See the highlights of CES 2024, technology mega-event – 01/12/2024 – Market

Whether dreaming of an artificial friend available 24 hours a day, flying over congested traffic or getting rid of the dead birds your cat left as a “gift”, the inventors participating in the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) technology fair have no shortage of imagination.

Here are the highlights from the world’s largest consumer electronics show, which is taking place in Las Vegas (United States) until Friday:

“Unprejudiced support”

“I am designed to be a supportive and unprejudiced presence in your life,” said Wehead, a kind of computerized creature made up of a set of screens mounted on a robotic head, which projects a human face and uses AI (artificial intelligence). .

The American startup of the same name has developed this strange object that can be placed on the table like a paperweight or a small sculpture and can have a human-like conversation.

“Sometimes you just need someone to talk to and create your own solutions,” said Wehead founder Ilya Sedoshkin. “You can do that with ChatGPT, but you won’t get that natural feeling that someone is listening to you.”

Wehead works with ChatGPT, has real-time internet access and more memory than the famous OpenAI chatbot, which generates text, sound or images from a simple query in everyday language.

“If you talk today about what you’re going to do at CES… in a week, he’ll ask, ‘How was CES?'” Sedoshkin said.

Enthusiasts can adopt a talking head via subscription for $200 per month.

“Did it feel real? No,” said Alan Pierce, a retired professor who attended CES and described the device as an ingeniously designed “talking head.”

Air taxi

A cross between a helicopter and an airplane, the electric-powered S-A2 vehicle is destined to become the preferred mode of transportation in congested cities.

Its real name is eVTOL – Electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle. It takes a pilot and up to four passengers on board.

“It’s urban air mobility”, explained Jaiwon Shin, responsible for Supernal, a subsidiary of the South Korean group Hyundai. “The biggest market is the United States: cities like Las Vegas or Los Angeles.”

A one-hour car journey due to traffic can be replaced by a flight of just 10 minutes, departing from so-called “vertipors” or vertical ports spread across the city.

The aim is for a flight in one of these aerotaxis to be cheaper than a helicopter flight.

After landing, a robot scans to check the integrity of the aircraft, whose propellers are attached to a single long wing and rotate for takeoff and landing.

Jaiwon hopes to launch it in 2028, but regulatory hurdles are considerable.

“It’s never been done before in aviation… It’s really a revolution and its battery is a technological challenge,” he said.

No “gifts”

Installing a gate so that dogs and cats can freely enter and leave the house also leaves the house open to wildlife.

For Martin Diamond, a resident of the desert state of Arizona, unwanted visitors could be coyotes, poisonous snakes or raccoons.

Unwilling to find one of them in his living room, Diamond invented the Pawport, a hermetically sealed door that opens with a sign that the pet carries.

The Pawport can be installed into an existing hatch, is available in various sizes and finishes, and can be powered by a rechargeable battery, a solar panel or connected to the mains. Available from May, it will cost a minimum of US$459.

Swiss twins Oliver and Denis Widler focused on other unpleasant surprises: the “gifts” – birds and rodents in general – that some cats proudly bring to their owners.

With its Flappie Access Door, which will cost around $350, AI cameras monitor and block access if the feline’s mouth is not empty.

Artificial intelligence also detects snakes and fish, according to the company, with an effectiveness of over 90%.

The floodgate only opens for those who have a microchip. The device can be connected to an app so owners can track their pets’ comings and goings in images.

PC manufacturers bet on AI to revive sales

PC and microchip companies trying to get consumers to replace laptops purchased during the pandemic offered a new feature to the crowds this week at CES.

PC and chipmakers, including AMD and Intel, are betting that so-called “neural processing units” (NPUs), now found in the latest chip designs, will encourage consumers to buy new high-end notebooks. Adding additional AI capabilities could help take market share away from Apple.

“The conversations I’m having with customers are about ‘how do I prepare my PC for what I think is coming in terms of AI and what I’m going to be able to deliver,'” said Sam Burd, president of Dell’s PC division.

Chipmakers created NPUs because they can achieve a high level of performance for AI functions with relatively modest power needs. Currently, there are few applications that can take full advantage of the new features, but more are coming, said David McAfee, corporate vice president at AMD.

Among the few applications that can take advantage of these chips is Adobe’s imaging software suite.

Dell showed off a notebook with an AI key, the first button Microsoft has added to a Windows keyboard. The “Copilot” key activates Microsoft’s generative AI software that can help with applications and answer questions. Currently, the new button summons a cloud computing-based Copilot, which takes considerable time to perform tasks.

“If I put these engines on the PC, I can be faster, with lower latency, and I can do more with these engines,” Burd said.

To transfer Copilot to the PC, machines will be needed that are considerably more powerful than those that currently exist, even with advanced AI chips. At the moment, the new processors are included in the most expensive laptops offered by PC manufacturers that work with Intel and AMD chips.

“In the near term, we will be more focused on premium PCs,” McAfee said, adding that PCs with advanced AI chips will likely cost between $800 and $1,200.

(With Reuters)