The Consumer Electronics Show or CES is an annual January convention typically held in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year it was a virtual event, but in true CES fashion, many innovative technology-related ideas, products, and concepts were announced and demonstrated. It should be worth mentioning that just because something is shown off at CES does not mean it will ever be released as a real product that you can go out and buy. However, even concept devices are still important demonstrations of innovations and the way of progress.
Intel’s new CEO
Possibly the biggest tech news from this week was Intel’s announcement of a new CEO. Pat Gelsinger, a former Intel engineer of 35 years was hired as CEO. The general consensus is that this move is a positive one. Intel is finally putting an engineer in charge instead of the long line of business people previously in charge. In the long term this should lead to the creation of faster microprocessors, and positive implications for everything from digital animation, to scientific research, to gaming.
LG
A staple at CES is LG and their normally wild booth. While there was no booth this year they virtually show off their rollable OLED screen tech in both TV and smartphone form factors. The rollable TV can retract into a built-in soundbar to be completely concealed. Not to mention LG gave everyone a sneak peak at their absolutely insane transparent OLED display tech.
Flying taxi
Cadillac showed off their concept for the taxis of the future. They revealed a concept for a fully autonomous eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) vehicle that they describe as an “air taxi”. The concept was more of a drone than the traditional concept of a flying car but still very cool nonetheless.
Samsung
Samsung showed off quite a few innovative ideas, including a solar powered TV remote, a robot butler, and an AI vacuum. The solar powered remote was designed to not be dependent on environmentally dangerous alkaline batteries. The robot butler is very CES; that is to say a cool idea that will likely never come to market. Samsung's AI vacuum, the JetBot 90 AI, uses a sophisticated system of cameras and lidar scanners to map your home and operate more efficiently compared to a traditional robot vacuum. Its built-in camera can also pull double duty as a roving security camera.
TCL
TCL announced an 85 inch 8k TV which following in TCL tradition should help bring both 85 inch screen sizes and 8K resolutions to mainstream levels of affordability.
Fall sensing calling lamp
Nobi demonstrated a fall-sensing ceiling lamp designed to help detect and then alert you if an eldery friend or family member has fallen and can’t get up.
Touchless video doorbell
According to Alarm.com in the age of Coronavirus the last thing you want is people entering your home or dropping off packages to touch your doorbell and pass germs. When paired with its companion doormat, this doorbell uses AI to detect when someone has walked up to your door. When someone has arrived at your doorstep it allows you to talk to them using the built in microphone and camera.
Infinity Game table
This CES product is a digital touch screen equipped table that allows you to play digitized versions of popular board games like monopoly. You can either play across from another person in local multiplayer mode or you can play over the internet with another person who also has an Infinity Game table.
Conclusion
CES 2021, like CES’s before, was full of innovative ideas, concepts and pure tech wackiness. While some of the products shown off this year may never come to market or may be revised heavily before they do, CES still gives us a glimpse into the minds of some of the world’s brightest engineers.
By: Joseph Shull