With more than 135 thousand in-person attendees, and 43000 exhibitors from 150 countries, including industry giants like Google, Sony, BMW, Lenovo, Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, with thousands of new and improved tech products to showcase, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is, without a doubt, planet Earth’s biggest tech event.
This annual trade show is organised every year in Las Vegas by the Consumer Tech Association to allow tech companies to unveil their new products, launch consumer services, and introduce concept designs for future tech.
Everything from the newest gen laptops, the latest smartphones, and the fastest of processors to hi-tech kitchen appliances and feature-packed electric cars drops in these exhibitions.
And a lot of the time, the tech that comes through this event, eventually ends up on the devices and gadgets we use every day.
CD players, 4K and 8K TVs, smartwatches, virtual reality gear, smart home devices, autonomous cars, folding phones – these are all examples of tech that stemmed from CES and gradually made into our lives. That is why tech enthusiasts, brands, and people who are even remotely related to the tech space hold their breath every January to see what new tech is coming their way to revolutionise how they interact and use appliances and gadgets in their daily lives.
The 4-day long CES this year, spanning January 9 through 12, also maintained the status quo by giving us some of the most futuristic gadgets and technology that we can’t wait to experience.
As expected, AI and robotics powered by AI were all the rage this year. From clocks and thermometers to Self-Driving cars and Mars Rovers, almost every piece of hardware and software from CES 2024 incorporated AI or machine learning one way or the other to bank in on the AI craze.
But some of them forced heads to turn on their own merit, holograms being one of them.
This year at CES, holographic displays and hologram technology, in general, were in the spotlight. The most notable of them all was the Holobox from the Dutch company, Holoconnects.
Ever wanted to talk to someone over a hologram? Well, using Holoconnects’ Holobox, a big telephone booth-like box-cum-display that lets you talk to someone via hologram with zero latency, you can.
It is as simple as sitting for a video call. But instead of seeing the other person on a jittery screen with noticeable lag, you will be able to witness the person’s full-size virtual self with the help of the 3D-esk depth effect on the holographic box.
But since it is almost the size of an actual telebooth, and hence, a bit on the pricey end, the product is clearly not marked for the masses. However, there was another bird of the same flock this year, which is neither absurdly priced nor gargantuan in size.
It’s the Looking Glass Go digital holographic frame.
The Go digital screen from this Brooklyn-based company, Looking Glass, is basically a digital photo frame that converts 2D pictures into a holographic image. This pocket-sized device can even convert vintage film photos or Polaroids to 3D holograms using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The generative AI of Looking Glass Go scans the images and produces depth information to output a 3D-like hologram. The resultant hologram can only be described as glancing at your vivid past through a looking glass.
Surprisingly, this frame has a mere 6-inch display, which is exactly the size of standard smartphones nowadays. The fact of the matter is that hologram technology has evolved enough to be used in a small pocket display. So, the days are not far behind when the holograms jump from their 6-inch display to the 6-inch display of our phones, making over-the-internet communication and your life a little bit easier.
Speaking of making your life easier, smartphone assistants are becoming smarter and more capable of helping us with our day to day tasks. With the help of modern-day machine learning and advanced LLMs, they can now understand even the most complex statements and requests. But the truth is, these cannot really do a lot of the things you ask it to.
Let’s say you need to book a one-way flight to Chattogram tomorrow morning. You can ask Siri, Google Assistant, or even the most capable ChatGPT AI with add-ons or plugins. All of them will understand what you are asking them to do. But none of them will be able to do it.
Sure, they will give you the list of flights, departure times, ticket fares and platforms where you can buy the ticket. But they won’t be able to book the ticket on your behalf. You’d have to go to that link to enter your details, pay for the ticket, and make the reservation. Similarly, if you ask your assistants to order food to your home, they will prompt it to the apps and websites that offer delivery. But they won’t be able to order it for you.
These limitations were noticed by an American company, Rabbit Inc., which led them to build a pocket AI companion, Rabbit r1, that can do a lot of tasks your phone assistants wouldn’t be able to do.
This pocket AI is basically a phone with advanced AI capabilities that allow it to take actions that were previously not possible with phone assistants, like booking a ticket, ordering a cab ride, requesting Uber, etc. You can ask it questions, converse with it over voice as if you are talking to a real-world AI, and get simple yet useful things done with this small palm-sized device. It has a lot of the computational capabilities of a phone but none of its distractions, which is why the internet is already getting crazy over it.
Another device that people are falling head over heels for is the new foldable from Samsung.
In this year’s CES, Samsung unveiled their Flex in and out folding phone technology that allows flip phones like Z Flip5 to fold over both inwards and outwards. This allows users access to the phone’s main display, arguably the better one, even in its folding position. It’s like having one screen with two functions.
Speaking of 1 for 2, CES has seen many hybrid computing devices this year. A lot of them promised a future where we are not limited to a particular device for a particular device. The best of which is the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 5 Hybrid laptop.
From the top, it looks like any other 2-in-1 laptop whose screen, when detached, works like a tablet. But as you undock the screen from this one, its USP becomes apparent.
It is no ordinary tablet-laptop. It is a Windows laptop that can turn into a fully functioning Android tablet – two operating systems in one. Separated, the screen works like a standalone Android tablet with full access to Android-specific features with support for even some Windows apps and files that were stored on the computer.
When docked, the 2-in-1 becomes a complete Windows computer with all its features. But there is also a dedicated OS-switching button that allows you to use it as an Android tablet while the screen is docked. That button shifts between the two OS seamlessly, giving access to two of the most popular operating systems in the world in one single body.
But this Android-Windows machine is not the only thing that combines two things into one.
Remember the flying car that we dreamed of when we grew up? Technically, they will be called electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft or eVTOL, and this year’s CES promises to make it a reality very soon.
Hold onto your skepticism. No, it’s not from a random company with an ambition. This time, world-renowned motor vehicle manufacturer Hyundai is on it, and they already have a concept car ready to be commercially produced.
Their new eVTOL is called Supernal S-A2, and it’s a fine amalgam of an electric car and a helicopter, which some of them are adorably calling the, an air taxi.
Supernal S-A2 is a completely electric vehicle with a max speed of 120 miles per hour in the sky. It can soar up to 1500 feet and traverse 25-40 miles at a stretch with passengers. Being an electric-only vehicle, it is also as silent as an EV on the road.
Hyundai is planning a take-off for this second-gen eVTOL as early as 2028. So, if everything goes as planned, we might be witnessing the futuristic flying cars above our heads sooner than we imagined.
Another futuristic tech that made it into the CES this year is the transparent display.
Both Samsung and LG made exceptional strides in transparent TVs with microLED and Signature OLED technology, respectively. Their new translucent-looking screen blends the imagery on the display with the physical background seamlessly.
As elegant as this transparent screen would look on a TV, people are more excited about what this might mean for other displays that we use on a daily basis, namely our phones.
Imagine this transparent display of the TVs with the holographic capabilities of Looking Glass Go or Holobox, and you’d get a futuristic phone that we’ve only seen the movies.
And these are just a fraction of the new things that were exhibited this year at CES. Truly, CES is the place we get to experience future tech in our present.
Author: Rifat Ahmed
