. This
(14:07):
is a full computer in tablet form. Yeah. Yeah, which
which just by itself I think is completely fascinating because
the problem that I have with tablets anyways, the reason
that I don't own one is that they're not powerful
enough for me to do what I want to do
with stuff. You know, I need something that's gonna run
some kind of photo editing program. And you know, also
Microsoft Word and I had I had the same issue
(14:28):
when I was I eventually did buy a tablet. I
very rarely use my tablet, which, again, and I've said
this before, it proves to me that the tablet form
factor just isn't where I need it to be for
to be a truly useful, indispensable part of my tech life. Now.
I know other people who, you know, they never dropped
their tablets constantly in their hands, and they have plenty
(14:49):
of reasons why they use it, which is great, it's
just not the way I use stuff. Beyond that, in
gaming technology, you also had the Invidios Shield Project Shield,
which was that was a big secret. I mean that
was when that was unveiled on the floor. You there
was an audible gasp. Yeah. No, it was pretty neat.
It was. So if you if you don't know what
(15:11):
the Nvidios shield is, imagine, uh, an Xbox controller, because
that's what it looks like. It's not an Xbox controller,
but it kind of looks like one. And uh, and
you know it just think of it as having a
blank face. So there's no buttons, there's no thumbsticks or anything.
It's just a blank face. And then you open up
a clamshell and it it opens to reveal the buttons
(15:33):
and thumbsticks underneath the clamshell and on the underside of
the clamshell is a screen. It's a five inch screen touchscreen. UM.
So the the shield is a controller and screen all
in one. And it does have this clamshell design, so
you open it and close it. Uh. It runs a
version of Android, so you can play Android based games
(15:55):
anytime you want. It can be stored locally on that device.
But the the selling point is that it has software
that allows you to stream content from a PC over
WiFi to the project Shield controller, so you can play
full PC games on this little controller over the screen. Now,
(16:17):
the big downside as far as I'm concerned, is that
you have to be over WiFi to do this because
the act the game is actually running on the PC,
not on the shield like the Sheeld if you if
you've heard of the on Live video game consoles, the
same sort of thing where somewhere on the cloud there's
a machine running the game and you are just running,
(16:38):
and you know you're you're you're running a window that's
looking into it. Latency didn't seem to be a problem.
It seemed very responsive. So it wasn't like there was
a problem between when you pressed a button and when
your character did something. That seemed pretty seamless. But it
makes me wonder how practical is this. I mean, are
there a lot of gamers who would love to play
more computer games but they don't like having to sit
(17:00):
at their computer? Well, I mean, you know, maybe you
know it's for for the adventurous types that they really
want to play Call of Duty from the bathtub or yeah,
I guess. M Yeah, I'm not sure because yeah, the
other problem I had was that, you know, you could argue, well,
it also has an hd my out, so you could
play it on your television, But you could build a
(17:21):
video game gaming rig that you can play on the
TV already, and there's some companies like Valve that make
that really easy to Yeah, you know, and you know
it's about to get easier. I heard the Valve was
also there mostly to talk to hardware partners about steam Box. Yeah, yep.
Steam Box is one of those things that we still
don't know a whole lot about other than the fact
that it's on its way. But yeah, we understand that
(17:44):
it will probably be a pretty lockdown experience, but it
should be. Um, it should be about as good an
experience as you can expect to to get with a
system that you cannot customize yourself. Right. It's it's meant
for the consumer who wants something they can plug into
their entertainment system without having to worry about installing drivers
or managing other kinds of connections. So serious gamers have
(18:10):
been doing this stuff on their own already for ages,
but now it's getting to the point where the average
consumer who may not have that kind of technological savvy
can do it easily. Yeah. Yeah, you know, for for
the PC gamer who wants to who wants to also
be a concert. It's blurring the line between PC and console.
And I think it's fascinating and I'm not entirely sure
what space it has. I'm happy to see it happen
(18:31):
simply because I think anytime you have more competition within
a field, it benefits the consumer. Of course, absolutely, so
it puts pressure, like all of these products put pressure
on companies like Microsoft and Sony because these could potentially
start to siphon away gamers from the established consoles. Nintendo
(18:54):
should already be worried. That's why I didn't mention it. Todo. No,
they really should be. I mean, I love no Pindow,
don't get me wrong, but I think I think that
we You is not enough to answer the competition. We
talked about this one in our two Predictions show. And yeah,
and I do think that, you know, it's I like
the WEU, I like the concept, but I'm just not
(19:14):
sure if it's you. Um but but but some of
those smaller players, Um, there was the Oculus rift. Okay,
This kind of transitions us into another discussion about how
Kickstarter was an incredible presence at c e S. Not directly,
but there were projects that had been had received Kickstarter
backing that had a presence at c S and you
(19:36):
gotta think, you know, without that crowdfunding, they never could
have made it out to see Yes, and yet there
they were showing stuff off and these are these are enterprising,
innovative individuals or groups that are coming up with technologies
that are surprising people. And I heard several people within
the technology journalism fields say their opinion is that some
(19:58):
of these big companies, they have so many different lines
of products that they have to nurture and maintain that
it's really hard to innovate and create new stuff because
they're mostly looking at, Okay, well, what features can we
add to this existing stuff so that we continue to
sell them yeah, yeah, and so that we get this
big product name to continue, whereas well, these small groups
(20:20):
they're saying what cool stuff can we make happen? And
then the Oculus Rift is a virtual reality gaming headset
that has stereoscopic screens, so there's a screen dedicated to
each eye that gives you a three D effect when
you put it on, and it's really amazing. There's there's
(20:41):
the latency is not an issue, so you don't get
the swimmy effect when you turn your head and look around. Um,
and you can control it using a video game controller. Uh.
And they even showed off some unreal tournament using this thing,
so it's like you are actually there and uh. Instead
of they talked about how it helped or so so
(21:04):
one journalists talked about how it helped, uh even out
the playing field between console based gamers who use controllers
and PC based gamers to use the keyboard mouse set up,
because that's one of those things people who use keyboard
and mouse are like, well, I'm much more accurate and fast.
You have a controller, you're slower. Well with this you
aimed by looking at stuff. You're all right, let's see
(21:25):
how fast your mouse is now, buddy boy. So but
that was a huge success story. It was a Kickstarter
backed project that actually had space at CS and it's
not not it's not out for consumer purchase yet. There
in the development or developer kits stage. Yeah, they're there's
they're offering up kits for developers and what they call
(21:46):
hardcore enthusiasts. So if you're an enthusiast who doesn't care
that there's not really any content to play, you can
get one of these. But that's the thing, that's why
they call it developer kits because they don't want consumers.
They oh, I can get this on it right now, Xbox.
It doesn't work that way. Um, but but you you
(22:07):
actually you actually pre ordered I think something. Yes, I did.
I was while I was at c S. I put
in my pre order for a Pebble smart watch, which
I'm kind of jealous about him. I really, you know,
if I had had however many dollars it was when
it was up on Kickstarter, did I really not have? So?
(22:29):
But at ninety nine, if you had backed at the
ninety nine level or higher you were you were given
that that would earn you a smart watch, assuming that
they made their goal. Now, the big story about Pebble
is their goal was one dollars. They raised ten million
starter kids. It's wonderful. Wow, that's like, yeah, ten million dollars,
(22:52):
and so they actually they were They had to deal
with some controversy because controversy might be too strong a word,
but some criticism because they had originally anticipated they would
start shipping the watches in September of two thousand twelve.
That date came and went and they didn't ship. But
the the explanation was actually quite logical. They said, well,
(23:13):
originally we thought we were going to raise a hundred
thousand dollars and that we would produce maybe two thousand watches,
and we were going to do all of that in
the United States in a California facility that was a
small facility that could handle two thousand. Yeah. Yeah, they
knew what they were dealing with and had some deadlines
based on it. But then ten million dollars happened, and
(23:34):
then they realized, well, in order to do this, we
need to actually shift to a much larger manufacturing process,
and they went overseas from manufacturing. That complicated the whole
supply chain and made things slower. So they said, yeah,
it turns out it was way more complex than what
we had originally anticipated, which is why we we missed it.
But we will start shipping the smart watches to Kickstarter
(23:58):
backers starting anyway twenty three. It would take six to
eight weeks to get all the Kickstarter orders out, and
they were going to deliver them in the order that
people backed the project. So if you were one of
those first people who backed the project, you're going to
get your watch first. Now. I pre ordered while I
was there, so I'm going to have a few months
before I get mine. Cherry red, by the way, that's
(24:20):
the color I went with. They have five colors available.
I went with cherry red. Sounds very silent. If you
guys start watching tech stuff videos and you see me
wearing a cherry red watch, that means my my pebble
watch finally arrived. But yeah, they were another Kickser project
that had a presence at the floor, and that's amazing.
You know, there was a time where unless you were
(24:41):
a major player, you didn't have a presence at CS.
If you did have a presence and you weren't a
major player, it was a tiny little booth that was
shoved way off in one corner that most people would
never see. So it was kind of cool. Um, and
then we got the weird stuff. We we we do
the weird stuff. We do not do the weird stuff.
That's I can't even say that here. Now you can
say that we do the weird stuff. That's a doctor
(25:02):
horrible reference that all of our listeners will appreciate for
sweater vests. Yeah, not all of this is weird, but
it's stuff that doesn't easily fit into other categories. There
was the track dot luggage sensor and uh that has
it was a battery operated or it is a battery
operated sensor that will text you where your luggage is.
(25:25):
So let's say you go traveling, you get to the airport,
you check your bag. It happens to have one of
these trackers inside it. Uh, it will text you where
it is. So let's say you end up in San Francisco,
but your bag is in uh, Tierra del Fuego. It
will send you a text message saying, what the heck
I'm in Tier del Fuego. It also has a Bluetooth
sensor in it, so that when it reaches your near you,
(25:48):
assuming that you have your phone paired up to it
and it's once it comes into range, your phone will
alert you so you'll know, oh, I need to look
at my attention to Yeah, let me look at all
of the black bags there and figure which one is mine. Oh, well,
I got a message, so it's it's coming in. It's close. Uh.
So that was kind of neat. Um. There was the
Plastic Logic had some flexible displays. This was not on
(26:11):
the show floor. That was a closed door meeting that
you had to rs VP two, so I went to
see it. These were really cool. There were these flexible
displays that they were explaining in one in the future
could be really really flexible in more ways than one.
They showed off, uh an implementation that was pretty neat
where they had a flexible e paper display. So it's
(26:32):
e ink okay, so it's a very low energy needed
to to create the image. They lay it down, it's
showing a map, okay, so it's it looks like a
sheet of paper that's showing a map. They lay a
second one, a blank one, next to the first one,
so that the edges overlap and then the map extends
automatically across both pages. It was just neat, right, and
(26:54):
they explained that this was just a basic application that
could be used in this sort of stuff, And mainly
they're talking about using it for flexible display so that
you could create a display that conforms to a curved wall.
But I could see so many more applications for this,
and UH, that was really exciting, So shout out to
plastic logic. Uh As for the weird, I've got a
(27:15):
tie between the two weirdest things I saw. Keep in
mind there are some weird stuff. It's the e s
and I never saw there was the happy fork, which
is a thing. It's it's yes, that is stelled h
A P I. Yeah, it's it's a haptic feedback fork.
And the concept it's actually kind of interesting. The concept
is that if you are eating and you're eating too fast,
(27:38):
that can be unhealthy. You could eat more than you
need to. It's it's something that can lead to overeating
and think dust can lead to weight gain or obesity.
So what the haptic fork allows you to do is
set an interval that you do not wish to exceed
when it comes to putting your fork to your plate
and bringing it to your mouth and going back to
your plate again. And if you exceed the speed, then
(28:01):
the haptic fork will vibrate in your hand to alert
you to the fact that you are eating far too
quickly and you need to slow down. I'm not I'm
not entirely positive that I need a smart fork in
my life. I think that that normal intelligence level forks
are fine for me. It will also tell you by
tracking your data. You can plug it into a computer
(28:21):
and find out how many times and how frequently your
fork went from plate to mouth. So then you can say, wow,
not only did I eat quickly, I eat a lot
or at least I took a lot of bites. Hey, Yeah,
because there's a difference between the number of bites you're
taking and the size of the bites your take. That's true.
If you if you grab a steak in one big
stab and just eat the whole thing in one go,
then your fork went to plate to mouth once that
(28:44):
fork cannot tell the difference. Yeah. No, there was no
weight sense or anything. And it also would allow you
to remove the electronics components so that you could put
the shell into the dishwasher. Yeah. Um. And you would
charge it via USB of course, so make sure your
your silverware is charged before you serve dinner. The other
weird thing was the Hi ME w H E M
(29:05):
E robot. It's a massage robots massage robot. Yeah, you
want to know what it looked like. Oh, I know
you do, Lauren. I'm sure you've got some things running
through your head. More more than anything really boring. Actually,
so it looks like uh, as far as the designs
that are probably going through your head, imagine a remote
control car, but it has kind of bumpy wheels and uh,
(29:29):
and it has sensors that tell it when it's getting
towards the edge of your body so that it can
reverse its motion. So essentially is rolling over your back
and you lay down, face down with this massage robot
on your back and it just rolls across your back
and gives you a massage that way. I guess that's cool. Yeah,
it's not some sort of humanoid robot with like well no, no,
(29:53):
I mean, you know. Nonetheless, I still I don't know.
I would feel I would personally, Then again, I might be.
I might be a terror both candidate for tech Stuff
co host Aora because at a certain point, I'm like,
I don't really want robots to touch me. See, I
was thinking, I was so sad you were not with me,
because I would totally shoot a video segment with you
(30:13):
laying down with a robot rolling across your back because
I interview you. Now we've agreed that you get to
do the embarrassing things. No, no, no, no, no no,
embarrassing things. We totally have to share crap. I will,
I will get on the electronic saddle. If you get
the massage robot, that's the that's the rule. All right. Well,
if that's if that's the something to look forward to
(30:33):
and see us two thousand fourteen folks, all right, Well,
that that's just an overview of what I saw. Of course,
there was so much more at this show. I mean
way more. It's impossible to to a talk about it
and to be even see any all of it when
you're at this kind of thing right now, the big
themes I would walk away from were connectivity, smart applications,
(30:54):
and ultra high definition. Those were the big ones that
came back over and over and over again. But there
was a lot of other stuff there too, and and
it's diversifying more and more each year, so you're seeing
lots of breakout areas like technology specifically for senior citizens
or green tech, although that wasn't as big a thing
this year. I'm worried that green tech was sort of
(31:15):
a buzz trend that has already some of its incorporated
technology mainstream already. Yeah, I feel like it's mostly been incorporated.
I think that people don't need to talk about it
quite as much because all of the you know, all
of the efforts to conserve energy are useful for anyone
who's putting any new kind of technology together, so they
they you know, they want to use it, hopefully, I hope, So,
(31:36):
I hope. So the other side of that is saying that, well,
you know, consumer electronic show ultimately is all about consumerism
and consumption and therefore is kind of antithetical to the
whole green movement in the first place. And there's something
to that. I mean, you you walk around, you take
a look at one of these show floors, and if
you just sit there and think this is this is
a lot of lights. We're running a lot of electronics
(31:59):
right now. Yeah, there's some conflict, but anyway, mostly it's
kind of cool. So um, yeah, if you guys have
any suggestions, like if there's anything we talked about that
she said, you know, that's not interesting, but I really
want to know more about that. How does ultra high
definition work? Or uh, tell me more about this idea
of being able to see two different screens on the
(32:20):
same set or anything along those lines. Let us know
s this an email our addresses tech stuff at Discovery
dot com or drop us a line on Facebook or
Twitter are handled there as tech stuff. Hs W, Lauren
and I will talk to you again really soon for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how staff works dot com
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
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Karah Preiss
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