CES 2019

I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) again this year. It's one of Las Vegas' largest shows and it's truly mindboggling.

I stayed at the Luxor at the south end of the strip. I love the Egyptian theme there.

There were a couple of VR flying squirrel simulators. This one even has a fan to blow wind in your face. I don't get it.

Flexible screen for your tablets & phones.

Electromechanical version of Pong. The knob moves a physical paddle and the ball is a little cube that slides around.

Cat food dispensers that use facial recognition to dispense food in order to keep the dog from eating the cat food.

Tiny sensor chip to the right of a sewing needle eye.

Deere brought in a complete harvester with head. 

This had Grampa written all over it. There's even a southern Utah backdrop! It's a 4-rotor personal death machine. 

There were drones of every shape and size. This one snaps into a phone case. Pop it out, unfold it, and it will fly a few feet away from you and take your selfie.

This was the most ridiculous thing I saw at the show (and I saw a lot of ridiculous things!). It's a personal submarine/jet boat shaped like a sailfish. It has enough power that it can jump clear out of the water. I suppose if you were 5, it would be the coolest thing ever.

Here's a video of it in action:

 

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is really taking off. Nvidia has traditionally made video cards for video gaming. These have thousands of processors all running in parallel and are well-suited for solving complex problems like those used in AI. Now Nvidia is making AI-specific hardware that is being used in autonomous cars. Without video games, we wouldn't have this.

JP wants one of these. It's a suitcase with kitty ears. When you scratch it between the ears, they wiggle.

This is a sensor that is currently on the market. It's less that 1/4" square and it contains a 3-axis gyro, a 3-axis accelerometer, and a hyper-sensitive barometric pressure sensor that can detect elevation changes of less than one foot. It's being used for fitness trackers to count stairs climbed.

These are some directional speakers. They are made of an array of ultrasonic speakers that create a spatial sound that can only be heard in one spot. If you're not in that spot, they're completely silent. Move into that spot, and they sound like normal speakers.

This is a proposed commercial death machine put out by Bell Helicopters. It's a six-rotor VTOL aircraft that can hold a few people.

There were quite a few companies selling STEM educational things. This is a set of smart Legos that can be used to create circuits and programmed with an iPad using a simple graphical programming language. It's pretty cool to think that grade school kids are learning this!

Fully automatic kitty litter box. After the cat exits, the drum rotates 360° and separates the litter from the clumps and dumps into a plastic bag. It looked like a very solid design that would work well. Only $500.