The Computer Electronic Show 2021 | |
The Computer Electronic Show 2021With all the craziness going on in politics, life still goes on. Politics is always decades behind the cutting edge of life anyway, and life is really far out there when seen through the lens of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
CES showcases global breakthrough advances in technology. It is run by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), a trade association representing the $422 billion U.S. consumer technology industry, which supports more than 18 million U.S. jobs. It is the Disneyland of innovation. Before the year gets away from us, let me give you a smattering of the newest innovations on display this year.
Along with everyone else this last year, CES had to cope with trying to conduct business digitally. Normally, CES fills up the Las Vegas Convention Center and other huge spaces for an in-person experience and a chance to think about how the new technologies will be impacting us. This year, despite COVID-19, the show went on. Online.
Here’s the thing. More than a third of the exhibitors were startups. Normally, you would discover these new innovators while wandering the aisles of the exhibit. Looking for them digitally is very tedious, so it’s easy to miss some interesting new products. That said, the best way to navigate the exhibition is to check the list of categories, run down the products that interest you, then connect to a specific website. Low Light Energy-Harvesting Solar Cells gather power from ambient indoor light and are billed as having three times the energy of conventional indoor cells. |
 Moxie’s creators define it as a “state-of-the-art companion robot to revolutionize human-centric care and wellness. WHAT’S NEW? MOXIE AND MUCH MORE!
Robots in the time of COVID-19. Hey, meet Moxie, billed as a “revolution in child development†by its creators, Embodied, Inc., who describe themselves as “an industry leading robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) company creating state-of-the-art companion robots to revolutionize human-centric care and wellness.†Moxie is designed as a companion for kids ages 5-10. It can teach soft skills, i.e., communication and social skills, attitudes, and emotional intelligence. Moxie is a “robot with machine-learning technology (it teaches itself as it gets to know you) that allows it to perceive, process, and respond to natural conversation, eye contact, facial expressions, and other behavior, as well as recognize and recall people, places, and things.†I have to think Moxie would be wonderful for a child with Asperger’s or other communications problems or for children isolated by the virus. Today, you can buy friendship. |  Low Light Energy-Harvesting Solar Cells gather power from ambient indoor light and are billed as having three times the energy of conventional indoor cells. ENDLESS ENERGY
Ambient Photonics is offering “forever battery life†with their Low Light Energy Harvesting Solar Cells. This is handy for the Internet of Things, that is the network of physical objects, e.g., “things†that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet, all of which are battery powered. These solar cells gather power from ambient indoor light and are billed as having three times the energy of conventional indoor cells, “eliminating the expense, inconvenience, and environmental waste of disposable batteries,†according to the company.
|  The Mayflower, a ship directed by an AI captain and powered by energy from the sun has the capability to self-navigate across oceans and spend long periods of time alone at sea. NO CREW NECESSARY
Coming soon to an ocean near you, an autonomous ship that sails with no human crew, the ultimate remote-controlled boat. Meet The Mayflower, a ship directed by an AI captain and powered by energy from the sun with the capability to self-navigate across oceans and spend long periods of time alone at sea. “Safer, more flexible and cost-effective than today’s manned research vessels, the new-generation Mayflower promises to transform ocean science, enabling scientists to gather the data they need to understand critical issues such as global warming, ocean plastic pollution, over-exploitation and the impact on important species such as marine mammals,†say the creators at ProMare. My, but she is yar! Of course, she’ll have to watch out for pirate hackers…autonomous ships may spawn a whole new breed of maritime scoundrels! | PRECISION AGRICULTURE
Having started a garden this last year, I am in awe of farmers. How do they grow so much, so uniform and beautiful in shape and size? This years’ CES had something for our agrarian heroes, believe me! John Deere has autonomous (self-driving) tractors. The Innovation award-winning X-Series Robotic Combine Harvester just finished global test trials with flying colors. The combine is an amazing piece of machinery that harvests crops and separates the useful part of the plants from the non-useful parts. It has been able to harvest 70 percent faster than any other machine and has stood the test of the world’s most challenging fields. It uses an artificial intelligence technique to take high-speed pictures of the crop flowing through the combine and then uses image classification techniques to optimize the settings to clean the grain with as little waste as possible. This has always been, up to now, done by hand, by the farmer. It’s all part of the Precision Agriculture movement. New smart machines can plant, analyze soil and moisture conditions, fertilize, and weed with such accuracy that they can actually distinguish between a plant and a weed and treat plants individually. With GPS sensors, they can drive themselves within a one-inch accuracy through a field. Jahmy Hindman, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the first for John Deere, reminds us how important it is to optimize food production to feed a growing world population. His PHD thesis and previous work before coming to Deere was in neural network connections. These are the kind of “future†jobs you might want to talk about with your children.  |  Kohler’s Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet has a feature you never thought you needed. GIFTED TOILETS
There are endless things to write about with CES, but I can’t leave you without telling you about the Smart Toilets. According to Digital Trends, CES is flush with smart toilets. Not only do they have touchless opening, closing, washing, drying, and flushing toilets, “Kohler’s Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet has a feature you never thought you needed—and maybe never will: Alexa built right into the toilet. The Numi 2.0 is more of an experience than a toilet. It features high-quality speakers that you can use to play music or talk to Amazon’s voice assistant. The toilet also has lights built right into it that can set the mood or sync up to music that you’re listening to.†Digital Trends also highlighted “the Toto Wellness toilet that senses and analyzes the user’s “body and key outputs†(your pee and poop) to provide recommendations on ways to improve one’s health. In a connected app, you can view your stats, and see those improvement recommendations. Toto gives the example of a recommendation to add more salmon to your diet.†OMG!
ONWARD!
So, life goes on beyond the porky/pukey politics of the world. People, endlessly creative, inventive, imaginative people, still have eyes on the horizon. We are so lucky to have these wonderful souls who continue to make the human journey exciting, unstoppably originating innovations that are carrying us into the future. This is a tiny smattering of the exhibits.
To check it out for yourselves, visit the CES site at ces.tech or check out Rumble or Youtube for CES 2021 videos posted there.
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