The best of CES 2020

[MUSIC] Okay, here we go. Welcome to the best of CES 2020 from CNET we're live here in Las Vegas. I'm Brian Cooley editor at large with Scott Stein, editor at large and now the dust is settling. Feels like it. Just enough. The show is open tomorrow. But things really start to close up today or conclude today. One more run around the whole South Hall. Around the whole ranch. Yeah. I gotta do one more tour. You see [CROSSTALK] To see how much you've missed. [LAUGH] It's impossible to feel like you've seen even a fraction Yeah, the show The only way we can really get our arms around this show is that there's 90 of us and we cut it up into 90 parts. And that's how we know what we're about to do, which is we think our best estimation of the most important products and trends and what they portend for the year in tech ahead. So this is our roundup of roundups. We've been doing these for a couple days. But now with all of our editorial leads and all of our reporters we've come up with this particular list Is your muster know from CES this year and here we go. Starting off with the Alienware concept UFO, it's one of the only of the prototypes we're going to have on this list. Almost everything else is real, and going to market right away, but we're confident that this one is going to arrive. This is portable PC gaming. Yes, but that it also docks. This is the switchification of all gadgets like about a year ago or more I thought the Nintendo Switch would spark this and this is a PC. PC, that's kind of an evolution of where Razor was years ago, with an edge gaming tablet that they made. Right? And it makes sense. You want to play games on the go, you want to dock them the technology is there. You could fold things, that's part of the evolution of computers, but also the modularity of being able to take things and bring them somewhere else and throw to the screen. Yeah. Eventually that should be wireless. But the idea right now of doing this This looks like a product that should exist. At the moment it's still a concept, but it's totally ready to go. In Inspirion we've seen things like this. It's a good size. Yeah. It's a handful also, so it is satisfying in its portable mode. I love the controller. Yeah. They come together into one, which I think is very elegant, so this is obviously, this is analogist to a switch but it's PC. Right, and then I think that there are enough games out there that would really merit doing that portably. I would say so. You're not gonna play all the crazy games. But all the indie games on Steam- Yeah. We're already there in that pipeline, so I wanna play this. Yeah, it looks really cool. Now, number two on our list now is Impossible, pork. Between hardware firmware and software in the tech industry we're now making room for wetware, impossible follow their huge 2019 debut of the impossible burger with the impossible pork which would debuted here. This is what it looks like. You can see it's a different color, it's shaped differently. But it's still in the ground plant-based meat category. And I believe they did 25,000 samples of it here. I have not tried one of them yet. They might be out by now. I think by Thursday, they're probably. I'm gonna wait for it, it's debuting soon, right? Yeah, it'll be at Hundred and 60 some odd Burger Kings in five states in a early launch or a test I should say technically but they did that with impossible burger and it pretty quickly I think even faster than expected went to a nationwide rollout this should have Relatively fewer hurdles to go the same way because the burgers at the table for the pork. Yeah, well now like I was watching your taste test of all the plant based foods. Yeah that was interesting follow on we put together to kind of go around this. It was great and there are so many and I feel like it's transforming so rapidly. Yeah That the flavor combinations and the textures It's surprising to me well I tried them once in a while but it was surprising It debuted last year and now it seems normal yeah and and in the landscape it seems a lot more normal the shrimp fried chicken and ice cream we had here yesterday show that it's not just a one note tune of ground plant based meats but it's going all different directions very cool. Let's take a look now at the winnings scan watch them you think about watches the track health you think stairs step Sleep pulse. Yeah, This adds another view, This add sleep apnea. And I think the thing to watch now in all of wearable tech is where do you get the sensing from its algorithms. What's fascinating is, Yeah, the ability, right sensing, but algorithmic interpretation, And using a lot of the same sensors that have been out there, it's pulling signal from noise better and trying to pursue FDA clearance for it. Withings is a health tech company that already has FDA clearance and ECG, and they're all about real health tech. Yeah, they're incredible. And they are pursuing FDA clearance on sleep apnea. This is the type of thing that Fitbit has been talking about for years and has been doing studies on. It's using a SPO2 sensor that, that's out there in other watches. That's the oxygen content in your blood, blood perfusion. Like POLSOX. But it now they feel is clinically ready from their trials to pull meaningful data about that, you still wanna go see a doctor and probably go for a sleep study and all that, Yeah but it's awareness of it. I have a sea pap and sleep apnea, but my awareness still of how I'm sleeping is not great. And so I like the idea of that to give a little heads up Yeah, because the CPAP fixes it but doesn't necessarily gives you insights into tracking it. It tells you your interruptions, your little- Okay. Throughout the night but it doesn't give you much more than that. But by the time you've got CPAP, you already know you've got apnea. Right. This is the precussor stage of figuring it out. This is the precursor and it could even be used if you already have it In a similar way blood pressure I'm like the test bed for all the emerging tech problems. High blood pressure so I've been dealing with this in a similar way your balance from valence cell that are using. They begin to detect Tech blood pressure for general wellness. Yeah, right on the cusp of that, yeah. They're using heart rate sensors, so algorithms, there's stuff that's out there. Yeah that's the thing, this is not directly measuring or using a microphone to listen for snoring, or for breathing interruption, it's doing an indirect measure of another signal- Yeah. And then figuring that out If it's gonna be an RPM. We're gonna see mostly [UNKNOWN] sensing watches and we're probably gonna see blood pressure sensing earbuds. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. Yeah. Because everyone wanna wear earbuds, a lot of folks are never gonna wear a blood pressure watch as cool as Amarands is Buds are already there. Let's go on to another body sort of technology L'Oreal Perso. You might think L'Oreal beauty right and this does have a beauty component, but as you see it right there, it's a little tower you have filled with some cartridges of pigment to make custom lipstick and you do that with an AR app. So far. not that amazing. But what it also can do is give you a custom mix of wellness components like Vitamin C Serums or SPF or a moisturizer and make that a custom mix suited to you as one. I don't believe the app has any way to figure those out- Yeah. it has to just look at you and do color things, but you can still set it to have the custom mix of wellness and not just Attractiveness that you're trying to gain from their product. This is like a real life face filter. It is, right?. I feel like it's the equivalent of the way you can fix yourself. And it's like, here are the real things- Here it is, like it? Now do it. Yeah. And the little machine is so interesting cuz it has these tiny little ports on the bottom so The pigment seems to almost come out of nowhere and then you just kind of smear it all together and, That's one of the weirdest things just watching them [UNKNOWN], I know because it you almost don't see the little ports where it comes out of so it appears to appear magically. But this is a little it's a little Home Depot paint mixer that you use for your face instead. All right. Robots. I came here looking for a lot of robots that it's hit and miss at this show. I thought it was a little underwhelming. Yeah. We sold the Samsung rolling. Yes. And you introduced me to that yesterday. And then we talked about about Tom but Jenny. Jenny is a dog. And this is a dog that you might look at from I would say, literally from Ten paces, you would really have to scratch your head to decide is that a dog or not? In fact, after saw it and it fooled me, I was so kind of not trusting my own vision that I walked into our green room here and someone had a real dog and I said is that dog real or not? I didn't trust my own eyes anymore. Here is what Jenny looks like, inside which we'll see in a moment here. There is a very complex dog-like skeleton. So they try to mimic the actual skeleton and structure of a dog. They're really proud of its ability to move and its ability to wag its tail both. Mechanically and algorithmically as you see there. In a way that is very, very dog like. Now it doesn't get up and walk, it's a simpler robot. That's why it's 400 bucks. And it has sampled, real dog bark whines and whimpers, not some synthetically created thing. So it sounds very realistic they say It's not a toy. It's for animal assisted therapy, for people with dementia. And it was co designed by the Jim Henson Company, which I was, I didn't know it either. I was reading the story. That's brilliant. Because I think we're at the point where like we talked about the robots were puppeteering animation. The desire to be more like Pixar and puppeteer, there are people who do this brilliant stuff right there. They're out there. Yeah to fool our minds and when our hearts and let's get them connected. Yeah, very impressive. I know robots can often be kind of an eye roll, especially when they're little fluffy puppy robots. It's like okay, that's a silly toy. This is not intended to be that. Brain co has a prosthetic hand we saw here he can do a different market now. Right We get to a medical market or quasi medical market. The idea here is that you would use brain signals that are detected and muscle electrical impulses on the remnant limb that are also detected to get this thing to do relatively natural and very discreet finger specific movements. It's almost hard to believe. This obviously has tremendous implications for amputees useful. So it's an exciting development. I know this has been in the works for a bit we read stories about it sounds like it's ready or near being ready Yeah, and I think they're in I believe they're in an FDA clearance segment. 10 to $15,000 would be the price is obviously medical equipment That I'm told compares to 70,000 or more for the state of the art prosthetic hands that are controllable now. More by gesture, I think you kinda give it a shake and the fingers will do certain things, but it's not an exceedingly rich array of things that the current hands can do. So take a look there, shaking hands with Ashley Esqueda. And that's a pretty natural looking kind of a thing. I haven't Been engaged with it. I've been shaking hands with someone wearing it. But she reported it was pretty amazing. In a side note here, it's been a quieter show, but an interesting show for VR and AR. I say that because I think about hand tracking, I think about next generation inputs. Yeah. This is for people who really need it, but brain interfaces. Facebook's been now announcing that they're working in that realm for what's coming. They're hot, red hot. If you can get good enough for someone who actually needs it to replace their hand, the possibilities for people for tele-presence for doing all sorts of things, Avatar type stuff, movie and real, I mean in reference there, I think there's a lot of interesting realms That we're not at yet, but we're getting closer. I don't think it'll even be CES 21 but by CES 22 I think we're gonna see a really interesting rich and conceivable break of [UNKNOWN] interface market that's starting to emerge. I could use my hands to control something 1000 miles away. That's really scary. It is really scary. I'm nervous when you're right near me. [LAUGH] Yeah. Maybe it's better if you're 1,000 miles away. I'll give you a pat on the back. [LAUGH] Samsung's- Cross host. Samsung's, and we normally are 3,000 miles away. Yeah, that's the same- Once a year we're like Tethered and then we are [UNKNOWN] So chance to catch up and then next year. I will see hey, how are you doing? It's been a year. Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. This is a collaboration between Google and Samsung you think Chromebook you think usually, you know, inexpensive cloud terminal that is meant to be kind of just basic hardware and Kind of dumb To be honest, this is really premium and apparently high performance. Yeah, this is a super high end is $1,000 13.3 inch. Yeah, it's got pin support. I think the big thing here is the 4K UHD OLED display. Yeah, it just looks like a like a two pound ish. Great laptop. You know, I was looking at high end Chromebooks myself past couple years, I reviewed the pixel book go, which was trying to be just a good laptop. Yeah, it's always a funny dance because Google hold some things back and what Chromebooks can do, but Chrome as an as a system is getting better and better and more instant. And I work in Chrome mostly anyhow Right They still have a ton of look really low and Chromebooks yes what a lot of people up his education at home I think this is exploring usually front here not just for chrome but for PC users so say like what is a PC what how powerful you need to be what how instant can it be yeah a couple carve outs that I can I I would I love the Chromebook idea I'm a big Google services and chrome user but. It lacks in video editing. We don't have that nailed as a Cloud Function yet even basic video editing and PowerPoint is still PowerPoint. You don't do Google sheets or slides and get a similar result. If you're a PowerPoint. Jockey like I am, and so much of my work, there's just no replacement for a installed presentation platform Somewhere between iPad and Chromebook is where I've wanted to be for a couple of years now. It's like where the iPad is excels at apps. And it's fantastic for that, Yeah And where a Chrome's are, Chrome is great for the internet. And for that sort of. Online web OS. Yeah. Our CMS anything sort of thing. But the two are still, Google's never handled android apps on chrome the way it should. It still feels one. All right, that's still wonky is. Isn't it? Yes, it feels totally experimental. Coming out of the same house, that should be utterly seamless and elegant. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is where things are growing, but you see these two companies coming from different directions. Let's talk about folders now. TCL foldable phone, this is a prototype, one of the other prototypes we have on the list of very few. Bending screen. We've got her a aim premium, saying, look no sacrifice is the idea. As much screen as you need in the moment Three cameras at least so full camera stackers at four and 5G of course, this is still not to market yet. So, when it does come, it'll have to be a 5G phone. But we you and I had the most interesting revelation, I think that I may have had from the entire show, which is where does folding belong? Yeah, and we're, I think it belongs in tablets. I agree. Yeah, I think I'm starting to start to feel that way. I'm I'm excited, right? Yeah, I bigger is more useful, oddly enough. Yeah. I think that you're going to see everybody throwing stuff at the wall and you're going to get to the point where you don't even really know what the definition is. I mean, Microsoft's upcoming folding, smaller tablet phone, they don't call it a phone. Dell was here on stage showing off similar types of things with foldable Yeah, Tablet and a laptop. Lenovo is got that. Dell also, asking them that question. When you have a folding tablet it could you get into phones could you basically be making phones and what is a phone When you can unfold a phone and make it something that's bigger. I like- Or fold a tablet into a laptop. Now, I think you've really got an interesting pair of modalities. I like a phone I can chuck around and not worry about, and foldables don't feel- Yeah, they're still- Durable for that. They're still [UNKNOWN], yeah. But if you could get a Netbook and then unfold it to a tablet Yeah and then perch it and then have a keyboard. That seems like the thing I would be using all the time. Yeah and the Dell prototype had all of those attributes right? Yeah, yeah. Detatchable physical keyboard, onscreen virtual keyboard in the lower half. They do that. Yeah. But TCL is becomming a bigger player in phones, that's interesting too. TCL's getting very serious and now they have the TCL branded phones. Where they used to use the Alcatel brand that they purchased with, you know, barely a player not in the US market anyway. So they're putting their brand out there more some confidence. OLED TVs are the TV that a lot of people really aspire to. They're very expensive, they come from relatively few players. But our most intriguing TV story may be the entry of Vizio into OLED coming up later this year Simply on a price story angle and here's David Katz Meyer. He's with that on the right there is the Vizio Ola and that's literally all we saw was showing a Vizio logo. The one he's looking at now is a current Vizio TV. Very nice high quality TV, when Vizio hits all that Vizio could democratize all that, and that's where we think the story is interesting. Not that it's going to be a better old lead dramatically. I'm sure it'll be lovely. But it's a price store. Yeah, this might be where I get an OLED for me. Right. Because I don't have one. I tend to buy TVs at the $1100 price. That's like my- Okay, big spender. Yeah right. [LAUGH] I like 500 and no more. That's my, no. The 11 I threw in the living room and then 500, yeah. Lower anywhere else. [UNKNOWN]. [LAUGH] That was a couple of years ago too. I want your hand-me-downs. I'm a $500 guy, that's it. But I have a limit of $10,000 for buying a car too so I just have some nice low levels. I hear people buying like $2000 plus OLEDs and I'm like that's great. I'm not gonna get one. I'll come over to your house and watch it but I'm not gonna buy- Yeah. I'm not getting one now but I feel like we're gonna get to that point where you might consider them And I could have told you. Yeah. I just ones that are good for games that the picture is great. And we saw that trend also. The TV makers are saying look it's kind of table stakes now, These displays is really all they are. Displays have to be game performance ready. To some A degree. Yeah. And you have to say we got good refresh, good what's the Invidia bus technology moving. The G-Sync? Yeah the G-Sync we saw come out on some. So it's really abouit making TV's truly game ready and not just sort of like an eh but bigger place to put your game. Last thing we have here is, you may say that's old, but it's not, it's finally coming into market. The Y-brush. And I'm intrigued by this is the ten second toothbrush because right now you don't brush your teeth right? You don't brush your teeth long enough. That's their story and they're right on. For most of us. This is the one that looks like a little. The trays they use at the dentist to take a casting of your teeth. Yeah it does. Or to apply gel. A fluoride gel thing. It's got the wait under your teeth in ten seconds for the top row tens seconds for the bottom set you're done. Notice all the bristles in there are pre angled at that angle. Your dentist always wants you to hold your brush. And they've got they say the vibrating oscillating in there to be just the right to loosen up all the material just like a Sonicare. Of course, the key here is that they're now ready to go tomorrow I think 125 the market price I think they're still looking at $25 each time you got to replace the brush head which will wear out My concern here and I like a lot about this. My concern is that is the ugliest industrial design I've seen in a long time. That thing looks awful. [LAUGH] You really couldn't make that look elegant like a Sonicare or an oral B and It's a smiling set, its body hard. It's just a bad shape. This is an old video, but I assume that this is what the design still looks like. I don't brush well. What are the etiquette implications of pulling out a Y-Brush to quickly brush your teeth, [LAUGH] right around here in the future? Well, [INAUDIBLE] if it's that quick, why not do it more often? You would keep that in your bag in your bathroom- Right. Or just while eating lunch, I mean people are gonna start taking these out. But you've still gotta spit. That's where it goes wrong. Yes still got a spit. Into your cup that's sitting on your table. [LAUGH] It can get really hygienic and really gross very soon. All right that's our best of CES roundup. That's by no means a comprehensive list of all the interesting part of CES. There are the ones that we thought receive your attention the most in a short snapshot. You see everything At least a lot more of the 40,000 product stories here at CES. Go to CES.cnet.com.