CES 2024 officially ended last week Friday. We’ve already picked the best and weirdest gadgets we came across from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, now it’s time to pick out the duds. This takes longer than you might think.
This is the sort of tech that makes you scratch your head and wonder what the creators were thinking. They were probably thinking “Can it be done?” without the all-important follow-up, “Should it be done?” The answer to that last one is usually ‘No’, yet here they are.
“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid you can’t buy that.”
US-based “grocery technology company” Instacart announced a new feature for its “AI-powered smart” trolleys, called Caper Carts. The trolleys are equipped with cameras, sensors, and a display that this new feature will use to show shoppers “personalized and dynamic recommendations” (read: targeted ads) based on what they put into their cart. Instacart and its advert-spewing Caper Carts are bound to a few locations in the US, for now at least. Thankfully, even if the carts do find their way to South Africa, this doesn’t seem like a feature that would be very helpful here. Especially when the trolley finds itself cruising down Jan Smuts Avenue full of cardboard.
Smell-o-vision is coming
Japanese startup Aromajoin unveiled what it calls the ‘Aroma Shooter Wearable’ which aims to do exactly what it says on the tin – shoot aromas into your face. The scents are loaded into six replaceable cartridges around the users’ neck and are controlled by a mobile device or a PC via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or USB. While Aromajoin isn’t pushing for it (at least not yet), this tech will likely find its way into XR/VR applications for another layer of immersion. Imagine being blasted with the scent of burnt rubber and petrol while watching an action film. Hold that thought and then watch Trainspotting’s ‘The Worst Toilet in Scotland’ scene and tell us how you feel.
Replacing ourselves as a dog’s best friend
This year’s CES saw no shortage of tech aimed at our closest four-legged friends. While most of it seemed relatively inoffensive, we were told to add this pet chaperone from Oro to our list by some concerned canines readers. Its main purpose is to keep a close watch on your pets (preferably dogs) while you’re away and stop them from getting up to too much mischief.
It features a display and two-way audio so you can chat with your furry pal remotely as other normal humans do. The bot can also dispense treats or balls via a built-in cannon to keep your dogs occupied while the separate automatic food dispenser releases food per your command or schedule. There’s no way any of this could backfire, right?
Stop trying to provide for the family
In case cat owners feel left out, Swiss startup Flappie showed off their AI-powered cat door. It denies your cat (or any cat for that matter) entry if it detects the feline is bearing gifts of the dead rodent variety. What we can’t understand is why anyone would like to wake up and not find a dead mouse in their bed. After all the hard work of stalking, chasing, catching, and killing it for you, you’re going to deny us entry into our home? We can’t stand for this. Get the dog bot for the dog but leave cats out of this dystopian, AI-powered pet tech nightmare.*
*This post was written by a human.
There’s a rumble in my cheeks
Razer is no stranger to showing off strange tech at CES but this year it seemed a little subdued. It only managed to unveil Project Esther, the world’s first HD haptics gaming cushion. It should pair nicely with last year’s CES announcement, Project Carol, a gaming head cushion with surround sound and more haptics, and CES 2022’s Enki Pro HyperSense, a whole gaming chair with more haptics. We get the feeling the people at Razer love haptics. We’re sure gamers will love all the haptics too and definitely won’t find creative ways to use it that have nothing to do with gaming.
Good luck, I’m behind 7 Visage smart locks
Are you tired of losing your keys and having to climb through a window to get into your home? That should be a thing of the past with Lockly’s Visage smart lock. You just need to present your face for a completely hands-free entry into your home. It can connect to your home network via Wi-Fi so it’ll fit right in with your other smart home devices.
If you have any safety concerns, put those to rest because Lockly obviously considered the possibility of a would-be intruder making you look at the lock to open your door for them. It just isn’t saying how yet because it’s a surprise. The Wi-Fi lock is also completely safe from online tampering because no one would do that, right guys?
Well that was quick
It feels like it was only yesteryear when AI was new and exciting and every company rushed to declare their new thing used it. Funnily enough, Adam-X, a new medical training dummy, doesn’t feature any AI… yet. This robotic training patient is kitted out with a skeleton, muscles, and lungs that work like ours. It has pupils that can dilate, flushing cheeks, and a swelling tongue that turns blue when it needs to. It can also excrete blood or urine (both from its artificial genitals), depending on your mood the training scenario.
This is a legitimate medical device and will probably prove very useful for training medical students. But we’re putting it on our list because Adam’s makers say they have plans to add a GPT-powered communication feature so we’d just like Adam to know we were against the other humans torturing him when he eventually develops consciousness.