LAS VEGAS: The first day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) saw cutting-edge products and high-tech advances from around the world on display.
The annual tech trade show is one of the biggest and most crowded events and usually attracts over 180,000 people, including the members of media, trade analysts and a wide range of tech companies. However, this year due to the pandemic, CES is going digital and major companies are holding individual press events to show off new products.
Nearly 2,000 exhibitors are participating in the first virtual trade show in Las Vegas, vying for consumer attention across a platform of virtual booths, presentations and one-on-one meeting rooms.
Vice President of Sales Binatone Marty Urick said while there will not be the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for which CES is famous, this year’s virtual gathering has its advantages. Binatone announced a new product designed to help people reduce their risk of contracting COVID-19.
The MaskFone incorporates N95/FFP2 filters into a face mask that is wired for sound. The system enables the user to talk on a mobile phone via Bluetooth without removing their mask.
The built-in earphones let a MaskFone user hear audio and buttons along the mask’s jawline and are designed to let the wearer make or answer a phone call, skip through songs in their device’s music library or connect to Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa. The electronics are removable to allow the mask itself to be washed regularly.
Chinese company Unipin has presented a robot that automatically moves through a room to disinfect it with ultraviolet light. Hussmann, the food retail arm of Panasonic, unveiled food lockers developed for restaurants and grocery stores that enable customers to pick up orders without having contact with other people and risking infection.
The Hussman lockers can keep take-out orders hot and groceries at particular temperatures — room temperature, cold or even frozen — until the customer picks them up.
Vera Schmidt, the head of advanced digital design at Mercedes-Benz, described the company’s new MBUX Hyperscreen as a “milestone”. The single panel combines three screens into a sleek vehicle control system that puts maps and other information at the driver’s fingertips in an intuitive way.
It also offers the front seat passenger a screen on which they can watch movies, or even TV shows in some areas, while preventing the driver from being distracted. The MBUX will be available on new all-electric EQS Luxury Sedan.
Ninu Perfume, based in Slovenia, has designed a sleek perfume dispenser that can customise a scent for someone based on their gender, their body chemistry, their mood or activity.
Operated via a smartphone app, the dispenser has three types of foundational perfumes — floral, oriental and fresh — that can be combined to create a personalised scent.
The app also incorporates artificial intelligence that can modify the formulation depending on the season of the year or the temperature. Ninu is in the prototype phase and plans a crowdfunding campaign in March, with products hopefully shipping by the end of this year.
