CES: Fixing Your First-World Problems Since 1967
Large swathes of the globe may be struggling with hunger, disease and poverty, but here at CES some manufacturers are focused on an entirely different topic: The little things that get under your skin.
That is to say, the quibbles. The “darn its.” The minor annoyances in life.
Remember the “One Laptop Per Child” sub-$150 tablet from last year’s CES, one of the few stabs at a humanitarian effort on the sprawling show floor? Well, that thing is toast. OLPC killed it last fall. Sadly, the numbers just didn’t work out (though a newer effort is reportedly close to launch).
What does sell, however, is all the junk hanging on the shelf when you walk into the Apple store or browse the Verizon kiosk in the mall. It’s the little stuff.
Case the first: The CordCruncher, a set of earbuds sheathed in a rubber hose, aimed to keep your cords from tangling and knotting up in your pocket — the quintessential frustration of gym-goers taking a power lunch hour to hit the gym and lift.
Minor? Perhaps. Maddening? Almost certainly. Twenty-five bucks puts an end to that headache.
Or say, for instance, you’re travelling on one of your many important business trips, and the stupid airline has once again lost your luggage. Trakdot, a flask-sized GSM-based tracking mechanism, solves that problem. Shove the device inside your bag, and it’ll send status updates on its whereabouts directly to your smartphone. Future apps on the horizon will alert you if the bag moves outside the area it’s supposed to be in.
It’ll set you back $50 bucks. Pricey for a use case that arguably doesn’t happen all the time to me, but it could be worth it if you’re sporting Tumi luggage.
Something for the culinary lot: Dacor’s Discovery IQ oven bakes an Android tablet directly into your oven. So if it’s your turn to cook for the family and you’re running late, you could ostensibly start preheating the oven halfway through your commute home, firing up the burners from an app on your smartphone.
But with all that delicious food you’re cooking with the Android oven, how can you be expected not to gorge yourself?
Say hello to Hapifork, the electronic utensil that aims to keep you slim enough to fit into your jeans. It keeps track of the way you eat, literally giving you a little vibrating jolt if you’re shoveling food into your mouth too fast.
Yes, this is what it has come to: Selling utensils that are practically shock-collar sporks, aimed at barring us from eating too much delicious food.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying any of these aren’t worthwhile pursuits (well, maybe the fork thing). I’m just saying don’t expect a slew of noble, world-changing products to come out of Las Vegas.
Or at least not products that will change the “third world.”
RELATED POSTS:
- Things That Make You Go Hmm: CES Gets Weird
- CNET Wanders Into the CBS-Dish Crossfire at CES
- More Wi-Fi Spectrum on the Way, Says Genachowski
- CES Is So Infectious (Comic)
- Beats’ Jimmy Iovine on Steve Jobs, Spotify and Why He Can Make Subscriptions Work
- Beats’ New Music Subscription Service Gets a New Boss: Topspin’s Ian Rogers
- CES Lost and Found: A Hot Spot for Hotspots and Lost Teeth
- At CES, Chipmakers Go All In on Mobile
- Phablets the New Hotness in Mobile Devices? Not So Fast.
- President Clinton at CES: The World Needs More Smartphones (And Fewer Guns)
- Talking TVs With an Imaginary Consumer at CES
- Valve Pledges to Enter Videogame Console Wars With “Steam Box”
- Ballmer’s CES Keynote, Courtesy of Qualcomm (Video)
- Making It to CES on a Kickstarter and a Dream
- Intel: Trust Us! We’ve Got Mobile Devices on Lockdown … Next Year.
- Automakers Open Their In-Car Platforms: First Up, Ford, and Soon, GM
- CES: Fixing Your First-World Problems Since 1967
- Acer President Wong: Consumers Are Still Confused by Windows 8
- Cisco Teams With AT&T on Home Security
- Acer Targets Families, Newbies With Sub-$150 Iconia B1 Tablet
- Roku Adds More TV Partners, Looks Beyond the Set-Top Box
- Game On: Nvidia Previews “Project Shield,” a Handheld Android Console
- At CES, Lenovo Attempts to Go Big With 27-Inch “Table Computer”
- Health-and-Fitness Tech Grows at CES, but Challenges Lie Ahead
- Welcome to CES: A Trade Show, Not a Tastemaker
- CES 2013: The Year the “Connected Home” Becomes a Reality?
- LG Can’t Wait for CES, Spills Beans on New Google TVs
- Yahoo’s Mayer Hoping What Happens With Big Advertisers at CES Doesn’t Stay in Vegas
- Yeah, Don’t Expect Samsung Mobile’s “Next Big Thing” at CES