GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL Ready For The Class Of 2015?
CES
2015 showcased a device that alters your mood and cars that park on their own
I ’M GOING to start with an
all-round acknowledgement of the very strong reaction to my previous column.
While most of you loved the new categories I came up with, a lot of readers
pointed out that I seemed to be ignoring the four pillars of technology: smartphones,
tablets, notebooks and televisions. I’m glad you noticed! CES 2015 was a
wake-up call in pointing out that the cycle of technology was finally moving
past the usual suspects and that real innovation lay beyond the obvious. While
I have awarded a notebook and tablet this time, 2015 may well pave a path in
new categories that will jump out of the box and outwit the typical.
Reinventing With A Vengeance
It’s the first time in 10 years that I’ve had
an aching need to buy a desktop PC, but the HP Sprout will do that to anyone. A
beautiful screen, an Illuminator column that consists of a high-definition top
projector, a scanner, plus cameras. This projects from the top onto your work
surface, which is a huge touch-screen mat, and opens up a world of infinite
possibilities. You can manipulate objects and scan, animate and model objects
for 3D printing. The Sprout may well sprout a new era of desktop computing.
Take Care Of Yourself And Come Back Soon
Reached a crowded mall and there’s no place
to park? Just ask your car to find a parking on its own and to come and pick
you up as soon as you’re finished. All on its own. All you need is Samsung Gear
Watch to issue the commands to a BMW car to make that happen. The car is
equipped with four laser scanners on each side, which can detect objects and
map surroundings. The future isn’t far when a parking lot will have all these
driverless cars scurrying around looking for their owners.
The Best Of The Dead
It’s ironic that the best tablet of CES 2015
came from a company that hasn’t had success in an almost dead category of
gadgets. But the Dell Venue 8 7000 (worst name ever) is formidable and very
clever. Thinner than even the iPad Air, almost no bezel, stunning 8.4-inch OLED
screen, eye popping 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and a killer three-lens camera
set- up that uses Intel RealSense to do magical things to pictures after you’ve
taken them. If ever a tablet could revive this dead category, it’s this one.
When you want a gaming rig PC, then
it should look the part. And the CyberPower Fang Trinity does just that. As its
multi-spoke design looks menacingly at you, you may forget that there’s an
intelligent reason for it to look this way. It separates the chassis into three
zones (CPU, graphics and power supply), so that each runs at its most efficient
and can be customised and upgraded separately, the way gamers would like it.
The CyberPower Fang Trinity is so badass that it should have its own character
in a game.
Worst Of CES
Many came to mind but two stood out.
The Furo-S is a five foot tall female robot that will work as your maid, but
unfortunately the programmers seem to have given her more of sex slave
personality. She winks inappropriately at all suggestions, has strange expressions
and moans too! And female exploitation at some booths was excessive. From
outfits that were more appropriate for strip clubs – the booth babe syndrome
lived up to the cliché that the only way to sell tech is with under-dressed
girls!
The Living Cliché
Light as a feather may well be an old way of
describing things, but when it becomes real, it’s a tad unnerving. As I held
the Lenovo LaVie HZ550 in my hand, I actually had to ask the people at the
booth if it was just an empty shell. This is a 13 incher that weighs just 700
grams (that’s about half of the 13-inch Macbook Air) yet has serious power
under its very light hood. Great screen, great processor, good battery life.
And that lightness!
Oh Come On, That Can’t Be
A wearable device that can actually
alter your mood. Before you get into a sceptical mood and move on to the next
award, give this one a chance. This is the Thync mood enhancer, a system that
delivers feel-good electrical stimulation directly to your brain. It has been
created by neuroscientists, and as I strapped on the little unit to my temple
and neck, I was very sceptical too. Ten minutes later, I came out feeling
really, really good. Thync about that!
Solving The World’s Greatest Problem
Maybe quadrupling the battery life of your
phone isn’t possible yet. How about charging your phone to full in exactly two
minutes, instead? I saw a fully depleted battery go to 100 per cent in about
120 seconds. This two-minute sorcery was made possible by a company called
StoreDot, whose ultra-fast battery charger is in prototype form but may be out
sometime this year.
At Least It’s Working
The conundrum of whether you should buy a 4K
TV or not rests on whether you can play 4K content on it. Panasonic came one
step closer to this with its 4K Blu-ray player. This one plays real raw 4K
content, not some upscaled crappy stuff. The problem is that it’s still a
prototype and may take some time to become reality. At least this was a working
model, most others companies couldn’t even do that with their so called 4K
media players.
Tech You Can Eat
3D food printers became deliciously real this
year. From the CocoJet that printed complex, layered chocolate treats, to the
ChefJet Pro 3D that churned out intricate confectionery to the XYZprinting
machine that printed out pizzas and pasta. My prediction: in five years, 20 per
cent of us will own a 3D printer in our home and almost all of us will have one
in our kitchen.
RAJIV MAKHNI HTBR 150125
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