CES

CES 2015: Narcissism, 3D eats and other thoughts from Day 1

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Participants wander about 2015 CES on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Photo: L.E. Baskow

1. I will not enter parking hell. I will not enter parking hell. Pro tip: Resist the will to approach the Convention Center in your personal vehicle. It’s not worth it. I valeted at Mirage, swung by the Sands Expo Center, then hopped a shuttle to the epicenter, relatively pain-free.

Headphones are big at CES this year.

2. CES is for narcissists! You want professional-style shots of yourself shredding, carving or otherwise being awesome? Meet Hexo+, an autonomous flying camera created by French Olympic snowboarder Xavier de Le Rue and inspired by the difficulty of getting epic, mountaintop pans in super-remote locales. They used to paraglide to get the right angle; now it’s easier: Just attach your GoPro to the six-propeller drone, pick from the shot library on your smartphone and the Hexo+ (pre-order price: $1,149) does the rest, tracking your movement to deliver beautiful footage that would usually require a whole film crew. Sorry, it won’t make you a better snowboarder.

3. Why are there so many headphones? It seemed like every company at CES had its own line of headphones. From Gibson (a stylish collaboration with Les Paul), to Parrot (a prototype that tracks your heart rate, foot cadence and vertical oscillation) to Marley (yup, that Marley), ears have lots of options these days.

Kodak's SP360 shoots 360 degrees of 1080p HD video.

4. CES is for narcissists: Part 2! You want video footage of yourself and everyone else at the poker table? Kodak’s SP360 (which may or may not stand for “selfie pro”) is a tiny cube of a camera ($299) that shoots 360 degrees of 1080p HD video and looks awfully cute doing it. Plus, you can control it from your phone, which means you’ll never have awkward selfie-arm again.

5. Self-driving cars are coming. It’s okay to be afraid.

6. Better gardening through technology. Your amaryllis can’t tell you when it’s thirsty or getting a bit too much sun, because it doesn’t have a mouth, but now its pot can. The Parrot Pot’s sensors monitor fertilizer content, moisture levels, temperatures and more, auto-watering when needed and tracking the data on a companion app, which should make it really hard to kill your houseplants.

7. Everyone wants to be the next GoPro. Except for the headphone companies.

Artec's 3d body scanner captures your body map to print out your very own ceramic likeness.

8. A little off the top. Men were getting legitimate haircuts at the Panasonic booth using the company’s clippers. What can’t you do at CES?!

9. CES is for narcissists: Part 3! No, it’s not another selfie cam. It’s Artec’s 3D body scanner—in booth or handheld varieties!—which captures your body map then uses it to print out your very own ceramic likeness with striking (even disturbing) detail. Just imagine filling grandma’s figurine case with tiny statues of yourself. Eek!

10. Pass the printed snacks. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we can print out whole dinners of orecchiette with oxtail ragu (mmmm), but in the meantime, I couldn’t help geeking out over the ChefJet Pro 3D food printer and it’s gorgeous, sculptural sugar creations that looked quite literally too good to eat. Until I ate one—and it tasted just fine.

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