CES 2018: 10 Futuristic Prototypes
Innovation is alive and well at CES.
By Tom Brant
CES is so large that it necessarily branches out into devices that aren’t really intended for consumers, and sometimes even things that have little to do with electronics or technology at all. That’s the case for much of the emerging technology, prototypes, and off-the-wall ideas we saw this year in Las Vegas. From cars that connect directly to your brain to 49-qubit supercomputers, this stuff is truly at the bleeding edge of human innovation.
One thing is clear: innovation is alive and well at CES. You might be tempted to scoff at some of these ideas as useless gimmicks, but it’s still worth reading the roundup below to familiarize yourself with the upper bounds of ingenuity. Who knows? One of these products could soon show up at your local Best Buy, car dealership, or the sky above your house.
8K Displays
Sony, LG, and Samsung all showed off 8K TV prototypes, even though 4K content is only just becoming mainstream. Sony’s X1 Ultimate concept has an extraordinary maximum brightness of 10,000nits, which is the highest supported brightness for HDR content.
Razer Project Linda
Project Linda, from peripheral and PC maker Razer, is a laptop-like shell into which you insert the Razer Phone . Once inserted, you press a button in the top-right corner of the keyboard. This extends a USB-C connection directly into the phone’s port, and comes with a very satisfying drill-like sound effect. The phone then displays to the shell’s screen. There’s only an internal battery within the shell, so it runs entirely off the phone’s hardware and the phone’s screen becomes a touchpad. Functionality and compatibility is still being worked on, but we played Vainglory running entirely off the phone with a mouse and the shell’s keyboard during a demo. It looks good and ran smoothly, so the idea works.
Nissan Brain-to-Vehicle Tech
Nissan is working on “brain-to-vehicle” technology that will “enable vehicles to interpret signals from the driver’s brain.” That might sound a bit creepy, but Nissan says its so-called B2V technology offers benefits for both manual and autonomous driving. Drivers wear a device on their heads that measures brain activity, which is then analyzed by autonomous systems. When you’re behind the wheel operating a vehicle manually, B2V might be able to sense that you’re about the turn the steering wheel or push the accelerator. It would then initiate the action before you start, improving your reaction time.
Toyota E-Palette
Toyota doesn’t just want to build personal cars. It wants to bus you around, deliver your packages, and even sell you goods in your neighborhood. Much of that could be accomplished with something like the company’s e-Palette, a concept vehicle that intends to tap into the ongoing ride-sharing and e-commerce boom. It’s basically a self-driving van that converts into a shuttle bus, a delivery car, or even a store on wheels; vendors can customize it based on their needs. Toyota plans to debut the actual car system at the 2020 Olympics and bring e-Palette to cities in the early 2020s.
Lyft Self-Driving Rides
Self-driving cars aren’t new to CES, but the technology took a major leap forward this year thanks to Lyft, which allowed anyone at the show to take a ride in a self-driving BMW 5 Series. The trips came with some small caveats. There was a human safety driver sitting behind the wheel ready to take over if the car got into trouble, which does remove some of the drama of the ride. During our demo, the car traveled at speeds up to 30mph, announced a lane change and executed it without incident, and even successfully avoided three people who tried to jaywalk across a four-lane road in front of us.
Honda Robots
Honda unveiled a robot at CES that will overwhelm you with cuteness. Dubbed the 3E-A18, the bot comes with a face to interact with people, particularly children. It can show a range of playful expressions, including anger and excitement. When sad, the face bubbles up with blue water, and it can smile, cry, or doze off. You can even hug it. The robot is one of three models Honda brought to the show; others are the 3E-C18, which has two blinking digital eyes and is basically a mobile cart that can roam around on three wheels, and the 3E-D18, a mini off-road vehicle that carries a large power bank to charge devices at the scene of a fire or natural disaster
Volocopter
At its dazzling CES keynote, Intel brought a drone with an enclosed cabin capable of carrying humans. The Volocopter has more than a dozen rotors and can be flown remotely like other drones. Intel envisions it acting as a sort of rideshare vehicle in urban areas. The company provided flight control technology and venture capital funding to e-Volo, a German startup that designed the Volocopter, and an e-Volo representative joined Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on stage during the keynote to briefly fly a prototype of the drone across the stage. The drone was then relocated to the main entrance of CES so enthusiasts could ogle it.
Quantum Computers
Both Intel and IBM showed off their latest quantum computing chips at CES this year. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich explained that his company’s 49-qubit superconducting quantum test chip, codenamed “Tangle Lake,” will blast through tasks like drug development, financial modeling, and climate forecasting—tasks that can take months or years to finish using today’s fastest supercomputers. Intel intends to build an entire supercomputing platform around this chip, but there’s no timeline as to when it will be finished. IBM’s chip, meanwhile, has 50 qubits and is in a similarly nascent stage. For more, check out our interview with IBM Research’s Jeff Welser.
SanDisk 1TB USB-C Stick
USB-C is the way of the future, and some ultraportables like the Apple MacBook have ditched all other ports in favor of it, so it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the standard for stick drives. With a 1TB capacity, this SanDisk prototype is proof of what’s possible: a tiny stick that has a much bigger capacity than the ubiquitous 256GB external SSDs that are many times its physical size.
SteelSeries VR Doorbell
Gaming peripherals maker SteelSeries is testing a sensor that alerts virtual reality headset wearers when something or someone is approaching them or needs their attention in the physical world: Perhaps a pizza delivery has arrived, or maybe your cat tries to rub against your leg while you’re immersed in a game. The doorbell is still very much a prototype, complete with exposed silicon chips sticking out of the sensors, which transmit signals via the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol. While the motion detectors worked, they weren’t actually connected to a headset during a demo at CES.
Read more: “The Best of CES 2018”
Originally published at www.pcmag.com.
