From Your Scalp to Your Floating Toes

CES, a Show of Themes

Other than yesterday's Skytrack mystery, I felt this year's CES didn't have any individual great revelation. Rather, it was "time to railroad" in the Fortean sense. Yes, I saw the BMW with the color-shifting panels. A fugitive's dream! Yes, I saw a number of the exhibits called out by the press and missed some of the others. Yes, I spent some time at Eureka Park at the Venetian hotel complex where all the newbies with brilliant to obscure notions populated their three-sided cubicles.

Theme the First: Medical Stuff

I saw NuHeara, as I do every year. The first time I saw them at CES in 2017, I decided that their earbuds were revolutionary. Now, with the new, more permissive laws, hearing assistance has gone mainstream and devices were everywhere. So was eyewear, with products and services to translate scenes and spoken words for the vision-impaired. in fact, you name an impairment, there was a company representing, repairing, or sympathizing with it. How about fingernails? Yes, there was a company that scans your fingernails and informs you of their health in four categories*. What about body parts and potions therefore between scalp and toe? ALL there, capitalizing ALL to avoid being indelicate. About a third of the enormous North Hall was given to these exemplars of entrepreneurialism, Here are a few. And hear are a couple more.

<= Scalp   Floating Toes! =>

	<= Put your nails on the template and the computer will analyze them for health and blood flow and cleanliness! Click it to check out those of a certain blogger. Grip strength training and analysis. More useful, I believe, than it might seem =>
Grip Strength I read long ago that grip strength is one of the most useful indicators of general health. I don't know if that's entirely accurate, but it seems that it should be indicative, absent special circumstances, of one's general strength and maybe diagnostic for special issues, such as arthritis. But mostly, even if it isn't that great, it would tell your doctor (and you) at least something, and you could see any trends year over year. This applies especially if one tends to age. Most importantly, it's totally non-invasive, gives a comprehensible answer, and takes well under a minute to administer. And yet...I've never seen a doctor who used it! Soundbody GRIP should start a campaign.
	<= Now, automate your nose job. Program gives your surgeon guidance. Next: It will hold the knife!   This means exactly what you think it means =>
	<= One of the "work" reasons I go to CES is to commune with the speech technology folks. But, given this blog's obsession with bananae, how could I resist?   I was able to convince this device with my voice that I was an emergency vehicle siren. Maybe I have a future in Foley? =>

Theme NOT the Second: Crypto

Just last year the CES was crawling with crypto. Mining, wallets, DeFi, etc. This year? Almost nothing. I saw one lonely company pushing a liquid-cooled mining computer. More representatives at the booth than candidate customers. And a tiny cluster of three more exhibits whose product I failed to note. Something must have happened in the interim. Anyone remember? I think it had initials.

Theme the Second: Autonomy or Some Fraction Thereof

Unlike the medical products above, the autonomy crowd, which filled the North Hall, didn't have a lot of seemingly goofy stuff. It's all LIDAR and software and unfilled promises. And one strap-on quadcopter, which looked like good fun and only cost $150k. Like everything in the medical world, it, too, is waiting for approval, this time from the FAA.

The Future Of...

"Tomorrow" I'll carry on with some "future" CES exhibits.

* Of course I tried it.

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