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