Slashdot Mirror


The Best and Worst From CES 2013

CowboyRobot writes "InformationWeek has collected what it considers to be the five dumbest ideas presented at this year's CES. The list includes: 'The HapiFork is an electronic fork that tracks how many mouthfuls of food you consume during a given meal, how many seconds pass between bites, and how long the meal took to complete.' Also on the list is the iPotty, which is about what you would guess from the name. And for balance, the list of the seven standout technologies includes 3M's 84-inch touchscreen display and Parrot's $300 'AR Drone 2.0, a gravity-defying spectacle that puts yesteryear's remote-control helicopters to shame with its ability to dive, spin and whirl through the air.'"

12 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. According to whom? by Barryke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Some things, like the 20" tablet are ideal for some situations. Just about anywhere a wacom monitor is used on the road, for example.

    Back in the days i have seen artists lug around with bulky CRT's because they where the only thing that had both high resolution and proper pen support.

    I just hope the MS Surface Pro has touch sensitive pen, and it'll be done. If only it where 18" and had a resolution of 2560x1400! All todays modern devices are made for mice and Chinese fingers.. I'm 2 meters tall for crying out loud i don't mind carrying anything not wider than me. With a fullsize keyboard if possible.

    Its all relative. What sucks for the author, may be the ideal product for others.

    --
    Hivemind harvest in progress..
  2. oh good... by phil_aychio · · Score: 3, Funny

    my USB-enabled smart enema bag didn't make the top 5

    --
    obvious redundancy is obvious
  3. Re:Silly names... by Skiboy941 · · Score: 5, Funny

    From wikipedia: "He is typically depicted as a man with a large belly wearing a loincloth, having long hair and having pendulous, female-like breasts." So the fork is to prevent you from getting fat and getting man-titties?

  4. The Worst? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Clearly it was the Keynote

  5. Re:The 4K tablet. by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a little confused by the list to be honest. Apparently a novel food tracking device to help dieting is a terrible idea, but an 84" tablet is way cool and a huge advance for everyone.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  6. Why didn't the second list make it onto the first? by DeathToBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, a 20" tablet is one of the five dumbest ideas at CES, but a tablet measuring seven feet is one of the standouts? Hmmm.

    Another "standout" technology is MyLink, which... well, its a wireless hands-free kit for your phone. You know, like Bluetooth, only, um, well, about the same, actually... No wait! With a button on the steering wheel! That's right! A button to activate the voice-activated features on your phone!

    Stuff all that free-culture-open-hardware-3d-printing-for-the-masses crap, you can print YOUR OWN FACE ON YOUR iPHONE CASE! And DRONES! Alright, the same drones as last year, but WITH A BIGGER BATTERY!

    That's not all, there are VPNs! VPNs for smartphones! Yes! The innovation - can you feel it yet? And did we mention bigger batteries? Bloody expensive ones, too.

    If this is the best innovation in electronics has to offer, I think I'll go find a cave and some rocks to bang together.

    --
    Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
  7. Re:Why didn't the second list make it onto the fir by c · · Score: 4, Funny

    If this is the best innovation in electronics has to offer, I think I'll go find a cave and some rocks to bang together.

    Be careful with that rock banging thing. If anyone hears your rocks, there's a good chance that you'll be infringing on a mobile communications patent.

    --
    Log in or piss off.
  8. Re:Entirely missed the market - Architects by NatasRevol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, a market of 80,000 in the US is a great market.

    http://www.aia.org/press/AIAS077761

    At that that run rate, I'm sure the tablets won't cost more than about $50k a piece.
    At which point, the market goes down to 8,000 and the price goes up to $100k.

    See how this works? Or doesn't?

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  9. What I don't understand... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why are all these '4k' displays being introduced as TVs, rather than marketed as monitors(possibly in slightly smaller sizes, ~36 inches, say) that just happen to have a bunch of types of video input?

    On the TV side there is zip, zero, zilch, nada, fuck-all available at that resolution. An entire ecosystem of foot-dragging broadcasters, STBs, impractically high demands for streaming, no disk format, etc. stands in the way. As a monitor? Even relatively proasic PCs should be able to drive the thing(and a video card that costs more than a couple hundred bucks can probably even keep the frame rates up) and 'retina' is all the rage these days.

    Obviously, unless they specifically break the connectors in some way contrary to spec, these "TVs" will work as monitors; but why aren't they being sold as such?

  10. Re:Standout vs Dumb by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Funny

    Capacitive nerf gun bullets for those who won't (or can't) be bothered to get up.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  11. Re:The 4K tablet. by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 5, Funny

    But that's bigger than the iPad! Nothing can be different than what Apple does, that is the surest sign of failure. I mean, look what happend to 7" tablets. They did not succeed until Apple made one.

  12. Re:CES is to Electronics Pros as by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Christmas is to Christians and Earth Day is to Environmentalists.

    Over-commercialised, bereft of its original meaning, and just a big pain in the arse for the rest of us?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.