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Hello everybody.
Welcome back to the cnet stage for our most comprehensive look at the technologies we think matter the most here at CES.
This is kinda the final final look.
I'm Brian Cooley with my Personal physician Dr. Scott Stein.
The stint feels good.
Thank you.
That went really easily.
First real procedure was a success.
I'm telling ya, you think I'm kidding.
We're about to run down the stuff that you really need to pay attention to here at CEC.
Whether you're here at the show or whether it from afar.
This is our best condensation episode To pull it all together.
So, Scott, let's start off with some great eye candy, LG's rollable OLED TV.
This is probably the most amazing combination of unbelievable tech and sitting within the biggest category at CES, which is televisions.
You're looking at a screen that rolls up and down like a window shade.
In and out of that box, it's flexible OLED.
We've seen the core technology before, but this is a product that's looking much more like a finished product, though it is not slated for pricing or sale, just yet.
But the idea is pretty simple, when you're not watching TV, don't look at an ugly TV, sitting on your wall.
I only wanna see content, I actually never wanna see a television.
You just wanna be able to pop, you wanna as for whatever thing you want to see.
It comes up to match that.
Yes, to match the ratio and size.
It's a movie theater.
It's basically a movie theater feel.
You know, when you sit down and you actually see the screen adjusting.
Yeah, you're right.
The presentation for that begins.
They tailor the drapes to the width of the production.
And, as you might have seen there, they can also roll it up to a very low almost like an eyebrow display.
If you wanted to have some kind of a home status console, it can be just a few inches up and parked right there and show home status like so.
You know weather or what have you.
It was really a crowd pleaser.
As long as the kids don't make it like rise up and rise down.
They'll start working it.
Ree, ree, ree, ree.
Worried about that.
What's in the box?
Remember IBO, that weird, adorable Sony robot dog years ago.
Yeah.
It kind of kicked off the train.
Well now it's back.
Now, this petting friendly puppy looks more like a living cartoon.
It's cute.
It's really cute.
Cute robots can be used for lots of things.
It can improve the way we interact with software or AI.
Or it could comfort sick people or lonely people.
So, I think iBow, this year, for us, among a lot of robots wins the cute award at CES, but it cost 1,700 dollars.
Hoof, I gotta say, every year.
Every year this thing has a little more of a relatable likability to it.
Yeah.
Which I think is one of the hardest things to do in robotics is to make something that's clearly mechanical, come off as relatable.
A lot of the robot companies tell us that they say, look, we're working on functionality later, we're working on relatability right now.
Yeah.
And working out ways here light motion and feeling more animated.
Yeah.
They're coming the ways that mimic
What you would expect, in a kind of almost cartoonish way, like a living Pixar movie type thing.
Or for about one-seventeenth that cost you can go adopt a really cute puppy.
That's the thing.
Just putting that out there.
Right.
To be considered.
All right, so it's another CES, that means it's another new connected electric car from a company we've never heard of before.
This time it's Byton.
B-Y-T-O-N
Got a lot of buzz.
It's a car that led with headlines, not just about being electric, but having 5G, having Alexa built in.
Facial recognition to comport itself to whoever's driving.
Level three autonomy and 250 to 325 miles of range.
Starting at a base price of $45,000 and they say coming to market in 2019.
I wish them luck.
Entering the connective electric car market is not as easy as any company so far we have seen, thought it would be Faraday is a good example.
They took this show by storm a year and two years ago, but never really amounted to much.
But anyway, that was a major car buzz.
The other major car buzz, it drove me nuts, is BMW.
Their message this year is not some new connected car or autonomy, it's doing drifts.
And they're out there drifting, squealing, tire smoke.
The ear damage started on Friday.
Right?
Well before the show started.
> I called down to the hotel desk and I go what is going on outside?
I'm, people are going for rides in it.
I did not do that.
I don't.
I don't care to do it.
I don't want to do it.
Reminded me of death proof.
Can't go for joy rides on that stuff.
No.
It's just so stupid.
No more noisy things in the parking lot.
No, I don't need that guys.
That was just not, it wasn't interesting.
Whirlpool brought out a microwave that was more interesting than those BMWs doing drifts.
This is a microwave with Alexa and And Google controlability built in.
Now, it is a controllable microwave through Amazon Alexa or Google.
It is not a complete standalone smart speaker.
Those are the two paths that any product here could have taken this year.
It has relatively limited voice commands, by the way, that are focused on what a microwave would do.
So, it's not some full standalone smart speaker.
That's nuancedly smart It's got a touch control panel that helps you keep track of what you're cooking.
So eventually, they say it will enough and start to become a predictive device as well.
For example, if you were to use a certain preset mode at a certain time every day, It'll start to surface that in morning.
So the oatmeal said it will be sitting there in the morning and maybe never shows up in the evening.
It reminds me of that smart dishwasher that was here last year, which we haven't heard from since.
Right.
From a company in San Carlos.
It said yeah, we're gonna have a living interface that as you use it, it will keep stripping the interface down and surfacing only what you use, which I think is a smart idea across the industry.
It is true then they discover how badly I eat on a daily basis, and you know.
They know.
> Then I make discoveries.
Those are called discoveries, also known as shame.
> Yeah.
[LAUGH]
Yes.
> Don't show me my bad choice feed.
So, I have seen a lot of VR and AR at CES.
This year's batch of anouncements.
A couple of years ago, a long time ago at the rift, this time I don't say anything really wowed me, but the increments and the upgrades were nice.
HTC Vive Pro is an upgraded VR headset.
It didn't make my jaw drop, but it is an acknowledgement that better VR hardware, higher resolution wireless via Intel WiGig and a greater range of movement These can happen and should happen and will happen.
But they're gonna be aimed, probably for the time being, more at specific customers.
And what Vive is saying is more enterprise.
I think it's a smart-
Yeah.
Decision.
Yes.
And even entertainment centers where, why would you have this at home?
But that's not the point.
Sean Hollister there demoing it, and I'm demoing it.
But you put this in an arcade.
You like Star Wars and their thing with the void that's in Florida right now and in California.
I think that's exciting and it's kind of where VR is going.
Now you also were telling me yesterday about how there is this new add on module that can make it cable free.
Yeah.
That's the y gig connection to its associated PC.
That powers the experience, right?
So the PC has a dongle, and then you have actually a clip on pack that's part of the reciever, and then this antennae
Are they short cables up to the top
And then it goes up to this antennae wing thing that sits on top of the helmet.
So it's a kind of wing.
Yeah, there's some stuff going on.
But this is the first time we've seen Intel's WiGig In a connected device.
And it's high bandwidth, two way, and this is also I think very exciting for the future of all sorts of connected stuff.
Yes.
If we talk about a life of wireless home entertainment.
Yep.
DR powers it at tremendous speed, so power for everything else.
So I think it;s the beginning of maybe Connect to gaming and other things, maybe not with a hip pack, but I think that's an exciting direction.
But if you can do this, you can certainly start to make a game console, a DVD player, a streaming box, wireless to the TV, finally, because that is such an overdue accomplishment.
We're still looking at cable products all over this show floor for home entertainment And it seems like we almost lost the scent on that from a number of CESs ago, where [UNKNOWN] first came out.
And a couple of other proprietary technologies, yeah it won't be long now before your home entertainment stack talks to each other and talks to your T.V. just wirelessly and then nothing ever happen.
Yeah and it seems like it's more large scale than small scale cuz that thing was a giant thing that sat on my head.
Yeah that was kind of a big antenna.
I got to say that whole deal, yeah.
It was big.
I don't know how I'd feel about wearing that all the time.
Yeah.
It makes for short sessions.
It looked good though.
You looked good.
[LAUGH] I rocked it.
PC's we actually got one right here.
I love this.
Speaking of PC's the big PC show.
This is a practical pick if you like the idea of thin laptops.
Acer has a swift 7. It's 8.9 millimeters thin.
Its got LTE.
It's got a 14 inch screen.
You see it's the thinnest laptop ever.
It's not cheap 1699 but we thought it was one of the best PCs here at a very PC heavy show.
Let me see this.
It's nice.
This is about a 14 inch display it looks like.
Yep.
Okay.
Yeah that is, it almost feels like you're holding a knife.
I mean, it's really thin.>> It's super thin.>> Yeah that's pretty incredible.>> It's cool, its actually pretty practical.>> It's a little on the dense side, it's got some heft but that's good I think.
So it's some solid construction to it.
Which I think when you get this thin, you have to be solid.
If this was rendered in plastic it would just be a creaky flex fest.
Right.
This is the practical side.
We have conceptional PCs here too.
Yeah but this is.
Razer has crazy, put your phone in a laptop, make it a touch screen.
But this is saying You will buy now.
Yeah.
And that's an important thing to focus onto the show.
That's highly desirable.
Yeah.
Highly desirable.
Okay, Jessica Dowcourt was here yesterday with one of her picks.
And of course, she knows her phone and she was really excited about Vivo, a Chinese phone maker having the first in screen finger print sensor.
Now even if you're kind of skeptical about this, and I was, and still remain a little bit, it's got a breakthrough value, because normally when you've got a physical front of screen fingerprint sensor, you don't just take up the space where the sensor goes, but all that real estate to the left and the right is basically ruined.
And has to just become bezel or uninteresting real estate.
By putting that sensor under glass, its merely hiding under the display, and this is the zone where you put your finger on the display.
You actually gain a fair amount of display, and as she pointed out, it doesnt have to live on the back anymore, so that when you want to activate your phone that is laying on a table, you just lay a finger on it.
Now these aren't even first world problems.
These are like royal family level problems that we are solving.
But hey if you can do it, do it.
I think it is a doorway to a lot of things.
I think it is a really gigantic step because if you think about sensors under glass.
There is a lot of areas where you can see that going.
Yeah.
It could be car dash boards.
It could be it think smart watches.
Things that, you know, are in the future are biometrics or you're talking about maybe other sensors in the future.
If we're in a world that's covered in screens, which is seems like we're getting to that point
Yeah.
As all ads become more flexible, and you can put them in things, and they're low power, then it can really change the way.
It's a further step in the way that those become smart-button interactive things, like I think of it
Yeah.
As a little disembodied thing
Where it's kind of a feedback sensor.
You put it on, it gives you information in the future.
So I'm kinda thinking beyond phones.
It's kinda exciting.
And I want the next iPhone to have it.
I gotta say, you're starting to win me over gradually.
I thought it was kinda like gilding the lily at first.
It's like, is this really a big increment forward, but as I looked at and thought about it and listened to her arguments and what you're saying about it, it's like, okay.
This will be across the board in the industry.
Now that Vivo phone is not slotted for production or sale yet.
The part itself that makes that happen made by a company called Synaptics, which is a vendor to many phone makers.
So now the race is on to see who this year-
Now we'll see who has it.
Who actually brings it out.
Right.
Will it be Samsung?
Down the rope could it be like Apple start doing something like that and introduce.
Fingerprint readers again.
Yes.
Or at least on their high end.
[CROSSTALK]
Finally just distribute the fingerprint reader widely.
Okay, so, speaking of fingers, the neo-mano robotic glove was one of the most interesting things in medical and health that our editors saw here this week.
It's aimed to people having spinal cord injuries, that have damaged their ability to use their hands and wrists in particular.
I don't think it's aimed at a broader of paralysis level, people who've got motor issues.
It's driven by a certain titanium wire that flex or extend the hand portion that they wraps around.
Fingers, I think it's two fingers and a thumb.
It's controlled by a pad that is near your elbow.
I think that's how you operate you kinda work it with part of your arm and then it more finely operates the motor coordination of the end of your arm, you hand and fingers.
They say it will be out later this year as a kick starter price level $1,000.
So this is really kind of pretty serious medical Level stuff.
Yeah, and the idea of like assisted systems that, you know, blend between where your feedback begins and machines interacts with yours, I think, that's fascinating to me.
And you know at some point this kind of technology will cross over
To some enterprising gamers who say okay, it's great to help people who have limited mobility.
But what if I wanna get super actuating in my hands, right?
Maximum mobility.
Yeah, absolutely.
[SOUND] Be able to operate your fingers at levels that the human feedback loop can't do.
Who knows?
Right, cyborg enhancements or like [INAUDIBLE].
Yeah, it's cyborgian.
Haptics or it's that kind of mech suit fantasy, you know if you have gaming gloves that eventually enable you to do more or extend your actions.
Yeah it's like a very small piece of exoskeleton, basically.
Yeah it is, it is.
Pretty cool to see it apparently coming out at a price that is, you know, more or less affordable.
So this is kind of nuts but the best AR that I saw at this show
Was right at the beginning from a plastic, it's a plastic blaster toy for phones.
And this company Merge they made the six degree of freedom blaster and I didn't know what to expect out of this.
But with Apple AR kit and Google's AR core introducing a lot of exciting flashy air apps last year that were also gimmicky.
The question is, what do you do with that next?
And this is an accessory that taps in, uses [UNKNOWN] and drives an experience where you shoot things.
And you can zoom in, there are three triggers, it's got vibration feedback, the demo was really smooth.
Really?
I was dancing all over the floor, like a fool, but it's coming out this year and the target is around $50
Until you can nail really amazing air experiences that aren't $1000 $3000 this is probably the best bet for compelling stuff for people.
And we'll probably bridge the gap for a while.
And I dont think their going to be the only one.
Wants to introduce things like this.
It's better than I thought, it's more cool than
It looks like it really was, like you say, very smooth and responsively rendered.
Yeah.
Which is one of the first hurdles you've got to accomplish in AR or VR is simply get sufficient performance and responsiveness.
And it gives you something to do, because AR, those apps right now you kind of just hold them in your hand.
Yeah.
And you don't know what to do.
We start seeing more game controller type things, or we've seen some headsets that drop phones, and it use that AR technology.
Yeah.
So I think they're gonna see more of that.
It's like Pokemon Go but it adds a combat layer.
Yeah.
Right, and a cool device.
And multiplayer eventually.
They said they're going for laser tag, so It looks pretty cool.
I gotta say I'm a little surprised how much I'm loving the logo from a distance.
Keep your eye out fo rthe holidays I feel like thats going to be a toy pick
Let's see, power cast is the company that had themost interesting power transmision technology.
Something called power spot.
They have FCC approval.
There is the master box that blasts power wirelessly Low current now.
This is meant to power things like Bluetooth headphones, or mikes, or keyboards.
Anywhere from 2 to, in some cases, up to 80 feet.
Now it's not a lot of current.
You're not going a desk lamp, even an LED lamp, with this, but for small peripherals like the keyboards and remote controls and certain wearables, this is a way to power and/or charge them, Through thin air.
This has remained one of the holy grails that keeps coming up but never quite reaching any market acceptance.
The benefit of recharging pad, which is another way to cordlessly charge and power, is more freedom of placement.
You just kind of leave things around and they're gonna get power beamed to them.
By the way, if you're asking if this is a phone charging technology.
apparently that's a little tricky still.
There is a rather high current demand to charge modern phones because they have big batteries.
And if you charge them at a trickle, you never really get them charged.
So, this does require, apparently, a separate adapter to do a phone charge.
It beams more power to that adapter in a custom link.
And then that adapter does a Charging pad connection to your phone.
That sounds a little kludgy to me.
But for other smaller devices, this is apparently the real deal.
Small connected things or sensors or who know what.
Yeah, little low power stuff.
Might want to keep, yeah, keep connected.
Things that basically are powered by NFC.
It sounds like it's the power part of NFC alone.
Just sending current that way.
The biggest product we saw here, affected everybody.
Here is a technology that everyone at CES was impacted by, a black out.
The power outage that hit the Las Vegas convention center, late morning yesterday.
The second official full day of CES, you take a look that was out.
That's pretty dark folks.
In all the years we've been coming here, we pushing two decades in one form or the other we've never seen CES go dark.
I mean, come on it's the electronic show.
If there is any place where the power shouldn't go out, it's the electronic show.
So for nearly two hours, it is exactly what happened.
Turns out it's because we observe some very bizarre heavy rainfall like a day and half.
And there were gully washers of water all over the big boulevards.
I have never seen that kind of rain here in Las Vegas, certainly not during CES time.
So that's some pretty good flood video right there There's the monorail.
Many of you will know this.
There's the wheel.
Anyway, thanks to our John Falcone, by the way, who That's some great footage there.
He should have sold that to the network.
Yes, seriously.
I never saw better footage on the evening news than what he got.
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