BY ALEX BARNARD
The Consumer Electronics Show, commonly referred to as CES, went on January 8th through January 11th in Las Vegas. CES has become a show in which many large tech corporations such as Panasonic and Sony show off disappointingly small iterations in their products. However while several new products are shown off each year from smaller or newly formed companies, It was CES that first showed the world the VCR in 1970, the CD player in 1981, and the Xbox in 2001. To this day, the CES continues to remain innovative, as several new interesting pieces of tech were shown off.
Tactus’s new unique touchscreen allows for transparent buttons to pop out of the screen and disappear back into the device as needed. The buttons reveal themselves as fluid is pumped to raise a deformable bubble keyboard. These buttons can give physical feeling to using keyboards on phones and tablets, while disappearing back into the screen when not needed therefore giving the screen a normal appearance and more space. Currently the keys only pop up into a set landscape keyboard formation when requested by an application, but Tactus plans on making the screen fully customizable in the future. Although far from perfect, this technology can lead to big changes in how we type on touchscreen devices in the future.
Nvidia’s Project Shield is a new powerful hand-held Android gaming device with a clam-shell design. The Project Shield hardware is built into the controller base, looking like a cross between an Xbox 360 and a PS3 controller. A 5-inch 720p screen flips up from the controller with the same touch screen functionality of most android devices. Running on a powerful Tegra 4 CPU, Project Shield will play graphically intensive Android games with a quality controller, while many Android devices are hindered by a lack of physical controls. Project Shield will also output all sound and video from the system to high-resolution televisions using HDMI.
Razer’s Edge brings the power of a gaming computer to the form factor of a tablet. All of the Edge models runs on Windows 8, features a 10.1 inch screen, and can be used with a plethora of accessories that make the system more applicable for gaming. A docking station allows the Edge to have three input devices connected via USB, and with a keyboard and mouse plugged in the Edge looks and functions similar to an all-in-one PC. With gaming as this tablet’s focus, the Razer Mobile Console Mode is perhaps the most alluring accessory. This accessory puts controls on each side of the Edge (causing it to look eerily similar to Nintendo’s recent Wii U), enabling the system to play just about any PC game with game-pad support on the go.
Despite much of the floor space of CES 2013 being taken up by the new 4k resolution TVs (which despite looking much better than today’s HD TVs are priced ridiculously), smaller pieces of tech show great innovation. Despite its age, CES still manages to show a handful of unique devices and new creative ideas.
