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Five Easy Pieces: Short Product Presentations from CES 2014 (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the new-and-hungry-companies-are-often-more-interesting-than-big-bloated-ones dept.

At CES and other big trade shows, small companies and start-ups are often overshadowed by industry giants whose huge promotional budgets let them dominate a show's exhibit area. In this video, Tim Lord asked the spokespeople for five small companies exhibiting at CES whose products interested him to give one-minute presentations about their products. So take a quick look at the ZeroHour USB "tactical grade" battery backup flashlight; MadeSolid, a 3-D printing material company; TangoPC, "the world’s most powerful Pocketable, Officeable, Entertainmentable, Gameable, Windowsable, Linuxable PC; Google Glass competitor GlassUp; and DoorBot, "the doorbell for smartphones," which was featured on the ABC TV show Shark Tank in November, 2013. DoorBot got no investment from the "sharks," but managed to raise $1 million from "traditional technology investors." DoorBot's fundraising success aside, today's video is about companies that are unlikely to get much coverage from "mainstream" news channels that cover CES. If you don't see the video (probably because you're enjoying the thrill of Slashdot Beta), you can view it here.

19 comments

  1. What the fuck does "tactical grade" mean anyway by bazmail · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You see this a lot when selling outdoor gadgets to geek chair-moisteners who have no intention of ever using it in an outdoor setting. It has a sort of reassuring military sound to it, but it actually means nothing.

    1. Re:What the fuck does "tactical grade" mean anyway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's made of chinese pot metal instead of chinese plastic.

    2. Re:What the fuck does "tactical grade" mean anyway by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      Painted matte black with no shiny surfaces to give away your position when using it, I assume. Not sure how useful that would be in a flashlight, though.

      Another option might be tactical vs. strategic. As in, it's good for one operation, very good for that one operation, but don't count on keeping it with you for an entire campaign. A flashlight that burns extra bright or extra long or both, but only has a single use might be considered tactical.

      Or it could have several components made of cast 6061 Aluminum. Although that is often referred to as "Aircraft grade" depending on who you want to impress, even though that term could easily refer to the tray table supports rather than wing spars.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    3. Re:What the fuck does "tactical grade" mean anyway by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      It means somebody found a marketing gimmick that not only lets the buyer pretend it's a serious investment in their future survival, but allows the seller to engage in a five-blades-style over-engineering race with their competitors that drives up the profit margin. Make it "everyday carry" and people will both buy it and carry it everywhere without actually knowing when or if they'll ever need it, because by definition those are "just in case" items.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  2. Link? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where exactly is the video?

  3. Tango? by atari2600a · · Score: 1

    Unless they also found a way to modularize the APU, then genericized it ALL with open standards, it won't sell. Think about it: what good is the portable form-factor if it REQUIRES a dedicated dock? A dock here, a dock there, look at that you've ALREADY spent more than the laptop you were gonna get. They didn't even bother to have a laptop enclosure at launch of the kickstarter, because they used that time to pick library music for their ad. It's easier than it sounds when LCD's now have genericized interfaces & an arduino could take up all prototype sensors such as laptop close sensor, battery voltage control, etc.

  4. blown to pieces no shots fired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wizards & warloks; http://www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561

  5. just came here to see if 'beta' was still being im by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    I recently changed my homepage from slashdot to something else. I'll check back in a month or so to see if sanity prevails (not counting on it).

  6. Some thoughts on Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    IT FUCKING SUCKS

  7. Reference: 'Six Easy Pieces,' Feynman for the dumb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you weren't clever enough to follow The Feynman Lectures on Physics, then don't worry. An abbreviated edition, made of the six easiest to understand chapters, is available. The other 109 chapters are probably made up of needlessly complicated maths and physics babble.

    Likewise if you're too lazy to investigate what was announced/shown/released at CES, don't worry. Here's a video clip listing five things in five minutes -- surely that's everything you could ever want to know!?

  8. Doorbot by swb · · Score: 2

    The doorbot looks pretty cool. I hate getting up to see if the person ringing the door is someone I want to answer the door for (like my son's friends when he's not home, morons ignoring my no soliciting sign, etc).

    One thing I couldn't tell was whether it was possible to query the doorbot's camera arbitrarily without having someone necessarily ring the doorbell. I suppose not for power management reasons, although the power management angle makes me wonder how long it takes between someone pressing the door bot button and getting a notification. I'm guessing the device has to warm boot, including making an 802.11 connection, which seems like it could add a delay.

    1. Re:Doorbot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't like the sound of this:

      What happens if my personal Wi-Fi network goes down?

      If your Wi-Fi network goes down, doorbot will not be able to send notifications to your connected devices. If your network temporarily goes down, you will need to go through the Wi-Fi setup again in order to get your doorbot online.

      Seriously?

      Captcha: approval

    2. Re:Doorbot by microcars · · Score: 1

      The upside is that it is "fully integrated" with LOCKITRON.

      So that means I still have to go to the door to unlock it manually.

      [/sarcasm]

      --
      I like microcars
    3. Re:Doorbot by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Based on their statement that if your WiFi goes down, you'll have to set up the doorbot's WiFi connection again, I don't think it is going into suspend and waking up and remaking the connection every time someone presses the button. Also it is 802.11b, so say goodbye to reasonable speeds on the rest of your wireless network.

    4. Re:Doorbot by swb · · Score: 1

      I don't know how they can get months of standby time on a charge without "sleeping" the 802.11 connection and reconnecting. Maintaining a continuous wifi connection would kill the batteries in hours, not months like they claim.

  9. http://www.ultimatecnologia.com.br by LuizLeonardo · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Excelente post..

  10. Video + Beta = Mindblown by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

    So...the SlashDot community asks for "no more lame videos, ever" and the editors give us FIVE videos? What's next...keeping beta?

  11. The thrill of beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahahahaha what a piece of shit

  12. +5 sarcasm by Ex-MislTech · · Score: 1

    (probably because you're enjoying the thrill of Slashdot Beta) +5 sarcasm.

    --
    google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"