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Day one at CES 2014 finds us exploring the main halls by day, and attending press-only events in the evening. Here at TechnologyX, we strive to bring you technology that we hope you as a reader will find to be interesting, informative, or innovative. Innovation can take many forms, and can sometimes come from quite surprising sources. In today’s recap, we will bring you first, some of the latest UltraHD 4K television technology from Samsung and LG, and second, some unique and maybe even downright curious technology that we encountered at ShowStoppers (a press-only event) in the evening.
On Monday, TechX was present at Samsung’s highly-attended press conference, where they announced (among other new products) their newest 110″ curved and flat panel UHD televisions. Even though we were seated in the seventh row center (about 50 feet from the on-stage speakers and products), when the 110″ curved version was conveyed out from behind the backdrop and onto the stage, it was a little difficult to grasp just how big and beautiful this TV is from that distance.
Fortunately, yesterday we visited the Samsung display in one of the main halls, and were able to get much closer, and bring you an up-close photo of this giant of a television. The people standing near give you a much better grasp of size proportion. Rubber ducks never looked so good.
At the LG display, we encountered a HUGE array of 32″ flat panels arranged in an inter-connected grid that measured 7 screens tall by 20 screens wide — that is an amazing 140 individual flat panel TVs acting as a single display.
They were also using this display as a 3-D demo, and viewers were handed 3-D glasses to don to see the amazing 3-D effect created by this giant wall of a TV display. While I was viewing, the subject matter was dozens of books appearing as tiny items in the background. As they moved “toward” you, they began to rotate and grow ever larger. With the 3-D glasses on, a couple of the books literally came right out of the screen and spun past on either side of my head. The above image is only in 2-D, but the effect of this entire wall of a TV was quite breathtaking.
Tuesday evening found us in attendance at ShowStoppers, a by-invitation press-only event that featured a plethora of technology displays. Some were from long-standing brand names, but quite a few were from companies that few have ever yet heard of.
For you car buffs, this unique three-wheeled vehicle from IAU was gathering large groups to check it out. Powered by an internal-combustion engine, this thing looks both powerful and sporty for its size.
It is not often that you find a company that is actually happy to say that its business is in the toilet. It happens surprisingly often that people accidentally drop their phone (or other electronic device) in the toilet. DI has an “electronics dryer” to help you attempt to salvage your now wet device, dry it out completely, and restore it to functionality. Your phone is placed into a special bag, where some sort of dessicant absorbs all of the moisture out of the device and returns it to a dry state.
And for those of you who are struggling for accuracy at the rifle range, you can now purchase a special gun with a self-sighting scope from TrackingPoint. The scope helps you verify the target, and once a button is pressed to accept the target, the first/next time the crosshairs line up on it the round is fired. Even if the gun is not being held especially steady, it only has to acquire the target again for a fraction of second to instantly fire the round.
And lastly for this session, we encountered a beautifully engineered full size robot from IEEE. Human-like hand and arm gestures, perfectly synchronized speech and mouth movement, and very expressive “eyes” make this robot extremely lifelike. “He” was doing a rendition of “Singing in the Rain” as we approached.
Stay tuned for the rest of our coverage of CES 2014 and related events.