A small company was making waves at CES by demonstrating the world’s first eye-controlled arcade game — an adapted version of the classic Atari game “Asteroids.”
Tobii, a Swedish company previously focused on helping people with physical limitations, is eyeing far greater things for its technology.
At their booth the company had laptops outfitted with their eye-tracking technology. Attendees were flipping through photo albums, navigating Microsoft Windows and playing games. The systems were incredibly intuitive to navigate and very responsive, if not a little bulky.
Tobii plans to fix that, however, and in an estimated three to four years, it plans to shrink the sensor so that it doesn’t alter the form factors of the devices it’s used in, while not drastically impacting the price.
The technology works by shining a near infrared light onto the eye and detecting the reflections off the pupil.
Near infrared light was chosen as the operating wavelength because it offers a robust response that works reliably in any light, giving the user the freedom to use the controls no matter where they are.
The company is targeting a very broad market with plans to develop it as a touch-less assist for surgeons and license its OEM technology to various companies, including a car manufacturer interested in detecting driver drowsiness.
XPAND’s new $119 YOUniversal 3D glasses work with both RF and IR protocols.
The active shutter glasses feature LCD lenses and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
YOUniversal eyewear is programmable to personalize the 3D viewing experience. They come in three sizes and a variety of colors. Frame weight ranges from 1.62 to 1.66 ounces.
The company is a founding member of the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative, which is working to make active shutter glasses interoperable.
It supports protocols by LG, Sony, Panasonic, HP, JVC, NVIDIA, Vizio, Bang & Olufsen, Sony, and others.
The glasses produced a great 3D image during our demo at CES.
North Carolina-based AikenLabs was demonstrating its motion capture accessory system in the CES Gaming Pavilion.
Sensors containing accelerometers and gyros are attached using velcro straps and wirelessly transmit to a server base station.
The base station receives signals from eight sensors, and each sensor can have two satellite sensors attached to it, making it possible to capture motion from 24 points on the body.
Unlike with the Kinect, motion capture is not restricted by position, line-of-sight to base station or lighting. Other technology would be needed to capture finger motions and facial gestures.
The Immersive Motion Desktop Professional Starter Kit with the server and two sensors is available for pre-order at $499. Additional sensors cost $129.
Applications include monitoring and providing feedback on body motion for physical therapy, sports instruction and robot controls.
“Congressional leaders on Friday indefinitely shelved two antipiracy bills that had rallied the Internet and rocked Capitol Hill, dealing a major defeat to the traditional media industry while emboldening a new breed of online political activists,” reports The New York Times.
The Wednesday online blackout had a profound effect on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
However, Senator Harry Reid tweeted that he is optimistic the delay will enable issues to be resolved and a compromise should come within a week. He added that the longer it takes to pass anti-piracy legislation, the more jobs will be lost and economies hurt “by foreign criminals who are stealing American intellectual property and selling it back to American consumers.”
In the House, Republican representatives have almost completely backed away from SOPA. It will be redrafted but “the Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation,” says Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
In a related article, Los Angeles Times looked into what censored Chinese bloggers were saying about the U.S. Web companies’ uproar regarding censorship. Some more or less laughed while others used the opportunity to promote their own case, suggesting “Americans should try a minute in our shoes before invoking online Armageddon.” China’s Internet companies have “no choice but to submit to government pressure.”
In this 90-second CES video demo, LG showcases its new voice recognition capabilities.
LG’s new Magic Remote, which will come packaged with the company’s new line of Smart TVs, will include the Dragon TV platform from Nuance Communications for voice recognition.
The demo illustrates how a TV viewer can access a Web browser through the app bar, while watching a television program, and search for Pizza Hut via voice command.
Additionally, viewers can use the voice recognition tech for Content Search to access videos from YouTube, Hulu and others.
“We also have our Social Center this year for voice recognition. While you’re sitting on your couch, you can update your Facebook account and/or tweet your friends while you’re watching your football game.”
At CES, Intel promised that “2012 will be the year of the Ultrabook,” reports Mashable.
“Future Ultrabooks will have touchscreens and voice recognition, Intel vice president of PC Client Group Mooley Eden demonstrated at CES. Intel showed off several concept Ultrabooks doing things like swiping through a Windows 8 Metro interface via the screen.”
“Intel didn’t demo voice recognition, but Nuance’s chief marketing officer, Peter Mahoney, made an appearance to announce a partnership with Intel to put his company’s voice-recognition tech into Ultrabooks,” explains the post.
The company also teased gesture control and suggested that real-time language translation is “in the works.”
Intel’s concept laptop shows rear touch enabled display for alerts and calendar browsing (see 2-minute video demo).
CNET offers its take on the highlights of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In addition to the anticipated array of ultrabooks and connected CE devices, the show introduced a pair of 55-inch OLED TVs from LG and Samsung: “Don’t expect either of these TVs to be cheap when they hit the market. But make no mistake, OLED is in your future.”
There was real diversity in the crowded tablet market, with standouts including the Asus Memo 370T and the Toshiba Excite X10.
“Google TV got more interesting with a few new devices and the announcement that the OnLive gaming service will work with it,” reports CNET. “But overall there wasn’t as much innovation in the home video space as enthusiasts may have liked to have seen.”
There were 3D printers such as the Makerbot Replicator and 3D Systems’ Cube; a surprisingly small number of new laptops; compelling ultrabooks led by the Dell XPS 13 and HP Envy 14 Spectre; three exceptional point-and-shoot cameras with the Fujifilm X-Pro1, the Nikon D4, and the Canon PowerShot G1 X; and a surprise showing by Gorilla Glass 2, now stronger and allows screens to be 20 percent thinner.
Software and apps took on a new presence this year: “BlueStacks for Windows 8, our Best of CES Award winner in the Software and Apps category, brings you the entire Android app catalog in Windows 8. Several new apps are helping those who want to drop cable TV do so with ease. Aurasma is a cool app that brings augmented reality to both Android and iOS devices.”
“Some of the most notable things about this year’s show were the products we didn’t see,” explains the wrap-up. “Phones bearing Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of the Android operating system, were expected to dominate CES this year but were largely missing in action. Instead, 4G LTE, Windows Phone, and AT&T were the real stars of the mobile show. Highlights included the Nokia Lumia 900, the HTC Titan II, the Motorola Droid 4, the Droid Razr Maxx, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.”
The trends that emerged from CES this year included tablets and slim laptops, smart TVs, fitness gadgets, power efficiency — but we also saw less focus on the products themselves (and their specs) and more about how the devices connect with consumers and each other. The show was really about the social experience possible with using the products.
“It’s not so much a trend as a reality: consumer electronics must go social to stay relevant,” Mashable reports, noting how social-oriented CES has been. “The companies that will be most successful capitalizing on them are the ones who merge all of them into an overall experience: one that’s social, open and empowering.”
The article explains how this year’s convention focused not on technological advances, but on how the new devices will keep you connected. Intel and others supported the idea that customers don’t want to merely consume but also create, connect and interact.
Mashable suggests this is a “paradigm shift for consumer electronics” and developers will have to go beyond integrating Wi-Fi capabilities and social networks to create an overall social experience with technology.
Start-up BlueStacks is bringing around 400,000 Android apps to the Windows 8 Metro-style start screen.
The Android-on-Windows app previewed at CES will be available as soon as Windows 8 ships and the company is reportedly working deals to have its App Player software preloaded on some new PCs.
“Opinion within Microsoft is divided on BlueStacks, said CEO Rosen Sharma. Some are happy to see lots of apps that run in Metro, even if they are Android apps. Others, though, would prefer developers write apps directly to Windows,” reports AllThingsD.
“As for computer makers, Sharma said that many are happy to have an option that allows them to offer up Android and Windows together.”
CNET announced the winners of this year’s “CNET Best of CES Awards” as voted on by the editors and users of cnet.com.
Best of Show for 2012 was awarded to LG’s 55EM9600 OLED TV: “The first 55-inch OLED TV announced as shipping in 2012, and the only one to get an actual model number and public ship date (Q3), the 55EM9800 promises the superb all-around performance of OLED (absolute black levels, ultra-fast panel and excellent viewing angles) in an ultra-thin panel.”
This year’s People’s Voice Award went to the Razer Project Fiona concept gaming tablet, which according to CNET: “suggests that Windows 8 is a serious player in portable gaming, and that Razer is serious about moving into manufacturing computers.”
Other notable winners include:
The Windows Phone-based Nokia Lumia 900 with 4.3-inch AMOLED screen and dual cameras (Smartphones category).
Fujifilm’s mirrorless X-Pro1 featuring a new sensor and hybrid viewfinder (Cameras category).
The $250 Asus Memo 370T quad-core, Android 4.0 tablet with 1280×800 IPS screen (Tablets category).
HP’s Envy 14 Spectre premium ultrabook, “the most glass-covered laptop we’ve ever seen” (Personal Computers category).
The Simple.TV DVR available on iPad, Roku, Boxee and Google TV (Home Theater category). “Think of it like your own personal cloud for your over-the-air TV.”
You can check out the complete list of winners and a video of the awards presentation here.
Shodogg uniquely allows you to share videos from any of your devices to any of your other devices over the Web, rather than through a home network.
Each of your devices is given a unique Shodogg registration number. You can register any number of devices, but each has a unique ID.
Any content that you are able to receive via stream or download can be viewed simultaneously on any of your other devices.
You can create a playlist composed of video from multiple sources and share with your friends (for example: Vimeo, Cable DVR, YouTube).
The requirement to register each device with a unique number can serve as an impediment to piracy. Although they don’t limit the number of devices an individual can register, if they see an unreasonable number of devices assigned to a single account they said that they would take action.
The Leonar3Do system allows you to control objects in 3D space and look around them by moving your head.
Both the 3D game play and the drafting tool in the CES booth demo were simple and intuitive.
The system includes a drawing “bird” controller, three sensors that attach to the top of the screen, polarized glasses containing chips that the sensors track, and open API software for drawing and game design.
The drawing tool is organic and easy-to-use, so training on Leonar3Do is more artistic than procedural. In other words, students learn by pushing the limits of their artistic expression rather than mastering geometries and commands.
The University of Iowa uses Leonar3Do throughout their School of Art coursework. Jared Williams, who teaches there, brought some of his students to CES to demonstrate the software in the Leonar3Do booth.
They offer an educational version ($1000), and a professional version ($1350).
Tablet computers, which bowed last year, are having a power surge in 2012. Driven largely by gaming, Acer and Asus both unveiled quad core tablets with 1280×800 HD displays, running Android 4.
At the NVIDIA booth, an Asus ME370T quad core was on display. The 7-inch tablet is powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor with Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
The Asus model features an 8-megapixel camera and up to 64GB of internal storage. It starts at $249 and will be released in the first quarter.
Acer’s 10-inch Iconica A510 was also on display at the NVIDIA booth, touting a 5-megapixel camera, up to 32GB of internal storage, Blutooth, Wi-Fi and HDMI out.
The unit is expected to be released in the first half of the year. Pricing wasn’t available.
NVIDIA also had a prototype quad tablet running Windows 8.
The effectiveness in mobile devices of quad core processors, which typically run hot and suck battery life, has been the subject of debate. Competing chip manufacturer Texas Instruments is for the time being sticking with dual core chips loaded with graphics accelerators and Intel’s new Atom chip (Medfield) has a reimagined architecture that is essentially single core.
In terms of mobile gaming, the speed of the network will also be critical factor for cloud-based or multiplayer, real-time gaming. At CES, Qualcomm was demonstrating multiplayer tablet gaming between two players connected to a TV via HDMI cable, but linked to each other on Verizon’s 4G LTE network.
The expectation is that as power evolves, developers will create new apps to specifically take advantage of multiprocessor threading.
Fujifilm took this year’s CNET Best of CES award in the Camera category with its new X-Pro 1, the company’s first mirrorless model.
“Targeted at professionals, the camera incorporates several innovations, including a promising new sensor and lovely hybrid viewfinder, all in a sleek retro design,” reports CNET.
Features include: interchangeable XF lens system, proprietary thin X-Mount that minimizes back focus, 16-megapixel X-Trans CMOS sensor, hybrid viewfinder that swaps between optical and electronic, HD video at 1080p (with video output using mini-HDMI).
Also announced: three new lenses — 18mm f2, 35mm f1.4, and 60mm f2.4 macro (with nine more lenses coming soon).
The X-Pro 1 will ship in late February. The body is expected to run around $1,700 and lenses about $650 each.
A small company was making waves at CES by demonstrating the world’s first eye-controlled arcade game — an adapted version of the classic Atari game “Asteroids.”
