CES 2011

This past week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas there was a great deal of fanfare surrounding 3D TVs, and tablets, tablets everywhere but none that you can actually buy. However, this focus on flat screen 3D and Android tablets overshadowed other innovations on display.

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My favorite little show stealer was a manufacturer of modular robotic parts (and the software to run them) named RoboBuilder. They have both consumer grade and professional product lines for their modular parts. They are seeking a wholesale partner to bring their consumer product to the US market. Their little guy is very reminiscent of Plen, the Japanese “hobby” Robot famous for skateboarding and roller-skating. While the Japanese have a deep cultural connection and are generally recognized as the world leader in robotic toys, this Korean native just became my favorite new entry into the hobbyist robot market.

Also of note, eyewear made a strong showing at this years convention, particular in award recognition. For instance, Vuzix took honors in the CES Innovation Awards for their Raptyr 3D Augmented Reality glasses. Though I don’t have any video of them to share at this time, stay tuned, Vuzix will be our headlining guest at ARNY - Augmented Reality New York, in February.

Polaroid hit it out of the ballpark. The business arrangement between Lady Gaga and Polaroid was negotiated by Hollywood talent agency, William Morris Endeavor, and Polaroid’s PR Agency, Weber Shandwick. This has proven a stroke of brilliance. The rumors of Polaroid’s death have been greatly exagerated. After the rise of digital photography took their core automatic camera business down in flames, Polaroid has made various attempts at rebirth over the past decade, twice under new ownership and management (and twice filed for bankruptcy). In its current incarnation, PLR IP Holdings has created new value for the brand by developing their own stable of halo products, while leveraging their brand equity with licensing deals to other manufactures. It is a little known fact that Polaroid first made its name in polarized sunglasses (hence the name Polaroid). Their big move back into sunglasses and designer polarized-lens eyewear for 3D TV viewing was very smart; with a legitimate historical connection to the brand. Bringing in Lady Gaga to introduce the brand to a new generation — and giving her a contributing role in their product line beyond mere spokesperson — has been positively brilliant. Polaroid commanded serious mindshare at CES, and their Polarez GL20 Camera Glasses, to be sold under the Polaroid Grey Label and unveiled at CES by Lady Gaga herself, were a show stealer. I’m enthusiastic to see where Polaroid goes from here, they’re going to be an exciting brand to watch.

I would personally like to thank Jon Pollock for giving me a private viewing of the GL20 glasses, where I made the above video, as they were not on display to the public. I would also like to thank Colleen Sarenpa who was so helpful and informative. Thank you both, you’re doing a great job reviving a legendary brand.

If you find that Lady Gaga’s video glasses need some complimentary trousers to complete your cyborg wardrobe, you can go for Cyberdyne’s HAL exoskeleton. CES saw this Japanese firm’s first exhibit here in the states. Though the torso component (not shown in the video) enables the wearer to effortlessly lift many times their own weight, the legs are principally being marketed as a mobility option for the handicapped (I cobbled together my video from the glimpses I was able to snatch when Spike TV showed up. I was actually the only person there at Cyberdyne’s booth when Spike unexpectedly arrived. A crowd formed rather instantly. I’ve tried to find Spike’s coverage of this, but it appears they never published it to their website. Perhaps it ran on their cable station).

I must concede that my poor video does not do Arial Burton’s technology justice. The glass enclosure is not needed, but I believe it is a safety issue (don’t want to blind anyone with a laser). The device uses a focused laser in such a way that it naturally terminates in a “plasma spark” in midair. This plasma spark creates the “pixel” in the air. This will be an interesting technology to keep an eye on. They’ve more than tripled the resolution in the last year, and will likely do it again next year. They also tell me that they plan to launch a full color version “soon.”

Of the various video goggles on display at CES, the Recon goggles made for snow-sports were the most practical. Giving a heads-up view of important statistics while barreling downhill, they aim to introduce models catering to other goggle and helmet wearing sports over the course of the next year. Their execution is well thought out, their build quality in solid, and they are delivering on a genuine desire in the market for a quality device to deliver location based data while moving downhill. This information may all already be present in a user’s smartphone, but that is not a form factor with practical application in the context of a downhill run.

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Gadget: Sony MHS-PM5

This is far from a full-on review. More like an acknowledgement of participation by the newest tool in my arsenal of gadgets. All of my video from Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2010) was shot with my new Sony HD Bloggie MHS-PM5. While much of it was shot hand-held, I also brought along a Manfrotto 709BR Digi tripod. Originally bought to use with a 3M MPro120 pico projector, I had it with me to practice my presentation in my hotel room, and realized it could do double-duty (shown in the photo above).

I debated for a while whether to go with the CM5 or the PM5. It largely came down to a debate over compact-convenience vs optical zoom. I ultimately decided that I would get more use out of the PM5, being smaller and able to comfortably toss in my pocket without carrying a bag. Of course, there is always the possibility that it will be made instantly obsolete when I get the new iPhone 4, but it served its purpose for ARE and I’m certain to get more use out of it (Hey, it could be my iPhone camera’s #2. Power to the people.).

The mini-tripod combo worked well. In some presentations, I was able to get a desk seat, set up the camera on the tripod, and then not have to pay much attention to it (while, for instance, I geeked out live tweeting).

Extreme ease of use, I bought it only a day before my travel to Santa Clara, and did not take the time to experiment with it even once, for even a second until the moment I went to use it in the field for the first time. After leaving it on the charger over night, the following morning I turned it on for the first time mere moments before recording my first video, and knew intuitively exactly how to use it. It gets an A+ in ease of use.

There is one serious limitation to this device that any potential buyer must be aware of in advance: It can only record 29-minutes at a time. Even with a 16G SanDisk, which could hold several hours of video, it won’t record beyond the 29 minutes. You can record many multiple files of less than 29-minutes each, and you can begin recording another clip just seconds after saving the prior one, but 29-minutes is the time limit. The salesman at B&H explained to me that it had to do with EU import regulations — there are apparently extra import taxes on video recorders that can be avoided by being sold as a “still camera”. In the EU, if the device records for 30 minutes or longer, it is considered a video camera, but if it takes pictures and also video clips of less-than 30 minutes, it is designated as a “still camera” with a video “feature”. And Sony apparently wanted to avoid EU tariffs, but didn’t want to make a separate model just for the US market. Anyway, that was the story I was told at B&H. The reason this matters, besides being an annoying, arbitrarily imposed limitation, is that I once lost track of time, and let it run longer than 30 minutes (while recording Blaise Aguera y Arcas’s Keynote), and the device froze-up. Worse than that, the video file was corrupted, so I didn’t even get to keep the first 29 minutes. This was further disappointing because I was told explicitly that, if it reached the 30-minute limitation, that the device would just save the file and stop recording. In other words, that is simply would not do precisely what it did.

In the grander scheme of things, I think the situations where I will record more that 30-minutes continuously are exceedingly rare, so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt… for now.

While certainly not the quality of an optical zoom, the digital zoom performed better than expected, especially at full 4x zoom (where my expectations were very low). And when used with no zoom, the image quality was quite crisp. The steady-cam feature also worked better than my expectations, when used handheld.

Another nice selling point is the ability to flip the camera lens back towards you. This means you can record interviews, keeping yourself in the frame, and still see the video playback screen for composition.

I almost forgot to mention the battery life. Amazing! I forgot to get a spare battery when I purchased the device, so I tried to get one at JFK on my way out. No luck. No luck at the San Francisco airport, when I arrived, either. I was very concerned that I would run out of battery life, and be left without the use of my device for the second half of each day. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Not only did the charge last all day long, the battery indicator never dropped below “fully charged”. I did put it back on the charger for the night, for the second day of the event, but still. It has now been a full week since I returned, and I have yet to see it indicate anything but a fully charged battery. Amazing battery life.

As the cheesy marketing name suggests, the “Bloggie” is marketed to bloggers such as myself. While the 29 minute record limit (and especially so, the corrupted file) were a big disappointment, I can still recommend the camera, based on its other features, so long as buyers are made well aware of this limitation going into the purchase. I really am the ideal target for such a product. As I aim to incorporate more-and-more video here at GigantiCo.tv, I expect I will get a lot more use out of the device. Perhaps I may come back and add my own comment to this post, after I’ve put it through the paces for a few months.

Oh, and as for the Manfrotto tripod — love it. Great ball-joint mounting head, sturdy, well made. Small enough to fold up and stick in your back pocket. Pretty sleek industrial design, too.

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Disclosure: All product links include my Amazon affiliate tag.

Tim Kaiser's gonkulations

Tim Kaiser makes custom audio components, of a sort, crafted with a vintage look. In a deliberate act of over-engineering, Tim crafts elaborate devices, usually musical effects modules, and righteously gonkulated noisemakers. Go to his website to learn more.

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik has long been recognized as a master and pioneer of video and electronic/technology based art. He was also a close associate of composer, John Cage, whom he was known to collaborate with. I’d seen one piece of his in the James Cohan Gallery collection on a prior visit, and have always had an appreciation for his work. The literature provided by the gallery describes Paik’s work as critiquing “culture consumed by technology.” In this way, Paik’s work is very self referential. His technology is not just a critique of, but also an example of “culture consumed by technology.” Often working with the housing cabinets from mid-century TV sets, in the case of all but one of the pieces in this exhibit, with their picture tubes removed and contemporary TVs set into their cabinets. Paik built sculptures- houses, figures, totems, walls, and environments from these cabinets and screens. Later he created work using only contemporary TVs. Television screens were the staple of his work. Of the pieces in this show, his humanoid primitive sculpture, Karen Blixen Robot (shown above), caught my interest most. Though I enjoyed the show, and had built up much anticipation in attending, there was something off that I could not at first put my finger on. Perhaps I went in with my expectations too high. But I think perhaps a combination of factors worked against the exhibit for me. For one, the idea of a wall of TV sets is so reminiscent of any consumer electronic store’s TV department, that nothing about the presentation is particularly riveting, losing some of the impact the approach may have had during the time of some of his earlier work. Although the picture tubes in the TVs had been removed, and “modern” TV sets had been placed within the vintage cabinets, these so-called “new” picture tube TVs have themselves become obsolete, in these days of HD flat-panels. Pioneering as it was in its day, I think Paik’s work suffers the fate of a lot of technology based conceptual art: As technology moves forward, if the work’s impact, no matter how conceptual, is most dependent on presentation rather than interaction, the work itself becomes “dated”. Some of Paik’s work qualifies as immersive, but in this exhibit W3 would be the only example, and by my estimation, the least inspired piece of the show. Tower is certainly monolithic. Perhaps it is the curse of being recently old. Once Paik’s body of work is as old as the mid-century cabinets he used, the perspective will be different and the timeliness issue will not be as it is now. I am glad to have had the opportunity to attend, and I appreciate the James Cohan Gallery for supporting such art.

Multi Touch Interface release

Enjoy this video of the newly released multi-touch interface by Perceptive Pixel. So Windows Vista isn’t the most significant new operating system release in the past month, after all.

Having experimented some with these next-generation touch screen interfaces, I’d like to point out that using them on a vertical wall mount is not generally very practical. Your arms will quickly become exhausted. An angled table-top implimentation is usually preferred. That said, this was likely done for the purposes of audience presentation. The one shown on the Perceptive Pixel homepage is indeed an inclined table-top version.

I found the above video on the Future Feeder website.

Must you have one?

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is. It’s Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Lightsaber (How do you know it’s Obi-Wan’s? Because it’s the blue one, silly.). Well, technically it’s not Obi-Wan’s actual Lightsaber, it is merely a “replica”. Every few months Master Replicas (who recently completed their merger with Corgi International Ltd.), has been releasing a new Lightsaber in their Force FX series of high-end replicas. Their site states that it:

Features enhanced glowing blue blade with realistic power-up and power-down light effects. The lighting effects are produced by a string of 64 super-bright LEDs that ignite sequentially inside the blade.

Features five motion sensor controlled sound effects recorded from the movie: power-up, idle hum, swing, clash, and power-down.

Blade has three built-in motion sensors for super sensitivity: 2 for detecting movement and 1 for detecting the impact of the blade.

MASSIVE DISCLAIMER: I swear, I am not one of those “Star Wars nerds” (I never even saw the last two movies.). I do realize that I have gone from a laser post to a lightsaber post in one swail foop, but this was entirely coincidental. This is a toy. The lasers are real. And besides, I stumbled across a link to these entirely by accident, while researching vintage Viewmasters (I know, I’m not helping my cause).

The shame, the shame.

Personal Home Planetarium

The HomeStar Pro by Sega Toys is the improved version of their original HomeStar Home Planetarium, with an LED projection that is 3 times brighter than the original. It is still recommended that the device be used in as close to total darkness as possible. In addition to the moving view of the Northern sky, the “Pro” also comes with an additional plate projection of a full moon, in great detail.

A wonderful educational gift for children, especially those who live in urban areas where the city lights obscure all but the brightest stars, making telescope viewing less practical.

The HomeStar Pro Home Planetarium is available from AudioCubes for $329.00.

You can view this 4 minute Japanese infomercial for the HomeStar Pro on YouTube.

Of course, if you live out in big-sky country, someplace like the American mid-west, you can always just, you know, look up at the sky.

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Rose Planetarium

For us city-dwellers that want the big experience, there is always the Rose Planetarium, or as they like to call it, The Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Center for Earth and Space* (it just rolls off the tongue). Their most recent production, produced in cooperation with NASA, and narrated by Robert Redford, is titled Cosmic Collisions, where viewers are invited to, “explore cosmic collisions, hypersonic impacts that drive the dynamic and continuing evolution of the universe.” Whooa…

* Or when addressing the name of the museum wing itself: The Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest, Rose Center for Earth and Space, Featuring the Hayden Planetarium. Not that we want to confuse anyone.

Waiting to Ship

We’ve seen this happen many times- An exceptional product that for whatever reason, never makes it to market. These are three excellent product designs that, as of today, have yet to make it into consumer’s hands.

The Jawbone

Jawbone has now been signed up with Cingular (which will soon simply be AT&T Mobile), to distribute its noise canceling wireless headset. They are taking pre-orders with a ship date that has yet to be announced. It looks like the only one of the three items sure to eventually hit the market. Besides having a gorgeous design, it makes claim to incorporate revolutionary noise canceling technology that allows the user to speak clearly at a conversational volume, and still be heard while calling from a noisy area. I have not demoed one myself, but their website has a well put together demo that sounds pretty convincing.

SHIFT

Though SHIFT looks like a tricycle, it is more like a learning bicycle; designed to help young children make the transition to a two wheeled bicycle- As the speed increases, the two rear wheels pull together, and widen apart again as the rider slows down. The SHIFT was designed by Purdue Industrial Design Assistant Professor Scott S. Shim, and two students, Ryan Lightbody and Matt Grossman. Although it won Taiwan’s International Bicycle Design competition, and earned itself a spot on the cover of TIME magazine, as of yet it has no manufacturer.

RollerToaster

Hot-shot industrial designer Jaren Goh has applied his skills to the age old domestic appliance, the toaster (and garnered himself a red.dot design award for his efforts). While John Q. Public living in a middle American suburban McMansion may not grasp the genius of this design, those of us who live in high density urban environments know that the first place where we lose space is in our tiny city dwelling kitchens. This space saving toaster design is brilliant in its simplicity… not to mention impeccably cool. Nobody has yet been able to answer for me whether it would be safe to wall-mount.

Microrobot UBOT due for US

The Korean made UBOT, by Microrobot, is about to hit American shores, kicking Roomba ass- the American iRobot company who built the robotic vacuum market here in the US, better act fast if it doesn’t want the foreign competition to eat its lunch. The UBOT cleaning robot sweeps, then vacuums, then mops, all in one robotic apparatus (Estimated cost, $700US).

The UBOT is quite a bit larger than a Roomba, as well. Though iRobot calls the Roomba a vacuuming robot, technically it only sweeps- it does not produce suction, the UBOT does. iRobot’s new Scooba is a mopper. The top end Roomba model sells for $350, while the top of the line Scooba is $400.

Look to see more house chore robot competitors hit the market in the next year, including laundry folding robots.

Bang & Olufsen 6500

Vintage late 80s, in ULTRA RARE WHITE finish

HOT FIND: Ebay Item# 300064887504

I stumbled across this ultra-rare Bang & Olufsen 6500 in WHITE.

Although it was produced from 1989 to 1991, it is surprisingly contemporary. Apple’s iMac/iPods have made white the big design craze in consumer electronics and gadgets. Especially if you have already set up an iMac as the heart of you entertainment center.

EDIT: Item was won by mawidad for $890.