CES Unveiled is a pre-CES ‘mini show’, in the style of Pepcom and Showstoppers. With tables costing significantly less than a stand on the show floor, these events are a great way to meet startups and smaller companies. The free food and drink don’t hurt, either! CES Unveiled, as the first press event of the week, is always busy and this year’s was no exception – it was absolutely packed.
To the side of the main ballroom we found Hxtar, a Chinese company producing a protective glass film that is, it is claimed, almost as hard as sapphire. The screen protector is ranked at 8 Mohs of hardness, while sapphire is a 9. The glass is highly flexible and resilient, with a demonstration asking visitors to punch a weight onto one of the protectors – we managed to do this without it breaking, although the Hxtar spokesperson did not! That particular glass had had multiple hard shocks over the course of the evening, however, so we’ll give the company the benefit of the doubt here.
Hxtar’s screen protectors are manufactured at the company’s own factory in China, mainly for mobiles but able to scale to monitor sizes. At CES Unveiled, the company was demonstrating new anti-glare models with between 91% and 93% light transmittance, compared to sapphire’s 89%.
A startup called Logbar (from Japan) was showing a gesture controller in the form of a ring. The Ring (inventive name) features a button on the side that is held with a user’s thumb to activate gesture controls; drawing in the air will then send commands to connected devices, using Belkin’s WeMo (WiFi) protocol. For example, it is possible to control a tablet from across the room.
In March, Logbar will launch the Ring Hub, which uses infrared to receive and send commands to multiple devices. For example, an ‘L’ could turn lights on or off. Social media, robots, TVs, mobie devices and more can be controlled.
The highlight of Seiki‘s presence was a new set of OTT apps for the company’s TV lineup, such as the BBC iPlayer. Amazon Instant Video and Netflix will be available on all of the company’s TVs by July.
Technicolor was demonstrating a smart home solution.
We have been following eye-tracking company Tobii for a long time, and last year heard about a game being developed for the technology: Son of Nor. We had the opportunity to play a limited demo at CES Unveiled using the Sentry Gaming Eye Tracker (Display Monitor Vol 21 No 3). In the demo we could use the main character’s telekinesis powers to raise and lower sand in the desert, as well as throw rocks and enemies around the screen (or at each other), simply by looking somewhere and clicking the mouse. It wasn’t quite as ‘like magic’ as the Magicleap gesture controller, but was still very impressive.
Last year, Tobii was having some problems getting its eye tracker to see past glasses; these issues have now been resolved.
Westinghouse was showing a prototype 34″ LCD monitor with 3440 x 1440 resolution (we believe that the panel is supplied by LG Display). Although unnamed, the company said that the monitor is intended for gaming use. It features DisplayPort, HDMI (supporting UltraHD at 60fps) and DVI inputs and will be on sale online in April, for $600. An older 42″ display, with UltraHD resolution, was also being shown.
