Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from House
Speaker 1: to Fox dot Com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. This is Jonathan Stricklab, your host extraordinaire, and
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren bulk Baum, the first and only member of
Speaker 1: the Society for the Prevention of Hedgehog under Representation. Okay,
Speaker 1: then it's a true fact. You can look it up
Speaker 1: on the internet. Will do alright. So to Lauren, ask
Speaker 1: me how I'm feeling. How are you feeling, Jonathan, I'm exhausted. Lauren. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm barely able to string two coherent sentences together. Why
Speaker 1: is that, Jonathan? That would be because I just returned,
Speaker 1: as in within the last forty eight hours from c
Speaker 1: e S in Las Vegas, Nevada. We live in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: which is nowhere near Las Vegas, Nevada, and she has
Speaker 1: a totally different time zone. Yeah yeah, Trixie, Trixie. That
Speaker 1: c c S being um the the convention formerly known
Speaker 1: as the Consumer Electronics Show, Yep, yep. Now they're just
Speaker 1: known as c e S and this is where companies
Speaker 1: come to show off the product lines that they want
Speaker 1: stores to carry. So, uh, I have a friend this
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of name dropping or potentially
Speaker 1: a lot of name dropping in this episode, and I
Speaker 1: want to warn everybody about that. I'm friends with Nate Lankson,
Speaker 1: who is the editor of Wired dot co dot UK.
Speaker 1: Former c NET employee. Nate is a great guy. I
Speaker 1: got to meet him in person for the first time
Speaker 1: at the c E s and Nate's perspective. As we
Speaker 1: were walking around, he was saying to me, Jonathan, well,
Speaker 1: I don't understand is that why these booths here that
Speaker 1: have these ipolled cases? I mean, what, why would they
Speaker 1: even bother? And he doesn't. Actually suddenly that Ben't may
Speaker 1: need to be from the south of London and he's not.
Speaker 1: But I said, well, Nate, you know you have to
Speaker 1: understand that a lot of these these then these manufacturers
Speaker 1: are actually here in the hopes of getting their products
Speaker 1: carried in various catalogs and in retail stores. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: suppose I just look at the world as if it's
Speaker 1: all meant for me. And I said, actually, Nate, so
Speaker 1: do I. So we shared something in common. But I
Speaker 1: do understand, you know, that's the purpose for the event
Speaker 1: is to get in front of the press and in
Speaker 1: front of retail establishments to say, hey, here's all the
Speaker 1: stuff that's gonna come out this year. Isn't it pretty
Speaker 1: and shiny? And don't you want it? And quite a
Speaker 1: few people do this. There's more than three thousand exhibitors
Speaker 1: as of yeah, this show, So these numbers are very
Speaker 1: slightly outdated. Um uh And and they are crammed into
Speaker 1: one point nine million net square feet of existed space.
Speaker 1: Yeah and uh and there are about a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people attending and uh, it really felt pretty
Speaker 1: crowded this year. There have been passed c e S
Speaker 1: shows where attendance was down, especially right after the recession.
Speaker 1: A lot of companies ended up not being able to go.
Speaker 1: They weren't able to afford the space. You know, they
Speaker 1: were having bad year might not have been the best
Speaker 1: time to show off. According according to wired It, it
Speaker 1: costs like a hundred and fifty thousand dollars minimum for
Speaker 1: everyone but the smallest vendors to set up a booth
Speaker 1: and you know, fly people out there, feed them for
Speaker 1: the week. Sure, I mean, and some of these booths
Speaker 1: are incredibly elaborate. I mean, things like l G had
Speaker 1: a very elaborate booth, Samsung Sony, Panasonic, you know, the
Speaker 1: big names and electronics you would imagine have a fairly
Speaker 1: large presence. Now, there were a couple of exceptions. Microsoft
Speaker 1: famously did not have a booth this year. Normally you
Speaker 1: would walk into the Central Hall at the Las Vegas
Speaker 1: Convention Center, which has three major halls, a North Hall,
Speaker 1: Central Hall, and a South Hall. The South Hall actually
Speaker 1: has two floors. This is a huge amount of space. Now,
Speaker 1: the Central Hall usually if you walked in from the
Speaker 1: main entrance, you would have Intel on your right and
Speaker 1: Microsoft on your left. Microsoft took it easy this year.
Speaker 1: They said not to come in and play, and instead
Speaker 1: Hycinths was on the left. Uh and Dish Network was
Speaker 1: also on the left. So Microsoft had had withdrawn from
Speaker 1: the show, although that didn't stop Bomber from showing up
Speaker 1: at a keynote in the yote keynote. Yeah, there were
Speaker 1: some people who said it was a Bomber keynote and
Speaker 1: he had his buddy from Qualcom there. And I would
Speaker 1: not go so far as to say that, but some
Speaker 1: other folks on Twitter we're saying such things. Well, if
Speaker 1: I've heard it was a little bit wacky or the
Speaker 1: Microsoft ever quite got with a keynote. There's some there's
Speaker 1: some really entertaining videos about the sort of antics that
Speaker 1: went on it. You know, Big Bird showed up. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's gangster. You got Big Bird coming out throwing down
Speaker 1: sweet rhymes. I'm not I'm not positive. I think I'm
Speaker 1: that word. One thing? Did he think? Give me the streets?
Speaker 1: So he comes from a street, not not d streets? Well,
Speaker 1: because he lived life on the street. Okay, he's at
Speaker 1: least as gangsters. Vanilla Eyes was can you grant me that? Yes,
Speaker 1: stry collaborate and listen. Okay, alright, so yeah, Big Bird
Speaker 1: was there, Maroon five there who in the podcast in
Speaker 1: the live streaming were overdubbed by um dido I believe
Speaker 1: were they because they didn't have the rights I guess
Speaker 1: to stream. That's kind of interesting, it was. I was
Speaker 1: not aware of that from everything that I've seen. It
Speaker 1: was just like everything that is insane about the internet
Speaker 1: live on stage, and I'm not positive that that's what
Speaker 1: qualcom meant to do. Right. Well, it was pretty great
Speaker 1: for me to watch anyway there, and there were there
Speaker 1: were tons of interesting moments. I mean, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of celebrities there. I saw Danny DeVito. He was
Speaker 1: wearing it It's always sunny in Philadelphia Baseball cap. But
Speaker 1: I didn't get to chat with him. He was He
Speaker 1: was very far away and on top of a stage,
Speaker 1: and I have a feeling that if I had gone
Speaker 1: up to stay hi to him, some very large men
Speaker 1: would have very prevented you, very gently but firmly discouraged
Speaker 1: me from doing that. Um. But Day DeVito was there.
Speaker 1: You know, there are other performers. Fifty Set was their exhibit.
Speaker 1: Was there. Um, Felicia Day was running around. Felicia Day
Speaker 1: was the Entertainment Matters ambassador to c She had one
Speaker 1: of her fans made a sash for her and she
Speaker 1: wore that the entire time. Uh, I'm delightful, I am
Speaker 1: told I didn't run into Miss Day this time. I
Speaker 1: have met her in the past, but I did not
Speaker 1: see her this time. L L. Cool J was there,
Speaker 1: but we were not allowed to call it a come back. Um.
Speaker 1: There were Yeah, there were a lot of performers there.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of them also lend their names to
Speaker 1: particular products or they endorse specific products where they are
Speaker 1: there to help bring even more attention to a specific company.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the company's chance, any individual company's
Speaker 1: chance to grab that spotlight. But they're competing against everybody else.
Speaker 1: So you can pull out a lot of stops, room
Speaker 1: full of three thousand spotlights and everyone trying to write
Speaker 1: just your your rubber necking all over the place, trying
Speaker 1: to see what the next big thing is. And so
Speaker 1: you really are struggling to try and capture that attention.
Speaker 1: So what were some of those next big things? Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about It's it's easiest probably to talk about
Speaker 1: this in terms of product category groups of stuff, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we could go company by company, but that just
Speaker 1: gets really confusing. So let's talk about t vs first
Speaker 1: of all. Now, televisions, that's always a big thing at CES.
Speaker 1: They're they're big, they're shiny, I mean you can and
Speaker 1: they they're getting pretty darn big. There were more than
Speaker 1: a few eighty four inch sets on the show floor.
Speaker 1: That's that's a bunch. Yeah, And there was one inch
Speaker 1: TV as well that I saw, So, I mean, these
Speaker 1: are not those aren't typical. Most of the ones you
Speaker 1: see are tend to be still huge, and there were
Speaker 1: a lot in the six seventy in range, and there
Speaker 1: were a few there were oh, LAD screens that were
Speaker 1: more like in theft inch But that's huge too, because
Speaker 1: huge in a different way. A few years ago, when
Speaker 1: when when my former co host and I Chris, when
Speaker 1: we first went the very first year I went to
Speaker 1: c S, I remember that the two of us marveled
Speaker 1: over an o LAD display that was eleven inches and
Speaker 1: it was and you sit there and look at and
Speaker 1: you knew that was never going to market. This was
Speaker 1: just a proto prototypes. Now we're seeing fifty five inch
Speaker 1: TVs with OLED displays that are becoming more and more
Speaker 1: of something that we're gonna see come to market, including
Speaker 1: high ultra high definition displays. We're talking four K resolutions,
Speaker 1: so four times the ten a DP resolution that we
Speaker 1: consider high definition. This is ultra high definition. This is
Speaker 1: incredibly vibrant colors, great like you can get right up
Speaker 1: onto the screen and stare at it and you can't
Speaker 1: see the pixelation. It's pretty phenomenal stuff. Um you got
Speaker 1: usually you have a pretty high refresh rate, so it's
Speaker 1: refreshing the image at a very uh fast rate, so
Speaker 1: that you've got this very smooth motion. If any of
Speaker 1: you went out and saw the hobbit in the forty
Speaker 1: frames per second. You know what high frame rate looks like.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like that. It's great for stuff like sports,
Speaker 1: it's a little distracting in some other forms of entertainment
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, just because it gives a
Speaker 1: sort of glider unreal. It's weird to say unreal because
Speaker 1: it's very real, because because it's extremely real, but but
Speaker 1: not cinematic or or or it doesn't feel like TV right. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's whenever you're dealing with a film format
Speaker 1: that was not really intended to be shown at that resolution,
Speaker 1: you're going to run into issues like that. And I've
Speaker 1: heard that actually, Sony, which is one of the companies
Speaker 1: that has one of these super high definition televisions out
Speaker 1: is starting to put out four K cameras. Yes, there
Speaker 1: were four K cameras out there on display in the
Speaker 1: on the show floor. They looked very heavy, These were
Speaker 1: big cameras, but there. But Sony's actually leading the way
Speaker 1: and creating four K cameras meant for the consumer, so
Speaker 1: not just the pro sumer or the professional. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, there have been four K cameras available for
Speaker 1: a while, but they were just within the grasp of
Speaker 1: movie directors studios. Yeah, we're talking like you had to
Speaker 1: have millions of dollars to get them. Now they're still
Speaker 1: not cheap there, there are thousands and thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: but they're starting to get to a point where they
Speaker 1: are within the grasp of consumers who happened to have
Speaker 1: a good amount of discretionary income. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: the thing is that we're seeing. This is the way
Speaker 1: technology works, right. You see a new technology come out
Speaker 1: and at first it's really expensive, and then as more
Speaker 1: people adopt it, manufacturing processes improved, things get more efficient,
Speaker 1: and the prices start to come down. The same thing
Speaker 1: with Moore's law. I mean that's the basis of Moore's
Speaker 1: law as well. But getting back to TVs, Ultra high
Speaker 1: definition was the buzzword in TVs. I mean everyone had
Speaker 1: an ultra high definition television. Samsung showed off an eight
Speaker 1: K TV which was enormous and was really more of
Speaker 1: a prototype concept type thing. Um there does there's probably
Speaker 1: a point where the human eye will not be able
Speaker 1: to discern the difference in quality once you get to
Speaker 1: beyond a certain resolution. We're just not most of us
Speaker 1: don't have the acuity to be able to see that
Speaker 1: kind of difference. But it means that you could create
Speaker 1: ever larger screens and not not lose resolution. Right. So
Speaker 1: it may not be good for a consumer, which is
Speaker 1: weird when you think of the name used to be
Speaker 1: consumer electronics, showcase or show rather. Uh, it might not
Speaker 1: be for a consumer, but you might have an enormous display,
Speaker 1: say in Times Square or Piccadilly Circus, and you want
Speaker 1: to have an enormous display that has great resolution, and
Speaker 1: instead of having it made up of fifteen screens, it's
Speaker 1: made up of one enormous screen. You could theoretically do
Speaker 1: that once you get that resolution cranked up pretty high.
Speaker 1: The biggest criticism I heard of the four K TVs
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the sets. It was these
Speaker 1: are amazing TVs, The images are beautiful. Where is the
Speaker 1: content going to come from? Because without having someone to
Speaker 1: deliver the four K content, you have a television that's
Speaker 1: capable of showing these amazing pictures, but it's not getting
Speaker 1: the information it needs in order to do that. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nate legs and again he suggested that perhaps we might
Speaker 1: expect the next generation of video game consoles to support
Speaker 1: four K, so they would become a reason for people
Speaker 1: to upgrade their TVs, not not that you could only
Speaker 1: see it in four K, but that they'd be capable.
Speaker 1: I I just made a face, and I think the
Speaker 1: face was me imagining playing Survive a horror video game
Speaker 1: K and that doesn't sound like a thing that I
Speaker 1: actually want to do it. It would be the blacks
Speaker 1: would be very, very true blacks on the screen. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, there was one oh Lad TV that one
Speaker 1: person said gave it an infinite contrast ratio, and the
Speaker 1: contrast ratio we're really talking about how how true is
Speaker 1: the black on that screen? Because of course, if you're
Speaker 1: using an ol l c D screen, it's backlit, and
Speaker 1: so anytime there's anything on the screen, anytime the set
Speaker 1: is on, there's a light behind the screen that's on.
Speaker 1: So there could be problems with backlit displays showing a
Speaker 1: true black on the screen because it didn't come out
Speaker 1: like charcoal gray. But a lot of the sets there
Speaker 1: were more about representing true black on the screen. They
Speaker 1: also had there was the world's first curved oh led TV. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two of them. Did you get to see any of those?
Speaker 1: I got to see both of them both. Yeah. See,
Speaker 1: here's the thing is that you have l G which
Speaker 1: had the world's first curved oh led TV, and you
Speaker 1: had Samsung, which had the world's first curved tvOS and Curious.
Speaker 1: Both companies were claiming that they had the first curved
Speaker 1: led TV. Why you would want to curved oh led TV.
Speaker 1: I I'm sure there are reasons, and I'm sure they
Speaker 1: are valid, but I do not know what they are.
Speaker 1: I've heard. I've heard that um that actually viewing from
Speaker 1: the sides gets easier with a curve. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean at least at least for the majority of
Speaker 1: the screen. I would imagine if you get a little
Speaker 1: too far are than the curvature would mean that the
Speaker 1: side closest to you would be obscure. But it's a
Speaker 1: very slight curve. It is. We're not talking about you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's not like a yeah exactly, Yeah
Speaker 1: it is. It is a very subtle curve. It's one
Speaker 1: of the things that if you're looking at it from
Speaker 1: the side, you can, like from profile, you can tell.
Speaker 1: But otherwise it's not like if you were looking at
Speaker 1: dead on It's not uh, incredibly obvious. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that both of them had it, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the things about Leo led screens is that you
Speaker 1: can create uh, curved or even flexible screens depending upon
Speaker 1: the material you're using. Um, so that was kind of neat.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick moment to thank our sponsor now
Speaker 1: and now back to the show. Also, there was not
Speaker 1: as much of an emphasis on three D this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was it two years ago that three D was
Speaker 1: just the buzzword and everyone was Yeah, two years ago,
Speaker 1: I would say was probably the hardest push for three D.
Speaker 1: Everyone had three D Last year. Three D was still
Speaker 1: important and there were a few play pass that had
Speaker 1: the glasses free three D, which uh, you know requires
Speaker 1: that you are in a sweet spot to view it
Speaker 1: and three D effect. Uh. Three D was not as
Speaker 1: it was still present in several different sets on the floor,
Speaker 1: but it was not nearly as big a feature touted
Speaker 1: this year as it has been a year's past. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that people have started to realize
Speaker 1: that not everyone is going to go out, run out
Speaker 1: and replace their entire television in order to get this
Speaker 1: content that really only exists in an extremely small sample
Speaker 1: size of the media that you can play. Yeah, there's that,
Speaker 1: And I think there's also people who still resist any
Speaker 1: sort of television that would require them to wear glasses.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have two choices. You have the
Speaker 1: active shutter lens glasses, which means that these are glasses
Speaker 1: that required to be you knowed, their battery operated right,
Speaker 1: or you have the passive ones. But either way you
Speaker 1: have to keep track of them. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, Lauren, but for me, it's very easy
Speaker 1: for me to lose my remote. I would hate to
Speaker 1: also lose the glasses I need to watch my TV
Speaker 1: right sure, And for for me personally, I mean, I
Speaker 1: really I avoid seeing movies in three D whenever I can,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of headachey and a little bit of
Speaker 1: orient it can be for some people. I like the
Speaker 1: three D effect. It's just that, uh, it's not. It's
Speaker 1: not a killer feature for me. Now that being said,
Speaker 1: there was one company, Samsung in fact, that had a
Speaker 1: dual vision television A dual view TV. Yeah, I heard
Speaker 1: about that. It's it's essentially a split screen television, except
Speaker 1: both screens are happening at the same time, and depending
Speaker 1: on which pair of glasses you're wearing it's it's projecting
Speaker 1: two images and two different people can sit in front
Speaker 1: of it and see two different things and c two
Speaker 1: different and you're hooked up to a two headphones something
Speaker 1: you're each listening to your you can get and there
Speaker 1: are two different variations of this too. You could get
Speaker 1: one that was active, or you could get passive. In
Speaker 1: this case, the Samsung said I looked at was passive,
Speaker 1: meaning that you would have one set of glasses that
Speaker 1: would have polarized lenses that are aligned in one way,
Speaker 1: and then you have a second set of glasses that
Speaker 1: be polarized but aligned, uh like ninety degrees exactly that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And normally with a three D set,
Speaker 1: you would have the same kind of setup, except you
Speaker 1: would have one lens polarized one way the other lens
Speaker 1: polarized another way. So each eye accepts a different set
Speaker 1: of images, your brain combines the two that's what gives
Speaker 1: you the three D effect. In this case, the implementation
Speaker 1: was different. Both eyes got the same set of images,
Speaker 1: but it was a different set of images than someone
Speaker 1: wearing the other pair of glasses. So you could play
Speaker 1: a video game and you're looking at one screen and
Speaker 1: the person playing against you is looking at another screen.
Speaker 1: So imagine playing a game like there's this thing called
Speaker 1: football that I've heard about that sometimes a guy named
Speaker 1: Madden likes to play. Anyway, if you wanted to set
Speaker 1: a specific kind of play, like a hail Mary pass
Speaker 1: is a thing, you could select that. And you're wearing
Speaker 1: your glasses so you can totally see everything that you
Speaker 1: need to do. Your opponent is wearing a different pair
Speaker 1: of glasses. They can't see what you see. They're seeing
Speaker 1: their side, so it keeps everything secret. Yeah. So so
Speaker 1: there's there's virtually no way to screen look right. And
Speaker 1: also it would even allow you to do things like
Speaker 1: watch two different Theoretically you could watch two different programs
Speaker 1: at the same time, but of course that does require
Speaker 1: that you have your own individual audio feed in otherwise
Speaker 1: you would just hear a jumble of audio everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be Yeah. So while my wife was watching
Speaker 1: the documentary series Supernatural, I could be watching something a
Speaker 1: little more akin to my tastes, like, um, I don't
Speaker 1: know that Mitchell and web look keep show both of it,
Speaker 1: which have David Mitchell and Rubbert Webb. Jonathan don't don't
Speaker 1: pretend that you don't like the documentary series Supernatural. We
Speaker 1: are dreaming. They are dreamy, dreamy boys. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: that kind of sums up. I mean, like everyone had
Speaker 1: these different TVs. If you were to ask me who
Speaker 1: had the best TV out there, I could not give
Speaker 1: you an answer because we've reached a level of quality
Speaker 1: where it's it's beyond my ability to describe it to people. Also,
Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind that every single one
Speaker 1: of these companies spinds a huge amount of time calibrating
Speaker 1: those televisions so that they look perfect, perfect in that environment. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you're talking about a big convention center where you
Speaker 1: know it's not going to have the same sort of
Speaker 1: viewing condition as you would in your in your house. Probably,
Speaker 1: I don't think your house would have the same lighting
Speaker 1: as the convention center, dead unless your house has one
Speaker 1: point nine, in which case, in which case, dude, hook
Speaker 1: us up will come for your barbecue. I will bake
Speaker 1: you brownies. There we go. But yeah, that was beyond TVs.
Speaker 1: I guess the next category, a big one, would be computers.
Speaker 1: I guess. I guess computers are sort of a thing
Speaker 1: that people use. Computers and tablets. Yeah, computers, tablets together.
Speaker 1: Everyone had tablets everyone. There were a lot of different
Speaker 1: tablets out there, including a lot of Windows eight tablets,
Speaker 1: so people were starting to really start to show off
Speaker 1: the Windows eight user interface and tablet format, which you know,
Speaker 1: including a gaming tablet which we'll talk about later. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty impressive. The big one, the big one
Speaker 1: that I heard of, and I literally big one was
Speaker 1: Microsoft's um no, not Microsoft, sorry, the Lenovo Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Idea Center table PC. Yeah, yeah, I want to say.
Speaker 1: It's twenty seven inches and it's an all in one PC.
Speaker 1: When it's vertical, it runs Windows eight, so you've got
Speaker 1: it vertically aligned where it's you know, like you could
Speaker 1: have it mounted. They had it mounted on like a
Speaker 1: cart kind of thing. But when it was vertically aligned,
Speaker 1: it was Windows eight. So it's that touch screen user interface.
Speaker 1: It's running a full version of Windows eight. You could
Speaker 1: do all the things on it that you could do
Speaker 1: with the Windows eight machine, except for pick it up
Speaker 1: and move it into another room by yourself. It was
Speaker 1: it was was a bit of a bit of a
Speaker 1: hefty device, but then when you would tilt it horizontally,
Speaker 1: it would switch to Lenovo's proprietary user interface, and it
Speaker 1: would become a surface for you to play on. In fact,
Speaker 1: surface is a great term. It reminded me a lot
Speaker 1: of the Microsoft Surface table top, which is now called
Speaker 1: Pixel since I think but um, you know, now, of
Speaker 1: course we think of surface as the tablet, but before
Speaker 1: it was this big table thing. Well, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what the Lenovo Idea Center becomes. It's multi touch and
Speaker 1: can detect up to ten points of contact at once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been good for for games, gaming, sharing, media sharing videos.
Speaker 1: You can have a bunch of people around staring staring
Speaker 1: at this table and playing with it. Um, I thought
Speaker 1: it was. It was interesting. It's and supposedly it's going
Speaker 1: to come out summer of two thousand thirteen. But there
Speaker 1: are a couple of things that kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 1: confuse me a little bit. One is that uh, Lenovo
Speaker 1: is really known for doing these kind of hybrid things,
Speaker 1: like they've done the hybrid to have what computer stuff before.
Speaker 1: They've also been known to announce things that never quite
Speaker 1: make it out to stores, Like there was the Lenovo
Speaker 1: you won that I went crazy for like three years ago,
Speaker 1: and it never really came out actually happened. Yeah, Um
Speaker 1: so I'm a little cautious about this. Also, I don't
Speaker 1: know how how compelling or useful it would be to
Speaker 1: the average consumer. Um, it was interesting. I really thought
Speaker 1: it was an interesting implementation of touch screen technology. But um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't think of a reason why
Speaker 1: I would get one. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it sounds like a nifty toy, and I can see
Speaker 1: the just the sexy factor of of having something in
Speaker 1: your home that you can share something, you know, share
Speaker 1: share q YouTube video on without having to pull a
Speaker 1: phone out of your pocket and have it and be
Speaker 1: of a size that you would actually want to watch it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you could do that with a regular computer. It's
Speaker 1: just interesting that when you mean, it makes it easier
Speaker 1: to share stuff, and it was very attractive to share
Speaker 1: stuff using the Lenovo user interface, But you can still
Speaker 1: do that on a computer without that, which is why
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, I just I
Speaker 1: would be afraid of the first time that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of my friends forgot that it was a really
Speaker 1: expensive piece of equipment and put their drink down on
Speaker 1: top of something like hot coffee or something. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: I would worry about that too. There were other like
Speaker 1: a lot of Ultra books were still on display. We
Speaker 1: had Ultra books debuted at CS two thousand twelve. Um,
Speaker 1: there's still a thing. The sales for computers have not
Speaker 1: been great in two thousands. They weren't great in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, and I'm not sure that they're going to
Speaker 1: improve significantly over the course of two thousand thirteen. Do
Speaker 1: you mean do you mean computers in general or computers
Speaker 1: laptops in general? Computers, yeah, like tablets not so are
Speaker 1: pretty good, but anything like a laptop or desktop does
Speaker 1: have not been doing so well. And but there were
Speaker 1: still quite a few on display, and some of them
Speaker 1: were very gorgeous that I saw, and a sous laptop
Speaker 1: that was incredibly thin. Of the edges, mean, when you
Speaker 1: got to the to the they would taper off, right,
Speaker 1: the edges tapered off until you got to the very end,
Speaker 1: like the base of where the keyboard is, and you
Speaker 1: look like you could get a paper cut. That's how
Speaker 1: That's how thin it looked to the naked eye. But
Speaker 1: they also had some interesting prototype tablets out there, including
Speaker 1: four K resolution tablets. I remember there was one that
Speaker 1: my friend Nate said was five pounds and I said,
Speaker 1: that's a very reasonable price, and then he hit me.
Speaker 1: Actually was I Zactar? Who hit me? Is another name drop.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm just I can't hold onto them. They
Speaker 1: just keep slipping out of my fingers. Well, you just
Speaker 1: you just have so many really important, popular friends that
Speaker 1: you can't really I don't know if they would call
Speaker 1: themselves friends. They're definitely popular and important though. Yeah, these
Speaker 1: are great people now. I met, I met and chatted
Speaker 1: with a lot of really great people while I was
Speaker 1: out there. That was one of my favorite parts of
Speaker 1: CS was getting the the perspective of folks who also
Speaker 1: focus on very specific parts of technology because I look
Speaker 1: at everything, so to hear someone who really concentrates on
Speaker 1: one area, I hear perspectives that I never thought about.
Speaker 1: That's great. Absolutely beyond computers, let's see what else. Phones? Phones?
Speaker 1: They had some smart smartphones are there're a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There were some some nice ones on the floor. The
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy Note too was there. So if you like
Speaker 1: your phones the size of a small state, um. Now, actually,
Speaker 1: people give it all. Give the larger phones some attitude,
Speaker 1: they give them the business as I like to say, Uh,
Speaker 1: they are big, but I actually really like them too.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Galaxy Note was one of those devices
Speaker 1: that I debated on picking up. I ultimately did not,
Speaker 1: but I almost did. Um. It does bridge an interesting
Speaker 1: gap between smartphone and tablet, which is why we have
Speaker 1: the horrible word of fablet. Oh no, no one say that.
Speaker 1: Don't know, dude, Let's strike that from the collective consciousness shell.
Speaker 1: I would much prefer tone yeah instead of a or
Speaker 1: a phone I like, I like, that's still better. Let's
Speaker 1: just well anyway, Sampson Galaxy Note two was there. That
Speaker 1: was nice. The Next is four they which has been
Speaker 1: available for a while. I should say, it's not like
Speaker 1: the Nexus four is brand new. The Next is four
Speaker 1: from l G has been around for a while, but
Speaker 1: it was the first time I actually got to play
Speaker 1: with one, because those things go out of stock so
Speaker 1: fast that they can never get hold of one. But
Speaker 1: that that's running the latest version of Android, and in fact,
Speaker 1: that's that's the big thing with the Nexus four is
Speaker 1: that it's you can actually buy it directly from Google,
Speaker 1: which makes it different from any other phone, and you
Speaker 1: can be fairly confident that as long as the hardware
Speaker 1: will support it, it will always run the latest version
Speaker 1: of Android. At least that's the assumption reality could play
Speaker 1: out differently. Samsung also had a flexible phone that wasn't
Speaker 1: on display, but they showed it off of their keynote
Speaker 1: flexible phone. Huh I heard, I heard that Sony had
Speaker 1: a waterproof phone. The experience Z Yeah, very pretty phone.
Speaker 1: The experience phones were very very pretty to look at.
Speaker 1: And the experience Z was that they would Dunkleman too
Speaker 1: aquariums and showed they were still working just fine. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were quite a few and and and tons and
Speaker 1: tons of phone accessories on the floor, so um, everything
Speaker 1: from special cases that have colorful designs on them. Two
Speaker 1: things like utter Box, which specializes in protective cases, including
Speaker 1: some that are you know, dustproof, shatterproof, waterproof, I mean
Speaker 1: you're talking like mega protective cases. Uh. They had some
Speaker 1: other cases I saw on display where people were doing
Speaker 1: things like essentially dropping bowling balls onto devices and showing
Speaker 1: how the the cases were distributing the force in such
Speaker 1: a way to provide the maximum amount of coverage of
Speaker 1: protection with the minimum amount of damage. I say minimum
Speaker 1: because there still was some because it's still a bowling ball,
Speaker 1: still a bowling ball and it's still a phone. And uh,
Speaker 1: the other big, big category that I wanted to say
Speaker 1: would be able though I don't know, smart appliance. This
Speaker 1: is smart I yeah, I keep I keep hearing about
Speaker 1: this Internet of things. Yeah, that's part of it, um,
Speaker 1: smart appliances. The definition is kind of tricky. Back in
Speaker 1: the day, we used to call it anything that connected
Speaker 1: to the Internet was smart. Or if it ran widgets,
Speaker 1: it was smart, right, you know, if you can download
Speaker 1: applications and change the software, or if it connected to
Speaker 1: some other thing in your house, it was smart. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing is that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different definitions for smart and no one has really become
Speaker 1: the the perfect example. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different implementations. At the end of the day's the marketing term,
Speaker 1: not not you know something FDA proof. There were some
Speaker 1: interesting implementations. L g S approach was to include NFC
Speaker 1: technology that's near field communication technology, which is that same
Speaker 1: stuff that lets you use your smartphone to pay for
Speaker 1: stuff where you tap your smartphone against a little vendors
Speaker 1: receiver and then it transfers the payment. Sure, if you
Speaker 1: have a certain application, you can you can bump your
Speaker 1: phone against somebody else's and transformation. Yeah, like like like
Speaker 1: contact information or a message like stop hitting your phone
Speaker 1: against my phone. Um, yeah, same sort of thing. NFC
Speaker 1: allows for this very near field communication. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what it stands for. It It let's devices that are
Speaker 1: very close to one another exchange infote. It's usually very
Speaker 1: light as far as the data transfers considered. Well, in
Speaker 1: the case of LG, they had it where you could
Speaker 1: have a smartphone, you tap it against your various appliances,
Speaker 1: like say your washer and dryer, and you could even
Speaker 1: do things like update your washer and dryer with new
Speaker 1: means of drying and washing your clothes. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that this was a thing. Yeah, I never I never
Speaker 1: thought about the firmware of your washer and dryer or
Speaker 1: updating it. Certainly, I'm still getting to the fact that
Speaker 1: I can update my Xbox. So yeah, you know, no,
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you, Lauren. I mean I sat
Speaker 1: there and I thought about, like, is this telling me that, hey,
Speaker 1: I know a better way to agitate your clothes. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's I'm sure there's a real use case for it.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like it was a little bit of
Speaker 1: an interesting approach. Now, I should also say LG has
Speaker 1: built it in so that it makes registering your device
Speaker 1: is very easy, so that when when you tap your smartphone,
Speaker 1: it's registered because it's already got all the information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's all you need to do. You don't You
Speaker 1: don't have to type in model numbers and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I'm kind of intrigued by by
Speaker 1: some of the They also have a touch screen fridge,
Speaker 1: I believe, and you can you can look up recipes
Speaker 1: and say your ingredient lists, and and send a shopping
Speaker 1: list to your cell phone, right, and you can do
Speaker 1: things like with some of these devices, you could do
Speaker 1: things like you have your let's say you have your
Speaker 1: list of ingredients in your refrigerator. You can say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: based upon what's in my refrigerator, what can I make
Speaker 1: for dinner? And it will pull up recipe. Is that
Speaker 1: incorporate the stuff that it knows you have? Now, granted
Speaker 1: you have to you have to input what you have exactly.
Speaker 1: It doesn't automatically know when you put in a cart
Speaker 1: in the milk. That would be cool, that would Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want them to train the little elves whose job
Speaker 1: it is to turn off the light when you close
Speaker 1: the door to just write down what you've got in there.
Speaker 1: And those are my favorite elves. Yeah, they're great. They're
Speaker 1: right there with the Keeblers. So who lived in a
Speaker 1: full house? As it turns out, the the the interesting
Speaker 1: thing is that you could also have an ecosystem where
Speaker 1: it sends that information, the recipe information to your stove.
Speaker 1: So you're stove like let's say that it involves that
Speaker 1: you're going to let's say you're gonna roast some vegetables
Speaker 1: because that's what you have in there, like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: roasted to rest in Vegas tonight. Fantastic, And you push
Speaker 1: that button and since the information to the stove, which
Speaker 1: immediately begins to preheat to the appropriate temperature. So this
Speaker 1: way you've got this kind of ecosystem. Now here's the problem.
Speaker 1: This is this is my problem with smart appliances. And
Speaker 1: I've said this before. Most of the require that you
Speaker 1: buy into one ecosystem. So you have to have all
Speaker 1: of your devices from the same manufacturer if you want
Speaker 1: it to have this interconnectivity, uh to work. Otherwise they're
Speaker 1: just gonna be standalone devices. Now, most of these are
Speaker 1: fantastic standalone appliances anyway. Oh sure, well, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know they're putting their putting this kind of tech into
Speaker 1: the their highest end the highest ends. Yes, but if
Speaker 1: you want to have that connectivity, then you have to
Speaker 1: end up investing in one ecosystem. My definition of smart
Speaker 1: is when we reach a level where you can buy
Speaker 1: your appliance from any of these vendors that are making
Speaker 1: these kind of devices and they all talk to each other.
Speaker 1: To me, that's what is smart, at least from a
Speaker 1: consumer standpoint. Also, I don't know that there are that
Speaker 1: many people who could buy into an ecosystem and change
Speaker 1: all of their appliances at the same time. That's expensive.
Speaker 1: You know, you're talking about refrigerator, washer, dryer, stove, TV.
Speaker 1: I mean, TV is part of the too smartphone, but possibly, um,
Speaker 1: it's getting into that process. We're kind of like, that's
Speaker 1: expensive and and my worry is you would start to
Speaker 1: adopt something and then what happens if three years down
Speaker 1: the road, when you're about to upgrade the rest of
Speaker 1: your stuff, the company no longer exists. That's a problem.
Speaker 1: So there's some there's still some downsides to smart appliances. Um,
Speaker 1: it will be interesting to see where this goes. I
Speaker 1: hope we get to a more open, uh standard for
Speaker 1: communication between devices, you know. I mean, I'm excited about
Speaker 1: the concept of being able to use your smartphone to
Speaker 1: to control anything in your house, from your television to
Speaker 1: your washer, dryer, to your light system to etcetera. Just
Speaker 1: just having a triquarter, you know, a glitch. For those
Speaker 1: of you who watched reboot, all ten of you out there, high,
Speaker 1: I love you, um and uh yeah, no I I
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to that too. And it's uh, I
Speaker 1: have some stuff that I can control with my smartphone
Speaker 1: actually with my tablet really, and that's most that's like
Speaker 1: the Xbox. I have smart glass on my tablet and
Speaker 1: and that's just a small of the type of stuff
Speaker 1: we can see in the future. And I agree, that's
Speaker 1: very exciting. So um yeah, it's that's the smart appliances.
Speaker 1: But there's so much more to talk about, uh with
Speaker 1: c E. S. So, Lauren Jonathan, it turns out that
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff at the ES more
Speaker 1: than two things, more than two things, and uh and
Speaker 1: uh so doing a one episode about all the things
Speaker 1: I saw and experience to c S is a little
Speaker 1: much to ask our listeners to bear because it would
Speaker 1: be really long. I think an hour and seven minutes. Actually,
Speaker 1: do you think about that much? According to the estimate
Speaker 1: that I kept going by asking Tyler. Yeah, So we
Speaker 1: decided we're going to split this episode up, as we
Speaker 1: sometimes do when they get so long that that's a thing,
Speaker 1: and um, we're going to conclude right here, but we'll
Speaker 1: be back in our next episode to conclude the stuff
Speaker 1: I saw at CES and some things that made the
Speaker 1: news while I was there, And so I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you guys tune in and hear how all this adventure concludes.
Speaker 1: Will there be a happy ending? Or did Jonathan get
Speaker 1: left at Las Vegas? I think we know the answer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not that's not a mystery. Okay, Well, anyway, if
Speaker 1: you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you let us know. Send us an
Speaker 1: email or I justus is tech Stuff at Discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: Drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled
Speaker 1: there is tech Stuff hs W and Lauren and I
Speaker 1: will talk to you again about CS as it turns
Speaker 1: out really soon for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot com