What have you been doing these past 10 months? Organizing your sock drawer? Learning to bake bread? Catching up on back episodes of "Game of Thrones?" While you were achieving a personal best on jigsaw puzzles with 1000 pieces, some others were inventing the latest and greatest gadgets and toys. And as happens every year around this time, they gathered together (virtually of course) to show off their wares.
As always, the stuff premiering at the Consumer Electronics Show fall into several camps. There are those things that are updates to existing products, the latest iterations of a TV or phone or accessory. There are those that are groundbreaking, things that once you see them you think would be a great addition to your life. And there are those that, well, make you wonder who thought that would be a good idea. But since it can be a case of one man's ceiling being another man's floor, you decide what falls into which category.
Assuming masks will be here for a while, Razer showed off its concept product code-named Project Hazel. This "smart face mask" has active ventilation, a transparent panel in the center to show off your mouth, a microphone and amplifier to help people hear you better, and autosterilization. For low light situations it also has built in LED's to make your mouth visible. And of course it comes with its own recharging case so you don't have to run an extension cord to the peg by the backdoor.
You've probably become best friends with your remote these past months, and have likely run through a bunch of triple A batteries. If that's your story then perhaps the newest accessory from Samsung is up your alley. While it's latest TV's have even more K's (as in 4K and 8K, translating to even higher definition) they also come with solar powered remotes. Regular room light will also charge them, and there's a USB port so that even if you have a run of cloudy days in your family room your clicker will still be operational.
If you've been getting a lot of deliveries (and who hasn't) and keep going out to wipe down the doorbell button, the new touchless model from Alarm.com might be of interest. While it sports a wireless audio and video interface that allows you to see, hear and interact with someone on your stoop, this new model goes one step further. It includes a mat that says "Stand on mat to ring doorbell." Now your next delivery person doesn't even have to lift a finger to let you know they are dropping off your new shoes. Literally.
One of the things about CES is how companies figure out how to make non-tech items tech. Take Yves Saint Laurent's Rouge Sur Mesure. It's a canister that holds three different liquid lipstick cartridges. With the help of an included brush and the accompanying Perso app for your phone, you take pictures of your outfit and then customize a color to match. Perso then communicates with the canister and dispenses exacting amounts of each shade, which you then blend together with the included brush. So the red that goes on your lips is unlike any other in the room. Same idea with Ninu, except it blends together 3 scents for a custom fragrance. So now you can create something irresistible for your date, say a sultry something with hints of sea breeze and donuts.
If you've gotten into playing games as a diversion, then the new Infinity game table might interest you. It's a glass slab on legs that has a digital library you can access to call up boards and pieces for everything from Monopoly to Trivial Pursuit to Candy Land. It also has digital coloring books, and custom jigsaw puzzles based on your own photos. And because it is networked you can play or do puzzles with others on a matching table elsewhere.
Robot butlers. Touchless toilets. Human sized drones. A phone that expands into a tablet, and a pet door with timers and a camera. Not to mention a Bluetooth speaker for the shower that is hydro powered and generates 100% of its juice from your scrubbing. It all helps to answer the question "What will they think of next?" Well, the answer is simple: they already have.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is always curious what else is coming. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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