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- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
B
Guaranteed Human.
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C
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why, hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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D
A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught, the answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zieman and this is Monster Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the Son of Sam. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts.
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B
Call Zone Media. This is it could happen here, a podcast about things falling apart. And today the things falling apart are consumer electronics as an industry. We are at CES 2026, the trade show where the tech industry shows us everything it's going to sell us in the next year. And we've seen some cool stuff and a lot of bloatware, a lot of crap, a lot of AI enabled stuff that doesn't need to be AI enabled. Here to talk about it is our panel of experts.
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A
Me experts is a strong word, but.
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B
Okay, yeah, panel is a strong word. That's even a strong word. I'm Robert Evans Garrison Davis. Hello. Is also with me.
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E
And I'm Ben Rose Porter.
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B
And you know Ben, you're an academic, right? You do college?
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E
Yeah.
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B
You're a college.
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E
I teach sociology.
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B
That's right. That's right. As a sociopath.
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E
How have you been trade folks? It's fascinating. I mean, you know, it's a fascinating world sociologically. You can learn a lot of the maladies of society at this place.
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B
Yeah, it's. Most of them are on display here.
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A
We are now going to walk you through a bunch of the largely non AI products that we were able to find after, after sorting through the gunk.
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B
Yeah, it's kind of like, like, you know how people like pan for gold?
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A
Yes.
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B
If instead of like panning for gold in like a beautiful mountain stream, like you were panning for gold in like a pile of used condoms.
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A
Gold is also generous. This is panning for panties in a pile of used condoms.
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B
Right.
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E
Right.
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B
Now, what was the best used condom you saw at CES 2026 Garrison?
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A
I think you mean what's the best penny. Good products. Did we see any good products?
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B
Yeah, there's some good ones.
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A
Did I. I don't know if I saw any good products this year.
- [02:58]
B
The, the translation stuff is still around and some of it's really cool.
- [03:01]
A
No, I mean, yeah, we've. In other episodes we've talked about the glasses and the earbuds. Most of the product sheets I have out now are at the very least mixed. If, if, if not, if not. There was this product called Nodi, which is a smartphone replacement for kids, like kids like 6 to 12, if you don't want them having a smartphone. And it allows them to send voice messages to a parent who has this approved contact list. So you can also listen to music, listen to some radio, radio dramas, prize and books. It connects to Spotify. You can learn languages, allegedly. You can learn words, right? You can learn words from other languages. Languages. And you can communicate with your parents. And this was like fine, right? It's the stuff that we've kind of seen before, but it was this little like, you know, silicon kind of looks like, like a elf bar. If you're familiar with an elf bar. It kind of looks like that. And it's if. Yeah, if you don't want to give your like, you know, six year old an iPhone, but you, you know, want them to have a way to contact you, right? And that's like fine, right? So there's, there's a lot of like basic stuff like that. I guess that is like kind of. Okay. I don't want to be cynical for the sake of being cynical. That kind of stuff bores me. But there really wasn't that many good products this year because so many of them just were LLM wrappers as we discussed in our previous episode.
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B
And there's another category. There were products that were good and I could tell were good products on their own that they had still thrown AI functionality that I don't want. Sure that I know will bloat the price and also makes it me less want to buy it. LG was advertising their new OLED television that has like the most vibrant colors, the best OLED screen that's ever been on a tv and it looked fucking great. I have a video of it. The colors, the darks are amazing.
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A
LG screens are really good.
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B
But it's also with AI, with Evo AI and to show off its vibrant colors and what it's capable of. They had a loop of videos that were inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope. And you can see it if you ever Watch Deep Space 9. It's about the quality of the Deep Space 9 intro.
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A
It does look very Star Trek intro. Yeah.
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B
Which is frustrating because again, we have images.
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A
Show the actual images.
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B
They look cool because you know what they are is real. Like they're real products of one of the most impressive things human beings ever made. And you're bragging that like we have an AI generating images inspired by this thing that look worse.
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A
Yeah, a lot of those things that are kind of mixed.
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B
I wanted the tv. I was like, wow, I might like a TV like that until you displayed that part of it. And now I just kind of feel dirty about even the prospect of wanting one of your products.
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A
This is an interesting product I saw at the like the Innovation Awards showcase. This is the acoustic eye, which is.
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B
Kind of first off, that's an ear.
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A
That's an ear, right? That's an ear. We don't need to do that. But this is specifically a security system that tries to detect very small drones. And this is like for, you know, high profile people's houses mostly. You can put that on your roof or your window and it'll detect very small drones that cameras would not be able to detect. So it's trying to like listen for drones. It provides 360 degree omnidirectional aerial surveillance, detecting invisible aerial threats. So I would assume that they're trying to sell these to like, you know, like executives, like CEOs, politicians, people who are at risk of either you know, drones filming around their house or more like kinetic drone based attacks.
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B
Right.
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A
And this is an interesting product that's like very current. It's a very current product. Like this is, this is a reflection of some of the times that we're in. And yeah, I found that to be one of interesting thing. I guess we should discuss the exoskeleton, which is maybe the best part of the show for me.
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B
Yes, there's a lot more exoskeletons this year. The technology is clearly matured and matured to the point that not only is it do they have viable versions for like industrial use for people working in factories and whatnot. Right. Which two years ago is what they were always advertising, is that these are things that you buy at an enterprise level. And you know, I know they're not primarily concerned with the health and well being of their workers, but actually these do improve health and well being of workers. Right. It reduces the felt load and the felt strain. It reduces the damaged knees and back. Right.
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A
And that does affect their productivity.
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B
Right. And it also affects their profit because you're not. You're less likely to have workman's comp claims. Right. It's one of those. It's one of those things where it's a really good idea and the products work. There's a number of very good exoskeletons we received from a company called hypershell, an exoskeleton before the convention this year that you and I both wore on the floor. I have some data on it, which is that I timed my normal walking pace when I'm not particularly trying to get anywhere is about 19 minutes a mile. Right. If I'm just kind of like walking casually. When I put the Hyper Shell on and had it at 75% power mode, my walking pace was 15 to 16 minutes a mile, about 15 and a half, I think is what I generally advertised. And my heart rate didn't change meaningfully. It was like 1 or 2 higher than it normally is. But not really a significant change in heart rate. Right. And I felt like at the end of the day my feet hurt about a normal amount for a day at ces, but my lower back and my knees felt less strain. Right. That was my experience with the Hyper Shell.
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A
It's like an external hip almost attaches around your waist.
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B
Yeah. There's a belt around your hip and it goes up to right above your knees is kind of the. And it's. So it's not a huge footprint.
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A
No, it's. It's a very small device. And yeah, it goes around your hip, then another strap goes above your knee and it kind of assists or guides your leg and your hip up and down.
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B
Yeah. And for the record, folks, the basic version of this product is about $1,000. The version we had was about $2,100. Right. And the battery will last about 30 kilometers, they say. I didn't have any trouble getting about an eight hour day out of it.
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A
Ben, you wore it much more than I did. I wore it a little bit. Do you want to talk about your experience with Hyper Shell?
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E
Yeah, I was impressed with it. It was first of all, Hyper Shell. Very fun name. I like that name. It was pretty comfortable to wear, which is, I always see the exoskeletons and I'm like, it looks kind of awkward, but it was like, it was very easy to take on and pull off. I was and it was comfortable and it was pretty simple. And it basically just has two motors that sort of assist when you move your leg, it pushes your leg, and when it comes back in the step, it pushes it back down. And so it's just assisting and it tracks your leg pretty well. So there's just very little time when you're pushing against the machine. It's coordinated very well. I mean, it just functioned. It worked. And you could walk a long time.
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B
Yeah. The fact that it's like, yes, it's a product that works and it does a thing that has utility, it feels increasingly rare.
- [09:42]
E
At ces, I was a little disappointed that the product did not pay attention to my emotions and build a relationship of empathy with me. That was. But the, the walking was good.
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B
Yeah. I asked the Hyper Rochelle about its opinions on Proust, and it had very little to say.
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A
Um, it does. It does have, like, two main modes. It has like this eco mode. Then it's this hyper mode, which can get really aggressive. If you turn up Hyper mode, you can feel it.
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B
It's like all the way kind of lifting your legs.
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A
You could be bounding.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And you, you can, you can, you can adjust like the torque. You can adjust like how. How much like delay it has. You have a lot of different settings. The one thing that I had a lot of fun with is that there's this other experimental mode, I don't know if you turn it on yet, called. Called Fitness Mode. Fitness Mode is cool. It does the opposite. It adds resistance to the cool. So it's for like working out. If you want like a harder hike.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Right. Then you can, you can, you can turn on Fitness Mode and then it'll be.
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B
It's more work like how Goku trains to walk.
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A
Sure. But something I. That's a anime thing, by the way. Now, one thing that I found out through. Through my own. My, my, my. My own cunning is that if you have Hyper mode turned on all the way, which. Which it was when. When Ben was wearing the exoskeleton on my phone, I can switch from Hyper mode to fitness mode immediately, which completely halts any movement. So you can be walking at like seven.
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B
Fuck up your friend. If they don't have the app at.
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A
Seven, you're walking with like seven miles an hour, really fast speed walking. And then I press a button and your legs are go to an immediate halt. And it was really fun to do that for about seven hours.
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E
Yeah. I almost crashed into several people just because. For Garrett to get his kicks.
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B
Oh, I'M glad you found the terrorize your friend option on there.
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A
It was really fun. It was really fun.
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B
Most of the time I used it. I had installed the app when I got it, but I didn't think about it after that because you can do everything on device or at least you can do a lot of device. You can do a lot of it on device. You get a lot more options when you're using the app, but you don't need to use the app to handle the basic functionality. Right.
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A
I loved adjusting the intensity of how much it's, how much doing and it shows a whole bunch of like applications.
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B
Right.
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A
You can wear this hiking, like running, doing, you know, lifting your work and.
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B
I like the thoughtfulness in there. You don't need the app to use this, but the app vastly. The app allows you, gives you a lot of control that you're not going to get off of a simple like button.
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E
Right?
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B
Yeah, it just struck me as good design.
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A
It has a lot of like fidelity via the app.
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B
So that's the hypershell folks. Good exoskeleton. I've used a few at various cess and this one certainly strikes me as like a very good like consumer option. Like if you as an individual want one and I'm sure still most of the sales are going to be like enterprise. Different companies that have like, you know, want these for people who are doing like loading and unloading and like a loading dock or whatever. But I think the price, prices will continue to go down and they are now hitting the point where this is like a thing that individuals can afford if they want one. And there is a lot of. And hypershell focused on this in some of their advertising. But there's a lot of utility for people with disabilities for stuff like this. Right. Like that's part of the point of all of these different products. And in general, when it came to the stuff where like the. Cause there's AI in this too. Hypersholl talks about and it's mostly in just like how it learns and reacts to your motions. Right. That, that's like machine learning. When we talk about AI, usually the useful applications you could also just call machine learning. That's what we used to say. But in general, the products that impressed me most and scared me most at CES were healthcare related. Right. Where we have a towel that reads your sweat and can tell if you have like vitamin deficiencies or if you're, if you're, if you're not hydrated enough or all of these different like the Number of products where it's both like yes, this thing can tell if you've like fatty liver disease like based on, without needing to go to a doctor. And I'm sure that is useful and will help a lot of people. And also all of these products are selling your data to the highest bidder. And your health data, your, your biometrics.
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A
Did you ask them about that?
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B
Sorry, not. I am not aware of that being the specific thing for the fatty liver people. That was my problem with all of the health wearables. I should say. Just to be clear, I should clarify. The wearables are all on the cloud and every one of the ones I saw has deals with the LLM companies that they're, they're working with and are, are handing your data over.
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A
Yeah. Because that's how the, they get quote, unquote smarter is through a massive data data collection.
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B
And so there's this thing where there is this kind of baseline expectation here that everyone is fine with handing over all of their data, all of their physical data, all of their biometrics, which I like. The utility is undeniable of things that can diagnose that you need to go to a doctor or can at least suggest like the existence of problems combined with. And we are not at all interested in keeping that information secure. I find the kind of casual. And no one will ever. Because I don't think people will, I think people will buy these products and not think about who's getting access to their biometric data. And I, I, I wish that people cared about that.
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A
And we've seen that specifically be a problem like around, like pregnancy.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And with states restricting abortion and the ways, ways in which these companies are aware of people's bodies even before the actual people are.
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B
Here's an ad break.
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D
A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught, the answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zieman and this is Monster Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the Son of Sam. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:41]
B
All right, we're back from ads. So I went to Lenovo's booth. It was a bunch of laptops. I use Lenovo laptops. They make good products. It was every product there was either. Here is a new Update to the line of laptops we've been making for 30 years. This is the latest one, this is the latest thinkp, this is the latest, you know, IdeaPad or whatever. And then they had a couple of, like, the. The big thing they were showing was the Lenovo Twist, which is a laptop that has a screen that can twist around and so it can lay flat like a tablet, but it can also. The thing that we're really showing is that it's motorized and it has AI enabled, so it can follow your face and you can set it to track an individual's face, and as you move, it will move with you. Now, it has two different modes. One of them is also. You can, like, gesture to it, or you can command it by voice and you can say, go into laptop mode, go into tablet mode, turn left, turn right. That did not work well. About half the time in the demo that I saw, it did not respond. Maybe because the room was loud, maybe because the data was bad. But then he put it into face tracking mode, and when you have multiple faces, you can pick which face it tracks. And it swiveled to meet your face and it was cool. And it did work very well. I was like, this is impressive. Like, what is the use of? Why would you want it? And he was like, well, say you're doing a presentation, like you're a CEO or something doing a presentation. This way the screen with your text on it or the PowerPoint on it will follow you as you move around. And I was like, that could be useful. I don't feel like many people are in that situation often. I've never been in that situation in my life, and I speak in public for a living sometimes. So I guess, yeah, there probably is a CEO who would benefit from. There's like five of those guys. Like, what is the. This is a whole laptop product line. You have multiple versions, and I didn't get a single reason why you would want this other than that, other than for presentations. And it's genuinely impressive that it can track your face and move as you move. But why? Another product they had that was in the but why category was the Lenovo Legion. And this is not a product that's ever going to come out, but it was like a proof of concept. So it's their gaming laptop line and it has a normal screen that can widen to be three times as long, and it unfolds. They have screens that unfold, and it's cool that they could do that. And it looked neat, and it's neat that A screen has that capability. I don't want it because it also. It doesn't look. I could see, like, obviously I can see utility and, like, you can have a screen that gets bigger without it being a bigger footprint for the laptop. But when the screen is unfolded, there's huge, like, speed bump size looking like wads of screen that are bigger and, like, bulge out. And it doesn't look good. Like it's got a bad screen.
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A
It's like a little, like, bubbly.
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B
Yeah. When it's fully extended, it's not like a good screen.
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E
Okay.
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A
You said it's a perfect concept piece. Like, there's this thing.
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B
I mean, like, they're showing that they're working on folding screen technology.
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A
The twist was. Was like a previous version of that.
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B
Yes.
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A
The proof of concept called the swivel was at CES last year.
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B
Yes.
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A
And they improved it. And now it's a real product called the Twist.
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B
Right.
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A
And maybe this could be the case for this. Like, unlike unrolling, unfolding, eventually will be in products.
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B
Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I also don't think. I don't see how you cannot have the bulge. It's kind of integral to how the screen works.
- [19:04]
A
The folding screens have come a long way the past five years.
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B
I use one. They also do have some pixel dying in the fold area.
- [19:12]
A
I mean. Yeah, if you're trying to buy products for longevity, probably not the thing for you. If you like it for the novelty and for some reason have enough cash to burn, then maybe it's something someone will be interested in.
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B
As I was watching it unfold, there were two guys behind me and talking about it, and one of them was like, yeah, it's not a real. It's not going to actually come out. Like, that's even like the old version of the chassis. And I said, I just don't really see a use. I don't think people want a product like this. Like, I'm looking at it, the screen's not great, and I just don't see who's gonna buy this. And the guy behind me said, well, I think, like, the use case is, like, billionaire CEOs and other people have a lot of money. And I looked back and he was a Lenovo rep. And I was like, that's not.
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A
That's insane.
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E
Why?
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B
Who? Like, that's not like. Did you just say that to me?
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A
A Lenovo rep said that?
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B
Yeah, yeah. He was one of the guys doing the demos. He had a Lenovo badge on. And. Yeah, that was weird to me.
- [20:08]
A
That's wild.
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B
But again, at least it was a thing.
- [20:10]
A
No, it was a physical product because.
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B
The other thing they had, they had the workstation, which the thing they were showing was there was an app on it that looks at your face and shows you how fatigued you are by percent and how fatigued your eyes are and other data. And I was like, oh, that's creepy and kind of impressive. But then I walked away and I came back and it gave me a totally different set of numbers for my fatigue.
- [20:32]
A
Were you differently fatigued?
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B
No, I was a second later and I did it four times and every time the set of numbers was like, different enough that the only assumption I can make is that it was. Those aren't real numbers. It's just generating a number and telling you that. And it's full of shit. Because it wouldn't have been so different if it was actually measuring anything. It's just random numbers that it's putting on to make you think it's measure measuring something.
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A
It's. It's probably trying to. There might be just subtle things that dramatically change the number that's being.
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B
I specifically once a notice that tried to keep my face flat. And I did notice when you move closer and further, it changes, but I think it's just programmed to, as you move, alter the number so that you see the number moving. But every time I came on new, it was a different number. It went from like, when I started it was like 02. And the second time I came back it was 0.50. And again I did nothing. I was specifically keeping my face neutral. Like, it's just this. It's not a big deal.
- [21:27]
A
I think that type of stuff will get better. Like, we've seen versions of that before that have actually done like. Okay, yeah, well, there could be a lot of factors into, like, into why. Why the demo goes a certain way.
- [21:39]
B
The face tracking and facial recognition work. But I went to this booth that like, the big thing they were doing was like driving assistant robots that would like yell at you if you fell asleep or if you like looked away and were like texting or something. It would say like, look away from your phone. Look at the screen, please. And there's definitely like utility there, right? Like, that is probably a good idea.
- [22:00]
A
We saw that last year at Samsung's section of Yuri park for like, for like test taking. To like, make sure students aren't cheating at tests.
- [22:07]
E
Right?
- [22:08]
A
So it like sends an alert every time the student's eyes goes away from like the computer screen. Like if, if they like, keep, like, looking down, like, like, under. If they could be checking, like, their phone or notes.
- [22:18]
B
SmartEye is the company. One thing I did appreciate was that the little device that they put in was just like a circle with two eyes on it, as opposed to like a whole dashboard. So that seemed nice. But the thing. The thing that they had. The first thing I used was this optical recognition system where it learned my eyes. And then when I came on, it would give my name every time I walked up to it. And so, like, yeah, it definitely, like, recognizes at least your eyes. That's a different. It could switch between different people, but it was also. It can tell when you're drunk, they claim. And I couldn't tell that. I couldn't. I was high on Kratom and I had been smoking Delta 8, so I was definitely not sober. It didn't recognize me as not sober, so it couldn't measure those things. Maybe it can tell if you're drunk. The demo, they said it could. And they showed a woman when she was sober and when she was drunk. And they explained to me it was actually really difficult because we did this on a closed track and she is really drunk. And we had to jump through a lot of hoops for them to let us have a person drunk driving.
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A
That's interesting.
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B
And I did find that kind of funny. That is how you test it.
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A
That would be kind of a hard thing to test. Yeah, you can test in simulations.
- [23:21]
B
Right. But they wanted, like, this was supposed to be a proof of concept in the vehicle, and it'll shut down the car. I did have some people posting, when I posted a video of that, that, like, I have this condition with my eyes or that condition with my eyes, and normal optical recognition stuff doesn't work with me. Is this going to show that I'm drunk or is it going to, like, be able to. And I actually don't know. Again, I'm not. I was not able to test the product. That. That does seem like a concern I would hope they've dealt with. But also, I kind of doubt they did because usually there's gaps in products.
- [23:51]
A
I could see a company like this partnering with, like, an insurance company or partnering with, like, certain cars that would, like, yeah. Stop the car from being able to be. If it detects the driver is drunk.
- [24:00]
B
Yes.
- [24:00]
A
And how, like, false positives would. Would play into that. And then you just, like, are, like, locked out of your car because this robot thinks you're intoxicated and actually you're fine. You just, like, look like that And.
- [24:10]
B
I could also see them like rolling this product out and it hits like Thailand or something. And then there being a big store where it's like they didn't test this on any people of like Thai ancestry. And it actually sees all of them as drunk because of like an error in the coding. Sure. And being like, oh great. Like, like I'm not. Again, smart eye. From what I can tell, their technology worked. But in order to adequately like review and test it, you do need, you need more access to it than they're giving it the show. I can't actually tell you if it works at determining when people are drunk. I can just show you they had a video claiming it does.
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A
So one product that I feel at best mixed about, I first saw in the CES Innovation Awards section. This is called Self Insight Therapy Resolve XR from South Korea.
- [24:57]
B
Oh, one of my two favorite Koreas, by the way, just since we're talking Korea.
- [25:00]
A
This is a VR therapy program that is supposed to give. Give you a final goodbye with a deceased loved one in VR. Yes. This was my initial reaction as well. And like I've seen versions, I've seen versions of this before where it's like an LLM or like an AI.
- [25:20]
B
Yeah.
- [25:21]
A
Pretending to be your like dead wife that you like hug in VR.
- [25:25]
B
Sure.
- [25:25]
A
And that type of stuff I've, I've generally felt bad about. No, some of the people who've used it like in like you know, like the promotional videos are, you know, crying and I feel and like the product in a way.
- [25:36]
B
As a friend, I will promise you if that moment ever comes for you, I'll pretend to be your dead wife.
- [25:41]
A
I don't even know what to say to that. I've. But what I found interesting about Resolve XR is that the, the avatar of your deceased loved one is not. That's a bleak term, is not actually an AI, nor is it a fully pre recorded, like, pre scripted, like simulation. It is being puppeted by a therapist that you are working with as a part of the Gestalt empty chair therapy technique. And this, this is what the product does. So you're working with a therapist who is using text to speech that is talking as your deceased, as your deceased loved one as a part of this therapy exercise. If you have, if you have recordings of their voice, the AI will try to replicate their voice. That's something I feel a little bit odd about. But like, that is like the one like aspect of like, of like quote unquote AI that's being used here is, is for. Is for the voice cloning. And then there's like a pre, A pre recorded set of like, gestures that someone does in like, motion capture. But the actual, like, like live puppeting of this thing is done by a therapist that you were sitting across from, but you have, you know, VR goggles on. And this is, this is not supposed to be something that you do, like, routinely. It's not like, oh, I'm, like, I'm talking to my wife. Like, my wife is in VR. It's. This is a therapeutic exercise meant for people dealing with extreme grief, specifically when loved ones have been taken away during like, like, like accidents. Like, they specifically mentioned like a plane crash that happened a year ago. And so this is for people like, in extreme, extreme grief to give them, like, closure through this therapeutic exercise. And this is, this is, this is the, this is the pamphlet.
- [27:18]
B
I went through a lot of whiplash because obviously my first assumption was this is an evil product where you, like, feed your loved ones social media data and it pretends to be them. And it's not that. And it's good that it's not that, but then it's like it's being basically a therapist puppeting your dead loved one. There's a couple of conclusions I have. First off, these people are trying to be ethical. It does seem. It seems like they care and they are attempting to provide something that is useful to people who are suffering. I also think this might fundamentally. This idea might be fundamentally unethical and impossible to do well. So I think this might be a case of someone trying to do the most ethical version of something that cannot be done ethically, which is a category of AI device that I've seen this year.
- [28:03]
E
I. It's tricky because on one hand, you know, as I was talking to the woman at the booth and reading through the materials they had, it seemed like they were selling this as this is just sort of augmentation to a therapeutic practice that is already done. We're just putting a, you know, a digitally generated face and voice to it. But it's so. I mean, it's so easy to imagine. Just this company seems somewhat ethically focused, but all kinds of directions you could go in this. It's a Pandora's box. A little bit of like we're starting to venture into creating replicas of the dead. Yeah. And that is.
- [28:48]
B
And I went to a panel kind of in the same tone on mental health and AI that I thought was going to be an opportunity for me to harass an executive during A Q&A because which is.
- [29:00]
A
Which is one of your favorite CES.
- [29:01]
B
Activities, favorite thing to do at CES. And there literally is like, AI. There's ample data that it is a disaster for mental health, not just AI psychosis, but there are a lot of things that it makes worse and a lot of problems that it causes people, and a lot of problems that it exacerbates, including like suicidal ideation. This is documented. There's data on it. So that's what I was. I was showing up prepared to do that. And what I actually got was an actual clinical therapist who was trying to talk about, who first started by kind of by very much admitting the dangers with AI and the things that it harms in terms of mental health, and then was trying to say, what would a responsible and ethical, like therapeutic AI do? And her argument was, we know how many people need therapy and don't have access to it, both in the United States and worldwide. And some sort of automated bot system that handles aspects of therapy might be the only way to provide affordable therapy to the number of people who need it, who can't currently afford it. And I disagree. Or at least I. I don't think that. I don't disagree. It's accurate that there's way more people who need mental health than can afford it. Right? That's undeniable, undebatable. I disagree that AI can help this problem in any meaningful way and in fact think it will only make it worse. But I understand that she was coming at this from a. I am attempting to define what a responsible therapeutic AI might do. And through the course of that, I believe she is, partially because I talked to her about this afterwards too. She thinks it might be possible, but is not convinced that it is in fact possible for there to be an AI therapy system that is actually useful. And one of the things she brought up was that traditional AI chatbots, the big ones, are all programmed to gas you up to. In order to keep you using them. Right? They're programmed to make you want to continue to interact with them. And so it does things that are really bad for your mental health and that can exacerbate and cause new problems. Right. Because of the way these are programmed. So any responsible AI therapy chatbot would have to not do that. Which I'm like, that is true that you can't be a useful therapeutic tool that only praises people. Right? That's just not a thing. But when I came up to you afterwards, I was like, my issue is, I think you're right about that. But I also Think if you're saying the AI therapy bot is going to be a separate product that does not do these things. Number one, it's a high bar to get people to pay money for a tool when they already have the chatbot. And number two, if the chatbot that is good for them doesn't do the thing that makes it addictive, people will continue to use the addictive one for therapy. And she said, yeah, that's my worry too. And so I came away from being like, she's trying to explore if this can be done. And my conclusion based on her exploration is it can't.
- [31:51]
E
But it's so interesting that she said that because she. And this is. I mean, me hearing you talk about her. She sounds like the only person who was thinking about this at all at.
- [32:00]
B
This convention, and she was the only person on the panel.
- [32:02]
E
Yeah, of. Of just.
- [32:03]
B
It was a speech, not a panel, really. Yeah.
- [32:05]
E
Of thinking about that. What are the social relations behind these technologies? Because, of course, that's the main question here is a technology that can generate. That can have a conversation with you is one thing. It's not. That really doesn't seem like the core of the problem so much as. Well, all the machines that are having conversations are driven by very specific incentives to interact with their users in a particular way that has everything to do with the social relationships of their production and use. And the notion that technology would have any connection to social relations at all is completely absent from any discussion of any product I've seen here.
- [32:46]
B
Speaking of social relations between products and human beings, here's some ads. Oh, we're back. And God, I really love those Chumba casino ads. They remind me that whenever I'm out in the world sitting down with my loved ones, you know, watching the big game, I could be gambling. And kind of every other moment of my life that I'm not gambling is wasted.
- [33:20]
A
Robert, have you heard of Kalshee?
- [33:22]
B
No.
- [33:23]
A
So you know about politics, right?
- [33:25]
B
I love politics.
- [33:25]
A
And you know about insider trading, right?
- [33:27]
B
I love insider trading.
- [33:28]
A
What if you could do insider trading about all of politics on the exclusive information that you learn as a journalist?
- [33:34]
B
Wow, that sounds legal.
- [33:36]
A
It shockingly is. There's actually zero federal or state regulation affecting this whatsoever.
- [33:42]
B
That's the cow.
- [33:43]
A
She guarantee there is no regulatory mechanism that exists on a state level to regulate this behavior.
- [33:48]
B
Now years. And you say that, but that's literally just what's printed above their booth.
- [33:53]
A
Let's talk about maybe the worst product that I saw at ces. Child Free Trust.
- [33:59]
B
Boy. So What I don't know, is it like a software that lets you make a trust?
- [34:04]
E
This software was marketed towards child free people. They, they lead with 25% of Americans don't have children and don't intend to have them.
- [34:15]
B
Hell yeah.
- [34:17]
E
Yeah. And so their idea is that they write here, child free trust is the first comprehensive nationwide solution providing medical and financial POA executor and trustee representation for child free and permanently childless people. So if you are childless and you don't want to burden your loved ones, that's their wording with, you know, your estate plan when you die. This is a company that will do that for you. What's interesting though is that I asked them, I said, well, you know, this presumably already happens. What is in place?
- [34:51]
B
I have a trust in no children. Yes.
- [34:53]
E
Yeah. Well the state appoints someone to handle this. They will first see if that you have, if you have any loved ones who would want to take on these duties.
- [35:03]
B
And obviously people without kids aren't capable of love.
- [35:05]
E
So yeah, yeah, they, a little bit. I mean strangely like so it's a product that is for. We already have a public service that searches for people, loved ones that could take on these responsibilities and if it cannot find those, it takes it on as a, as a public good. So it was, it was a product completely without purpose. It was like you, in order to use this you just have to be intent on, on separating yourself from society in this way you have no loved ones presumably or you don't want them involved in your estate planning. You also don't want the state involved. So it requires this, this third party company. It was just a very strange product the way they presented it.
- [35:45]
B
Well, I mean it's again, I have a trust and a will. If you don't have a kid and you don't have like a, you're not like married or you don't have a surviving spouse. Like yes, the state will appoint somebody, but that process is slower and more expensive if you want to avoid the cost or if you want to avoid like having a trust and a will is not an unreasonable thing. Especially if you want to make sure, if you have assets and you want to make sure they go a specific place, you want to donate them somewhere or whatever.
- [36:11]
A
Well, and like a lawyer can handle that.
- [36:13]
B
A lawyer should handle that. Is what I'm saying is you shouldn't use an app specifically.
- [36:18]
A
What they do that the lawyer can't is they provide a service for the corporation to execute power of attorney and that is the main thing. So this is the most anti social, this is the most antisocial service I've seen at all of ces because it's built on this idea that if you have no kids and you are so separated from the rest of your family, like you don't trust any siblings, you don't trust a spouse, a partner maybe you don't have one, you don't trust parents, you don't even trust a friend to.
- [36:45]
B
Yeah.
- [36:46]
A
To like do this for you instead that you turn to a company, a private company. You don't even trust the state. Right. Because the state can handle this. It is a private corporation that is going to handle your will, your estate and power of attorney.
- [37:00]
B
That's that POA thing.
- [37:02]
A
What really, that's what really got me because I asked them, it's like, yeah, like a lawyer can handle all this. Like, well, no, regular lawyer can't be power of attorney. And I was like, oh, this is the core of your product actually is that it's for people who are so antisocial, who have so. Who have so separated themselves that they don't trust, they don't trust anyone with this. They don't have any loved ones really. It's not just about being child free. No, it's like it's about you do not exist in like in a social network whatsoever.
- [37:29]
B
Because I can see the kind of people who might need this are people or might want this are not the people kind of people who use apps. Because the actual, the group of people who definitely don't have kids and also may not have any living friends are people who are incredibly elderly. It's not even a factor of like their life is bleak. It's just that you lived way too long. You literally don't have anyone left that you knew. But they're not going to use an app. Like that's just not how they think about if they don't have a lawyer, they'll let have the state handle it. But like they're not, they're not going to download the child free app, this 104 year old Okinawan woman to like handle this for them. There's like a graph on the bottom that shows like features and like what different versions have which features. And the three features are child free, trust, trust and will. And then free will as one word, but the W is capitalized. I just like seeing free will and then checks and Xs at the bottom. You don't get free will on all of the options. Sorry, what is free will as a service garrison? Are they saying the machine has it or is it literally a free will making service?
- [38:28]
A
I think it's creating a will for.
- [38:30]
B
Free, and they're just calling it free will.
- [38:31]
A
I think that's what they're doing.
- [38:32]
B
Okay.
- [38:34]
A
I mean, but yeah, no, and this was in. This was in Eureka Park.
- [38:38]
B
Yeah. Which is where the cool little products are. That's bad.
- [38:42]
A
Yeah, it was really bizarre.
- [38:44]
B
Yeah. There's a fun bit that you could do if you had the money to show up and just do bits at ces where it's like, this company can handle all of your end of life care and decisions, and it's just a booth with a handgun on a table.
- [38:56]
A
So let's talk about to close. Let's just discuss, like, what this CES kind of means in general. We already kind of discussed, like, the AI angle of this, and something that we've seen throughout this show is these massive banners hanging everywhere about how CES is where innovators show up.
- [39:12]
B
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
- [39:13]
A
And in how everything's based around innovation and creativity, this is where everything descends from. And this sort of like. Like tech idealism that the world is based around these concepts of innovation and creativity, and they do not mention any. Any physical way that actually comes into the world or the sort of mechanisms of the world that allow innovation to take place. And, Ben, we've been talking a lot about this the past, like, two days.
- [39:41]
E
I mean, it's all. We're solving all the problems of the world and we're fixing everything, and it's all eternal sunshine. And where that comes from is innovation and creativity. But those are just. Yeah, totally abstract quantities. There's not even a subject given of, like, innovators. Well, who. Who is that?
- [39:59]
B
Like, you're innovating.
- [40:01]
E
Yeah. If you. Is that the owner? Is that the workers who make it? I mean, no mention of labor at any point in any of this, which, I mean, that's a given.
- [40:10]
B
But that's not true. They talked about all the laborers you could replace.
- [40:13]
E
Yeah, all right. You can.
- [40:14]
A
We don't need them.
- [40:15]
E
It's. The innovation is. This is drawn the full circle. It produces itself now. Yeah, just this abstract quantum of. I mean, it really is kind of interesting. It does become a blur of, like, who is the magical font producing all of this stuff? It almost. At sometimes it almost seems like it's the consumer. It's sort of suggesting it's actually you who creates all of this. It was very vague, very strange.
- [40:41]
A
We went to that one panel about, like, trying to address underserved people who are who are like, cut out of tech and like, cut out of. Cut out of all of these, like, industries.
- [40:51]
E
Yeah, I mean, it was very nondescript about who exactly that was. Yeah, they had people talking for the paralyzed veterans, someone from the naacp. And I mean, it was just one. Again, there was no actual discussion of the social relationships behind technology. It was just entirely about this. Technology is here. It. It is the first priority, so everything else has to follow after. And yeah, very unclear about they. They would all talk about what technology could be used for, but entirely nondescript about where that process comes from, who's making those decisions, where those centers of power are.
- [41:29]
B
The reach to have an. For existing brands and companies that make real things. To have an AI angle was the most obvious and tortured thing that I saw. And like, one of my favorite booths every year is the Jackery booth. Jackery makes batteries and solar panels. And they make pretty good batteries and solar panels for like, expeditions, for camping. Like, they're rugged. They can and I use them. They're good products. And this year they had the new edition of all their batteries and the new addition of all their solar panels. And as generally happens with technology, everything's a little better than it was last year. But there's not much room for AI aside from, like, the batteries have AI, by which they mean there's like a learning algorithm that can determine, like, how to optimize aspects of like, power draw or whatever. Like, sure, that's not really AI in the way that the AI industry means it, but I sure sounds real. But because that wasn't enough, they had this thing that they called their Mars rover, which was not a Mars rover. I don't think we'll ever go on Mars. Does not look like it could survive on Mars. But it is a rover that is a big battery on wheels that is intelligent and can drive itself and has solar panels that slide out. And the use case for this was it will travel around and can go to where the sun is in order to charge itself up and then head to you to offer you outlets when you're doing work. And it's like, is a robot that moves really? I can see like two points in my life where I might have gotten used to who's going to buy this for what? Where will it be deployed? It just roams around outside this expensive machine that does not look like it should get rained on too much and finds the sun to charge itself up and then heads over to you to charge device. It can't charge a home. It doesn't power a house. It's like a little robot.
- [43:08]
A
Is it for, like, camping?
- [43:10]
B
I don't know. That was unclear. They showed it being used and they showed it as, like, I'm outside and using power tools. The robot came up to me so I could plug in and, like, I.
- [43:18]
A
Guess you could take, like, the park. You could take it to park.
- [43:21]
B
But it's big.
- [43:22]
A
It is pretty big.
- [43:22]
B
It's like a sizable machine. It probably weighed 80 pounds. And again, like, it's impressive that it can go seek out the sun to charge itself up. It's impressive that you could, like, call it or, like, call it with an app and it will come over to you. And there's an outlet. Who. What is the. Who will buy this? Why? When.
- [43:41]
A
That is an odd one again.
- [43:43]
B
I can think, working in my yard, working out, you know, when I'm shearing the goats or whatever. I have had to carry a battery with me because there's not an outlet out there and the shears need a battery. And yeah, I guess it would be easier if the robot moved there, but this has to be like $20,000. I'm not gonna buy a robot to do that. I can just pick up a battery and walk with it a hundred feet. Who will use this? Why? It's not going to Mars. I assure you, it's not going to Mars. Again, I wouldn't want it to be left out in the rain. And I love the Jackery products. They make good stuff. And the fact that, like, yeah, you clearly scrambled to make this, that you had a thing that could compete with all the other AI things. And I wish you were just devoting your lives to making better solar panels, which is what I want from you.
- [44:33]
E
Anyway, I'm just curious, are the companies here, are they profitable? Like, do they.
- [44:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, some of them, some.
- [44:40]
E
Of them, but a lot. I mean, some of them are funded.
- [44:43]
B
With VC money and have not made a profit. Some of them are funded from VC money and have been losing money for years. And then there's also like, like Lenovo makes. It's a company, it makes a profit. They make products people buy. You know, Jackery makes products people buy.
- [44:54]
A
There's also a lot of startups, like the Eureka park section that we've been referring to, like the. The stuff in the bottom floor of the Venetian, that those are, you know, a lot of startup companies who are looking for investors as well. So, yeah, it is definitely a mix. Some of them are trying to do, like, business to business sales. Some of them are more consumer Facing. Some of them are looking for investors, some of them are profitable, and other ones are trying to boost their stock price by being here. Kind of like Cloyd at lg. But I think what's really important is that everyone here is an innovator. And you know why we know that they're an innovator? It's because they've shown up. And only innovators show up here. And they're the real driving force of the economy.
- [45:32]
B
And honestly, I was feeling bad about myself until I saw that banner and realized that I am an innovator. You know, you are an innovator. Thank you. I showed up and I figured out how to be the guy on the most kratom at the, at the CES show floor.
- [45:45]
A
No, I mean CES is so, is so interesting. I innovated like it runs on both, on this like technology idealism where everything is based on people geniuses, you know, your Steve Jobs having like an idea job and he is like the innovator and everything descends from the idea that it's like the thing is this like, like tech Platonism. So this is one side of it. You also have like the tech accelerationists at CES where it's like they occupy this position of being so pro technology, no matter whatever downsides the current iteration might have, because they need someone to hold that position in order for this thing to move forward. They know that there's concerns around data protection, but their opinion is that it doesn't matter. There is problems there. But we, we, the people here at ces, the innovators need to ignore them because we have to push forward. And this is like, this is what like the, the Austrian Secretary of State said that at that one panel I went to is like data protection is a problem, but you know, but like it gets in the way of innovation.
- [46:43]
B
Yeah.
- [46:43]
A
And that's literally, literally what he said.
- [46:45]
B
Yeah.
- [46:46]
A
And so you have, you have this like, this, this like tech optimistic, like acceleration, like viewpoint of like technology will be better, but in order for it to be better and save us, eventually it's, it's going to, it's kind of shitty and has some problems now. But we need to push forward through that all the way. Like we can't, we can't, we can't go slowly. It has, it has to go forward. So they adopt this, this viewpoint because like they need someone to hold this like tech optimism viewpoint in order for the process to like unfold.
- [47:13]
E
Yeah, there's something strangely clear eyed about that in the way that it's like, yeah, if. I mean, if you're limiting your view to the system of capitalism, yeah. The whole thing goes into crisis if you are not squeezing a little more juice out of the orange. And if this is what it takes to do that, then. Then full steam ahead. They're lucid about that. Yeah.
- [47:33]
A
Yeah.
- [47:33]
B
You know what else is lucid? Us saying it's time to end this fucking podcast. Goodbye.
- [47:39]
A
Another CES miracle. We have kind of survived.
- [47:46]
B
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.
- [47:57]
A
Or wherever you listen to podcast.
- [47:59]
B
You can now find sources for It.
- [48:01]
A
Could Happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
- [48:03]
B
Thanks for listening.
- [48:05]
A
This is an I heart podcast.
- [48:07]
B
Guaranteed human.