07/01/2017 Click

This week internet fridge, finger phone, garden car

and privacy pants.

Right, let's get 2017 started in style, shall we?

Flashing lights.

Check.

Modest understated hotels.

Check.

Lots of people queuing for photos of a sign.

Check.

A motorcycle vest with built in airbag?

Oh!

Check.

Every January, Las Vegas hosts the massive Consumer Electronics

Show and if you have a product to launch,

you want to launch it here.

And that's why I am being followed by a drone,

specifically, the hover camera passport drone.

First one I have seen which follows you, not by tracking a signal

from your mobile phone, but instead by locking on to a face

in its camera view.

Come with me.

You can tell it which face to follow by tapping on it in the accompanying

app on your phone.

And the latest version will let you scan and upload your face

to the drone so it can find and recognise you automatically.

The theory is that you then don't need the phone at all.

The drone knows and loves your face, just like a loyal puppy.

A flying puppy that takes cool 360 orbit videos or snaps photos

when you raise your hand.

And with guarded blades and sensors underneath to help it steer clear

of obstacles, it certainly seems safe and light enough to fly

in amongst other people or indeed to grab it out of the air

and fold it up.

Hence the name - passport, you see.

Unbelievably, CES is now in its 50th year and in that time it's got

big, very big.

The show has spread beyond the walls of the Las Vegas Convention Centre

to the surrounding hotels and we have seen all sorts of ideas

come and go in those five decades.

The event might have grown, but the technology,

of course, has shrunk.

The TV screens have got so thin that they blend into the walls,

so thin you can peel them on and off.

This is a fully functional Windows 10 PC.

And when I say this, I actually mean this.

This is an Intel compute card and it is a complete computer.

It has a processer, storage, memory and Wi-Fi

and it is about as powerful as an ultra-thin laptop.

Although I think those laptops are looking decidedly overweight,

don't you think?

Although actually personal computing isn't the first place that you'll

see these things.

You are going to see it in things like digital signage,

intelligent vending machines, and kiosks.

In the home you are going to see it in smart televisions.

You are going to see it in home hubs.

You got a couple of great benefits.

One of them for the consumer is this easy ability

to upgrade their device.

So instead of buying a television and then having to replace the whole

television three years and you want to do intelligence

in it, you can just replace the compute card.

So it may be that one day we really do carry our computers

around like this.

We pop it out of the screen at home and pop it into the car on the way

to the office and then pop it out of the car and pop it

into the screen at work.

The question is would we ever want to when we already have these?

This is more medium-term future stuff anyway.

There have been some more immediate things announced here at CES.

Here's Lara Lewington with the details.

The show floor is full of exciting stuff but the TVs really

are a big deal.

They're illuminating the floor with their dazzling pictures.

But Sony say their display is resoundingly different,

featuring their new acoustics sound technology.

The audio doesn't come out of a traditional speaker.

Instead, it's generated by the vibration in the screen.

If you weren't impressed by the back light free OELD TVs with their every

pixel lighting up individually, then I can tell you the back light

is back in the QLED screens from Samsung.

This time, it's made up of quantum dot nanocrystals aiming to provide

a great picture wherever you're seated in the room.

TVs aren't the only household electronics on display here, though.

This LG fridge has a fully interactive display.

You can even press this button and turn the door see-through.

Not that you actually need to because there is a camera

inside the fridge for anybody who thinks it's too much effort

to actually open and close the door or wants to see

their fridge from elsewhere.

That camera will also mean that you can receive alerts

to your mobile phone when food's due to expire.

Plus, it will tell you when you need to buy things and seeing

as the fridge is connected to Alexa it makes it rather easy to do that

through Amazon, funnily enough.

And virtual assistants seem to be everywhere,

with Alexa even being integrated into a Ford car later this year.

Meanwhile, Olly here is even supposed to understand your

emotions.

I am so excited to meet everyone here...

It looks like we'll be speaking to many more of our gadgets in 2017.

Let's just hope they understand us.

Most people understand that if I do this with my fingers it means

give me a call on the telephone.

However, if I am wearing this strap when I make that gesture my hand

becomes part of the telephone itself and can send and receive calls.

The strap has a little body conducting unit in here which sends

vibrations down my hand and when I stick my finger

to my ear, they become amplified sound.

There is a microphone just in the strap there,

so I can talk into it.

Let's just see if that works.

And it does.

Even though we are at a busy traffic intersection here I can actually

hear a test signal coming through from the mobile phone.

This is the prototype.

The finished thing looks like a normal watch strap and can be

fitted to any old watch.

When you want to hang up, that's simplicity itself.

All you have to do is take your hand away from your ear.

Health is once again a big theme here at CES.

And whilst more people than ever are following gluten-free,

dairy-free or other sorts of specialist diets,

they don't necessarily need to be unless they've had

a proper medical diagnosis.

And that's something that this device aims to overcome by helping

people create the perfect diet for their own personal digestive

system.

Air connects via bluetooth and its mission is to miniaturise

a breath test that gastroenterologists have been

using since the 90s.

It analyses reaction to various forms of carbohydrate,

such as lactose or fructose.

This is based on the idea that if you consume a food that you can't

break down, then it will foment in the gut and from that point

chemicals will disperse into the blood stream,

that blood will be making its way into the lungs and when you breathe

out you'll be able to analyse how well that food has been digested.

So once it learns what works for you, it should be able to help

you customise your diet as the finished app's food database

indicates how likely you are to react to any given food.

So if you find the answer all that's left to do is actually stick

to the lifestyle and diet you need to.

Now then, I am officially calling it, this year's big theme

at CES was cars.

And, as always, it's often the most outrageous concepts that grab

all the headlines.

Rinspeed has previously proposed a car with its own deployable drone.

Well, now it's got one that has a space age cockpit with more glass

than a greenhouse, which is quite fortunate because it has a garden

in the dashboard.

Yes, that's a garden in the dashboard.

Why?

Well, so you get a nice smell when you're driving,

of course, and you can even take part of it

with you when you go shopping.

Don't forget to switch the fan on, so you get that lovely whiff.

Actually, a lot of the more serious car stuff is happening in small

steps incrementally, so it's harder to grab the headlines.

That said, Marc Cieslak has just been for a couple

of extraordinary drives.

There's a certain German car-maker that boasts of building the ultimate

driving machine, but here at CES 2017 most of the motor manufacturers

seem intent on building the ultimate self-driving machine.

It isn't just motor manufacturers that are showing off

self-driving vehicles here.

They're doing it with the help of tech companies, as well.

This vehicle is fitted with a system called BB8,

which has been created by NVIDIA, a company most famous

for manufacturing high end graphics chips.

Artificial intelligence software which learns helped by sensors have

trained BB8 to be able to make driving decisions.

Here an obstacle has just appeared in the route

that we were going to take to get to the other end of this track.

The car has decided that they'll not drive into that obstacle so it's

driven around it.

And now the obstacle is going to be gone on the next time around

on the circuit, so let's see what decision the car makes then.

There we go, it carries on driving down the road.

NVIDIA is partnering with Audi to introduce similar technologies

into its future models.

Driving around a car park is one thing but how do these autonomous

vehicles perform out on real roads?

Electronic supplier Delphi has partnered with driver assistance

and sensor outfit Mobileye and created a mini fleet

of autonomous Audi SUVs which are driving around

Vegas during CES.

There are 24 different sensors spread out across the body of this

car which allow it to drive autonomously and what I am struck

by is that you don't notice any of them.

You can't really see any of those sensory devices.

They're hidden.

This car is an indicator, if you like, of how autonomous

vehicles will look in the future, which is pretty much like any car

does in showrooms today.

Those sensors include lidar, radar and cameras all around the vehicle.

Here we can see what the car sees through them.

Identifying other vehicles as well as pedestrians and behaving

accordingly as it weaves its way through traffic.

So, I am a rear passenger in the back of this self-driving car.

And so far zero dramas apart from looking forward and noticing

that the driver doesn't have his hands on the steering wheel

I could be forgiven for thinking that I am actually being driven

around by a human being.

The thing is, we have been driving around in prototype self-driving

cars for a couple of years now.

How long is it going to be before cars like this are available

to buy in showrooms?

There is quite a wide consensus among the industry that 2021

is the time where the technology will be ready and after a number

of years where society will start gaining confidence in this kind

of technology then society would be at the point where the driver can be

completely out of the loop.

With that 2021 goal in mind Mobileye announced in partnership with BMW

and Intel it will be testing 40 autonomous vehicles on real American

and European roads in the second half of this year.

So, the countdown has begun.

Autonomous automobiles are most definitely on their way.

That was Mark with what we think is the most complete autonomous

driving system that we have seen so far.

Now if you're looking forward to your fully self-driving car,

there is a problem.

At the moment in the US there are 320 million cars

on the road but they only make about 16 million new cars every year

which means even if from today every car that was manufactured was fully

autonomous it would still take at least 20 years to refresh

the entire fleet.

So here's an idea.

What about retro-fitting your existing car to

make it self-driving?

Well, this is Exmatic and this is a system that does that.

It's still in prototype at the moment which explains

the hilarious computer under the driver's seat there.

But what you will do is stick a lidar sensor on your roof,

a couple of cameras in the windscreen and then I guess

the most important parts are the robotic wheel which turns

the steering wheel here and the levers which operate the pedals.

And this could be an interesting interim solution while you are

waiting for your fully autonomous car for about 20 years.

Replacing the entire fleet of vehicles is one

aspect of the problem.

The other aspect is the fact that 90% of the vehicle remains the same.

All the mechanical parts are pretty much the same.

The parts that get you around.

And so in order to add the brain you would have to chuck the entire

car and get a whole new car.

And what we're saying is you keep your car,

and we give you the brains.

Now if you are someone who preferS the wind to be

rushing through your hair, CES also offers plenty

for riders as well as drivers.

Hence that airbag vest for bikers which detects a sudden change

in speed and inflates just before impact with shocking

force, it has to be said.

Well, I suppose the point is if you are having an accident

then you really need something that inflates fast.

I have to say, it nearly caused me to have an accident.

LAUGHTER

And now we're all nicely cushioned, here's Dave Lee with a selection

of CES's rideables.

Ha-ha!

This is surely the most fun you can have on a beach

with your clothes on.

The Super 73 is an electric bike that can hold enough charge

to travel for more than 25 miles.

Its top speed is 27mph which on Newport Beach is certainly

enough to get the wind in your hair.

You have the thumb here.

Don't press on it just yet and the two brakes right here.

So are you ready to go?

You go first and I will follow you. Follow me.

Go. Oh!

Ha-ha!

The bike was funded via Kickstarter where it raised almost half

a million dollars and now each bike is being carefully crafted

here in Orange County California.

We have every machine needed to create an entire bike.

There's some days where we have got, you know, 30, 40 bikes

being welded in a single day.

That's to ensure that everything is done properly,

safely and will hold up for a lifetime.

The batteries it needs are getting more affordable,

they're getting lighter, so it means at CES this year

we are seeing a host of interesting ways to help us get around.

One Chinese company unveiled these bikes.

They're powered by normal pedals but they have the android mobile

operating system built in so you can track your progress.

And then there is things like the Movpack.

This is a regular pack, with one movement you can turn it

into an electric skateboard, that's actually easier to ride

than a regular skateboard.

Here is something slightly more traditional but with a modern twist.

This scooter isn't electric, but it does bring your social

networks right into your dashboard.

Can't people go ten seconds without seeing an e-mail?

I would not want to see my e-mails for ten seconds, that's good.

It can go up to one minute.

One whole minute?

Yes.

But it's perhaps more futuristic ideas like this one from Honda that

really get the imagination going.

This concept car is more about having something that

you don't necessarily own but you kind of just call it up

whenever you need a vehicle to pop to the shops or do some

of those small errands.

It will drive itself to you, pick you up and when you are done

with it you can just let it go itself.

That was Dave Lee.

Meanwhile, I found something much more sensible, which is a VR

skydiving simulator.

And now we are going back to Lara and also Richard Taylor to see

what choice morsels they found on the CES show floor.

Argh!

Virtual reality is everywhere this year at CES, as you might expect.

What you might not expect is that it's being used

to demo other technologies.

In this case, wireless smart home monitoring.

What I and other guinea pigs have been witnessing through this headset

are what you normally can't see in your average home.

Wireless signals of different frequencies and varying strength

represented here by pretty multicoloured balls all bouncing

around the furniture and spewing from your electronic devices.

Using these normally invisible signals the company behind it,

Cognitive, has developed a device offering a completely new way

of keeping tabs on your environment.

Two units in there.

Aura is a simple two-piece patented system consisting of this white box

and a smaller sensor which plug into the wall and

connect to your Wi-Fi.

Together they form their own network of very low power signals

which spread across your home passing through walls,

floors and ceilings.

The companion app monitors this spectrum data and alerts

users when the signals have been disturbed.

It can even differentiate known members from possible intruders

by the signals coming from the smartphones registered

users might be carrying on them.

We are sort of looking at it as a thoughtful security system.

So, obviously cameras are very good.

They have their place.

But they are limited in terms of what they actually look at.

So you will need like maybe three cameras or something in your house,

where this is extending to a larger degree over your house,

you are seeing more of your house and what's happening in it.

As well as tying into home security, Cognitive is looking beyond,

like in retail, where the tech could build up a virtual heat map

of where shoppers are congregating, although of course there are privacy

aconcerns around this.

Introducing Emerald...

Other outfits too are seeing the potential of this wireless tech.

MIT researchers are developing a product called Emerald which uses

wireless signals reflected off people's bodies to alert care givers

when someone has fallen over.

The device apparently measuring heart beats

as accurately as an ECG monitor.

In fact, they say Emerald will soon be able to read somebody's mood

by detecting subtle changes in their breathing and heart rhythms

and perhaps adjust the smart home heating system accordingly.

It's easy to imagine other scenarios, too,

like ad agencies monitoring people's emotional responses to commercials

and shows in real-time.

The possibilities are truly enormous and for some of us that prospect

alone may just be a little disturbing in itself.

Ava has been dubbed the fertility fitbit.

Unsurprising, when it's a bracelet that looks like this although it

only actually needs to be worn at night-time.

With one in eight struggling to start a family as easily

as they had hoped, stories like Sarah's aren't unusual.

We tried for in total six years by the time

we had my son to conceive.

Four years before we went through any form of treatment.

We went through IVF.

We did during that time use a few different apps,

I tried to track my period and fertile times but my cycle

seemed to be a bit all over so it wasn't very accurate and I found

it was adding more stress.

It syncs up to this app where it combines temperature,

heart rate and sleep tracking with the information you provide.

But how keen might women be to use it?

I think whilst I was going through it, yes,

I would definitely have tried it.

The cost would have been a consideration but I would have

tried it because I would have thought it's claiming that it can

increase my chances, you know, it's measuring different things

so it must be more accurate than inputting the data myself

but having been through it and looking back in hindsight

the pressure I was putting on myself and my relationship and how I felt

through that, I think something like this would put

even more pressure on.

One expert raises another question, though.

Body temperature monitoring is a great way to assess ovulation

which has been a standard practice for many years although one has

to say that it's not a very accurate way of assessing it.

Now when you bring in sleep, heart rate and other sort of various

additional bits that this bracelet also measures that is slightly

irrelevant to fertility.

So why have they chosen to include them?

We have been conducting clinical research on how those parameters

correlate with hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle

and we have clearly seen correlations between the factors

we are measuring, such as pulse rate and the menstrual cycle and we have

been proving that it's 89% accurate with the method we

are using right now.

And seeing as we seem to be able to track everything these days,

there is something for the men, too.

This smartphone accessory incorporating a microscope aims

to provide a male fertility test without the need

to go to the doctors.

Samples are analysed and results can be recorded and saved.

That was Lara and if you are a man who's worried that your fertility

might be affected by keeping a mobile phone in your pocket

you might be interested in something else that we discovered here at CES,

which is spartan underwear lined with metallic silver fibres

which apparently block most of the radiation from your phone

to your most precious parts.

I think they feel a bit snug myself.

But insert your own joke here.

That's it from CES.

We're back in Vegas next week.

Follow us on Twitter in the meantime at BBC Click.

Thanks for watching.

See you soon.

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