WEBVTT - The CES Products That Never Made It 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.640 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.520 and a law of all things tech and last week 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:27.479 was c e S one, which for many reasons was 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.479 very different from ce S events in years past. For 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.960 one thing, this c e S was fully virtual, so 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.600 instead of dominating the Las Vegas Strip, the event switched 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.560 over to a series of press conference streams from various companies. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.960 Reporters who normally would be spending time wandering booths and 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.199 securing on location interviews and occasionally trampling me if I 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.200 happened to get between them and free food. We're instead 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.320 covering press releases and video streams, though a few also 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.480 had a chance to get some hands on time with 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.920 some of the technology when companies would ship stuff to them. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.360 But in one way, I suspect c e S T 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.920 one will be like many other ce S events of 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.240 years past, and that some of the things that were 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.680 shown off there are never actually going to make it 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.880 to the market. That can be a little frustrating for 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.920 some people, including myself. I mean, it is the Consumer 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.120 Electronics Show after all, or at least it used to be. 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.440 You actually are not supposed to call it that anymore. 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.520 In fact, the official c S media kit includes the 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.280 sentence quote, please do not use Consumer Electronics Show or 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.400 International ce S to refer to the event. End quote. 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.080 I'm not actually sure which year marked the official point 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.080 where c e S no longer really stands for anything. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.000 I mean, you know, as an initialism, but the Consumer 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.440 Technology Association, that's the organization responsible for throwing the event, 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.800 that Consumer Electronics Show is really too narrow a focus 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.720 for what c e S is today. I mean, a 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.640 lot of the stuff you find at c e S 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.120 doesn't really fit the mold of consumer electronics. Some of 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.080 it will never see the light of the day as 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.480 a as a consumer product. Some of it's meant as 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.640 an enterprise product. Some of it doesn't really have a 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.480 physical form. You might be talking about apps, and sometimes 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.640 you're talking about stuff that is related to electronics, but 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.560 itself is not an electronic So I get why they 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.280 wanted to get away from that specific name. So in 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.200 this episode, I thought I might cover a few gadgets 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.360 and technologies that got time on the showroom floor of 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.519 c E S. Events in the past, but they never 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.200 made it to something that consumers could actually purchase. And 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.040 I might mention a couple of examples from this past 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.720 c E S. I actually already alluded to this in 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.320 a previous episode of tech Stuff when I covered the news, 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.120 I talked about Razor and Project Hazel and Project Brooklyn. 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.440 So those will probably come up again, and I'll probably 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.960 talk about a couple of things that haven't been shown 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.359 off at CES, but had a similar path in that 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.120 they were announced but never actually emerged. So let's jump 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:15.240 on in. Also, I recommend that you look up some 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.600 of these on your own, especially if you can see 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:20.200 the pictures of them, because a lot of them are 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.880 really fun to look at. Now, sometimes we see a 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.200 product that isn't bad, it's just ahead of its time. 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.200 The implementation of the technology might be a little on 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.640 the crude side, and the price tag might be a 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.000 lot on the high side, and so an idea, while 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.480 a good one, might not go very far. That might 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.320 be why the robot called Genus never really had a chance. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:52.040 Genus that's g e in Us, debuted at c S NREE. 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.880 The robot looks a little bit like a pedestal on wheels, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.000 kind of similar to some of the robots that Samsung 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.040 showed off at the c E S one like uh 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:08.520 like the bot Handy robot. However, the Genus robot is 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.360 a little more angular. It's not quite so smooth and 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.440 round as the other robots are. It's also quint essentially 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.159 eighties in style, so I recommend you check it out. 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.000 The promotional pamphlet for Genus said it is quote fully 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:28.320 programmed for beginners, yet is programmable for advanced users end quote. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:32.680 Now clearly, the Robotics International Corporation, which was the company 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:37.240 behind Genus, saw how personal computers were beginning to take 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.000 off in the consumer market, and they knew that they 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.080 would need to remove some of the barriers of entry 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.359 for the average person, that is, the average wealthy person. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.360 Because this robot, depending on the options you picked, could 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:57.159 cost upwards of twelve thousand dollars in nine three, and 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.680 when we adjust that for inflation, that's more than thirty 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:05.080 thousand bucks today, a princely some I mean you could 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.000 buy a car for that. Anyway, Genus was to have 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.640 a lot of cool features that we would later much 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.600 much later, seeing products like the Roomba. It was supposed 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.920 to be able to learn your home and map out 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.120 the environment and learn where obstacles were so it could 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.760 avoid bumping into things and maneuver around. It could return 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.799 to its charging station on its own when its batteries 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.760 got got really low. Uh. It could even be equipped 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.520 with a vacuum. So gosh, I mean it was a roomba. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.360 I mean not really. It wasn't like an official roomba, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.320 but you get what I mean. The technology behind this 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.320 was pretty impressive for the day. It included stuff like 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.680 a computer system with at least forty eight whole killer 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:52.520 bytes of memory. Yalza, had a CRT display, had an 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.640 optional keyboard so you could program it if you wanted to, 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:01.760 had passive smoke detectors, motion detectors, and more. But Genas 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.360 never got much further than its debut at c E 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:11.440 S and Robotics International Corporation would dissolve sometime in seven. Well, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.479 I think the product was far too ambitious for the time. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.000 It was certainly an indicator of where things would eventually 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.440 end up, although it would take a couple of decades 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.599 and we're still seeing companies like the aforementioned Samsung introduced 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.120 large robots at c E SE So that trend continues 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.479 as well. We don't tend to see those large robots 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.760 actually getting adopted into the consumer market, but we see 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.599 a lot of that technology kind of trickled down into 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:42.960 other implementations like roomba. Speaking of Samsung and robots, we're 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.320 still waiting on Bali, that's the spherical robot that the 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.159 company showed off at C E S For that matter, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.159 we're still waiting on scout About. What's scaled about? You ask, well, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:59.479 it's about always being prepared if I remember correctly. Huh, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.880 how was a joke? No? Really, The scout About was 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.039 the name of a line of robots Samsung showed off 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.880 at C E S N. The scout About robots look 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.880 like little domes on wheels. I read one review that 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.960 said it looked like little motorcycle helmets that were scooting around. 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.680 They could roam autonomously around your home and the purpose 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.520 of the scout About was to monitor your home for 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.160 the purposes of safety. It was to have ultrasonic sensors 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.080 as well as a passive infrared system, and it would 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.480 let the robot sense everything from sounds to the presence 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.680 of smoke. And it also had a temperature sensor. If 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.960 it were to detect a danger like a fire or 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.679 someone breaking a window to gain entry to a house, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.640 it could sound an alarm and phone home to a 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:53.280 security service, which then could coordinate with authorities. Samsung said 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.840 the plan was for the robots to hit the market 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:00.240 by early spring of nine, with a price of where 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:04.000 between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars. So again, this 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:10.920 is that would be somewhere between eighteen hundred and dollars today. However, 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.600 the scout about never came out. Now, I'm not saying 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.560 that last year's Bali robot will also never come out, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.000 Nor am I saying that Samsung's bought Handy robot demonstrated 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.240 this year's virtual c e s will never come out. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:32.240 But I wouldn't hold my breath. All that being said, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.520 I think it's only fair I point out that, at 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.720 least in some cases, it's not so much about a 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:42.120 specific product, but rather the advancement of the technologies that 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.680 power that prototype or concept. So, in other words, the 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.360 bot Handy, which Samsung showed off picking up a bottle 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.480 of wine and pouring a glass of wine for somebody, 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.560 or another video where it showed the robot filling up 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.280 a dishwasher. It's not really necessarily about the row bot. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.400 It's showing off something that actually is pretty darn cool, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.280 and that's the fact that the AI guiding this robot 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.599 gives the robot guidance on how hard or soft the 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.120 robot's grip should be whenever it picks up something. You know, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.960 we humans get a pretty intuitive grasp on that kind 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:21.160 of stuff to use a pun, but for robots it's different. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.840 A robot doesn't innately know how tightly it needs to 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.640 grip something, and so it might approach a cinder block 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.480 or a breeze block for you folks in the UK, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.480 and a delicate champagne glass with the same amount of 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.320 gripping force. That would probably not work out so well. 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.160 It would either be two week a grip for the 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.120 cender block and so it wouldn't be able to pick 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.920 it up, or it would crush the glass and it's 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.679 mighty robotic hand. Either way, not exactly the result you're 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.120 looking for now. All that being said, the scout about 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.120 was being demonstrated as if it were actually about to 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.600 go on the market, so that particular example doesn't really 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.280 fit into the hole. This is more about showing off 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.600 a technology than making an actual product kind of thing. 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:12.960 So maybe that was Samsung learning its lesson Sometimes the 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.160 stuff we see at c S is really just meant 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.040 to grab our attention period and doesn't indicate a sincere 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.600 desire to bring a product to market. I'm pretty sure 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.120 that was the thinking that went into the twenty twenty 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.920 robot marketed by Sharman that is, the toilet paper company, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.560 and it was called robot because that's genius but not 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.640 genus anyway. The company had a booth set up complete 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.880 with a toilet where you could test out this robot, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.640 though you were encouraged to, you know, not actually use 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:52.040 the toilet. The things you learned after experience. So you 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.560 would sit on the throne and you would call out 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.640 for precious t P allegedly by using an app on 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:02.640 your smartphone, and a little two wheeled self balancing robot 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.959 with a face plate that looked kind of like a 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.400 a semi abstract bear face, you know, very like like 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.360 children's drawing kind of bare face. The robot also had 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.800 little ears on top of it that the toilet paper 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.600 roll would sit between and it would wheel out with 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.200 that roll of toilet paper on balanced on top of 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.559 its head. Uh, you know, flat side down obviously, otherwise 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.720 it just roll all over the place. And there was 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.520 no way to see how the robot, which had no arms, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.120 is just the wheels and a box, and the toilet 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.200 paper roll would be on top of the box. There's 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.800 no way to see how the robot would get the 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:37.800 roll of toilet paper balanced on its head in the 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.840 first place. I'm pretty sure there's just some poor booth 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.200 attendee behind the scenes whose job it was to place 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.200 rolls of toilet paper on the self balancing robot before 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.360 it would wheel out of its alcove to the rescue. Again, 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.360 this was never really meant to come across as a 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.920 real product. It was more of a marketing gimmick. It 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.559 is too bad, however, because as we saw in getting 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.000 hold of toilet paper was sometimes a challenge, and it 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.520 would be really useful to have a robot bear do 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.760 battle for you in grocery stores to get t P. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.559 But that was not meant to be Moving on in 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:19.679 five two years after Genus rolled around at CS Commodore, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.960 the computer company that had been a real contender in 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.800 the early days of home computers revealed a portable computer, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.960 and what's amazing is that this one did not weigh 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.720 a ton. A lot of the early portable laptops were 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.880 portable in name only. They typically had a handle like 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.200 a briefcase, and it required a strong back to lug 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.600 around places, But the Commodore l c D tipped the 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.000 scales and a smelt five pounds or about two point 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.560 three kilograms. The Commodore l c D looked a bit 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:56.000 like a truncated laptop, or maybe like a typewriter connected 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.360 to a small flip up l c D screen. That 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:03.120 screen could display up to sixteen lines of text, and 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.880 it could run a subset of software that was programmed 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.760 for Commodore computers, but the l c D was not 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:13.200 fully compatible with the Commodore desktop line. Had a Rockwell 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.480 sixty five C one O two processor running at a 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.880 blistering one mega hurts clock speed. It boasted thirty two 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.480 kilobytes of memory, but it was expandable up to sixty 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.960 four kilobytes. Now. While the company didn't announce a price 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.360 for the planned product, analysts estimated that it would have 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:37.560 likely retailed for around six hundred dollars, and in that 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.679 would be let's see, for today's money, about one thousand, 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.400 one forty bucks. This project became the victim of internal 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.480 politics at Commodore, or so the story goes. So. The 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.360 way the story works is that the CEO of Commodore, 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:58.000 Marshall Smith, was talking to John Roach, the CEO of Tandy, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:02.319 another company that was selling computers, and during that conversation, 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.480 Roach told Smith that l c D s were going 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:10.480 nowhere fast baby. Subsequently, Smith decided to cancel the Commodore 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.480 l c D project, along with all other l c 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.360 D related projects at Commodore, and legend says that only 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.760 five prototypes of the Commodore l c D were ever made, 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.920 but only two of them have ever been officially verified. 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.160 Let's jump around in time a bit more and head 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:32.000 up town. I was actually at that ce S. One 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.520 of the ways that companies will try to stand out 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:37.920 from the crowd is to tap celebrities to announce or 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.720 endorse products. I was not the celebrity. I'm not a 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:46.400 celebrity at all. But these celebrities, these real celebrities, will 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.800 make an appearance at ce S for what I believe 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.160 could be described as here, let me check my notes, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.920 um yeah, a truckload of money, at least I assume. So. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.440 I mean, I have no idea how much Slash was 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.920 paid to come on stage and two thousand eight to 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.800 play the opening riff of Welcome to the Jungle for 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.760 Bill Gates and then just disappear and smoke. But I 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.160 bet he was paid way more than I made that 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:15.040 entire year. Anyway, In eleven, a different celebrity showed off 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:20.359 a product to all her little monsters. Yep, Lady Gaga 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.480 was at c s Inn. I'm actually really upset I 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.960 didn't get to go to the event where she announced this. 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.400 I really wanted to see it. I wasn't terribly familiar 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.360 with Lady Gaga, but I knew spectacle when I heard it, 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.480 but unfortunately I was elsewhere. Anyway, she was partnering with 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:43.320 Polaroid to allegedly design and then unveil the g L 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:48.600 twenty glasses, a pair of very boxy looking sunglasses with 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.800 a built in camera and a digital display that was 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.560 also built into the frames. And I guess that with these, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:01.480 Lady Gaga could become the Papa Rozzie. Oh lah ah, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:07.440 poker face there, I've exhausted my Lady Gaga knowledge. Anyway, 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.680 While Lady Gaga could wear the glasses and look fashionably weird, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.560 I think most of us would just look weird wearing them. 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.120 But it wouldn't matter because a year later there were 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.560 still no g L twenty glasses on the market. Polaroid 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.720 claimed to still be planning a rollout, but another year 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.000 went by, and another, and by fourteen, Lady Gaga had 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:34.200 bid au Revoir to Polaroid and the two had parted ways, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.800 still no glasses. Lady Gaga's involvement with the project definitely 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.560 got a lot of attention, but in the end, there 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.160 didn't seem to be much of a payoff, and depending 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.680 upon the terms of that partnership, it may have been 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:48.960 a big loss for Polaroid, which I think is a 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.240 shame because I still have a soft spot for Polaroid cameras. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.480 We've got more gadgets that never made it to prime 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:00.280 time coming up, but first let's take a quick akee 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.680 and now for the that Smells funny category for c 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.000 E S gadgets that never went anywhere. And I'm being 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.680 literal here because I want to chat about the I 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.919 smell from the company Digita Sense. Yeah, this was a 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.280 real thing. I think of this as sort of the 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.600 Internet generation version of smellow Vision. This one made the 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.280 news back in two thousand one, so this was way 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.640 before I ever went to c E S. And I'm 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.400 sorry about that, because I wish I could have seen 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.520 it in action. The device looked like a little pod 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.680 with a shark fin like protrusion, and it had vents 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.280 through which sense could pump. The idea is that you 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.800 would load this thing up with some cartridges filled with 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.440 scented oils, and the device would heat up specific oils 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.760 before using a fan to blow the smell out of 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.280 the sense. By heating different combinations of those oils, it 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.359 could produce different sense and it would connect via USB 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:12.240 to a computer. Now, just imagine the possibilities. You're on 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:17.320 your computer, you're checking out possible vacation destinations online, and 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.680 you're looking at a beach in Hawaii, and then your 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.400 nostrils detect the scent of an ocean breeze. Maybe there's 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.639 even a hint of coconut there. Or maybe you're playing 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.440 a video game and you're rushing through a burning building 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.919 and you can actually smell something that resembles would smoke, 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.600 or maybe you're looking at an ad for cookies and 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.080 you smell I mean cookies. You know, it definitely falls 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.439 on the gimmicky side, But at the same time you 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.320 can kind of see how incorporating smells into other computer 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:49.520 activities could really increase a sense of immersion. The team 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:54.040 behind the ice Smell included Joel Lloyd Bellinson and Dexter Smith, 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.720 both of whom had backgrounds in business. They envisioned a 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.639 database of smells with an algorithm that would best match 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.399 sense to whatever it was the computer was, you know, encountering, 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.399 so that way you would have a relevant smell. So 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.040 you wouldn't just have, oh, that smells like burned rubber 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.760 while I'm looking at daisies. That would make no sense now, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:17.920 I'm sure. They also envisioned a world in which people 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:21.520 would need to purchase refills for those scented oil cartridges, 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.240 kind of similar to how printer companies really count on 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.840 you having to order lots of new printer toner cartridges. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.560 But unfortunately for the team, the idea received a little 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.440 more than ridicule, even for the name I Smell. Now, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.639 keep in mind they were launching this or trying to 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.159 in two thousand one, That was two years before Apple 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.440 had even launched the iPod, so they were actually anticipating 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.399 the eye trend. The company failed to release anything to 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.080 market due to a distinct lack of consumer interest, and 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.879 it faded away, and it really stinks. How about another 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.720 category now, This one could be called the old bait 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.879 and switch, or in this case, the belt and switch. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.320 And I'm talking about Belty, which was one of those 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.879 weird gadgets that gets a lot of buzz because you know, 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.520 it's not another big screen TV or fitness tracker. That's 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:17.960 one of the reasons a lot of these gadgets get 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:19.960 a lot of coverage. It's not just that they're weird, 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.800 it's that they stand out because it's not yet another 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.320 version of something that we see all the time. BELTI 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:32.360 appeared in and it was a smart belt. Yeah, like 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.640 the thing that holds up your trousers. BELTI was supposed 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.520 to be able to make automatic adjustments all on its own, 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.639 tightening or loosening as the occasion demands, such as when 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.720 you go from sitting down to standing up or vice versa. 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.679 Small motors inside the buckle would activate and increase or 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.840 decrease the tension on the belt accompanying the smart belt 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.520 was of course an app, and together belt and app 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.119 would track activity and give you a running tab on 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.000 your waistline, just in case you were worried that you 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.560 were starting to feel a little too good about yourself. 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.200 And it was going to market for around four hundred bucks. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:14.320 This version of BELTI, however, failed to materialize beyond the 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.960 demo models that shows like c S, it was supposed 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.280 to go to market later, and instead the Belty that 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.080 would ultimately come out was a very different device. You 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.960 can buy a Belty today, but it is a ratchet 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.159 style belt, so you can make minor adjustments, but you 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.280 have to do so manually. There's no motorized buckle doing 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.919 it for you. The smart part of the belt, the 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.480 current Belty, is that it has a built in battery recharger, 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:48.920 so you can charge your phone on your belt and 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.959 plug your devices directly into the belt buckle. I guess 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:54.560 to give them more juice. Now, My guess is that 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.080 this recharging battery and the belt is itself a lithium 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.320 ion battery and noing how those can sometimes be a 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.320 little dodgy. I'd be a bit hesitant to strap one 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:10.680 right up against my pants. I mean it's probably okay, right, 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.840 I mean, phones don't usually spontaneously combust unless it's the 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:19.560 Samsung Galaxy Notes seven. And yeah, I'm gonna skip BELTI 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:25.080 but hey, Jonathan, I hear you ask. Yes, that's right, 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.240 I can hear you. How about you talk about a 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:32.520 product that was demonstrably a bad idea and that is 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:37.119 why it never came to market. Okay, I guess I will. 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.879 Let's talk about the Mattel Aristotle because who boy? Was 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.040 that a bad idea and the reaction to it would 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.840 ultimately lead Mattel to cancel launch plans for this device. 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.600 Mattel unveiled the gadget at c E S And if 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.480 you really want an easy way to describe this thing, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.440 all you have to do is say it's Alexa, but 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.520 you know, for kids, shout out to the Hudsucker proxy 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:09.159 for that one. Anyway, it was a smart home assistant 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.359 similar to Amazon Echo or Google Home. Bundled with the 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.920 smart speaker device was a camera, and the whole package 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.280 was supposed to retail for three dollars. The back end 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.760 of the system included stuff like image recognition algorithms that 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:28.840 could recognize specific things within a child's room. Those specific things, 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:33.200 I'm sure we'll surprise no one could include other Mattel toys. 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.159 I'm going to paint a picture for you. Not the 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:39.199 Mattel ever said this, but this is just something that 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:42.639 I imagined when I was reading up on it. So 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:45.359 think for a moment that you're a little kid and 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.320 you're in your room, and then suddenly the smart robot 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:52.160 that lives in a speaker says to you, Hey, little 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:54.760 so and so, how about you go pick up that 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:58.040 Hot Wheels car and play with it? Room? Room? That 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:00.840 sure is fun, isn't it. Man? And you know what 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:03.520 helps would be fun if you had the super Ultra 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:08.000 Deluxe Stunt Spectacular Hot Wheels set. Then that car would 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.080 go really fast and you would be the most super 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:14.959 awesome cool kid in the universe. Hey, how about we 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:18.359 ask Santa for that this year. Yeah, that's a great idea, 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:22.760 you had, so and so. All right, So I'm definitely 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:25.280 taking some major poetic license here, but you get to 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.680