@CES: Top 5 freshest gadgets – Connected Magazine

About

Get Help & Info

@CES: Top 5 freshest gadgets
Here are our 5 favourite bits of kit from Digital Experience 2012 leading up to the International Consumer Electronics Show 2012. Atari Arcade anyone?
By Connected Magazine | Posted: Jan 10th, 2012

emPower PixelOptics
We’re not yet at an age where bifocals are required... but it’s getting close. When the time comes, these are the specs we’ll be after. Pixel Optics eyewear use a transparent liquid crystal display (LCD) to change the focal point of your glasses, from far- to near-sighted correction. You can opt to selectively turn the near-sighted vision correction on or off by pressing a button or the glasses can automatically turn on near vision correction when you tilt your head down. For example, to read a book. Having to charge your glasses on the night stand every few days seems to us a small price to pay for robot vision. $1,200? Well, that’s not such a small price to pay.
AR Drone 2
The AR Drone never fails to draw a crowd at tradeshows. Here at CES 2012 that’s as true as it ever was, now said crowd can be seen in HD thanks to the 720p camera spec boost. The AR Drone 2, like its predecessor, is controlled via your iPhone, iPad or Android device. You can see what the Drone sees on your smartphone screen. Also new to version 2, the ‘Absolute Control’ scheme where, rather than having users adjust to the Drone’s orientation when controlling it using the accelerometer in their phone, the Drone now does the compensating. No matter which way the Drone 2 is facing, tilting your phone away from you will send the buzzing quadracopter in that direction. Tilt toward you and, well, you get the idea. We’ll be waiting until Q2 of 2012 before it’s available in stores with an expected $300 price tag.
Nest Thermostat
Nest is the coolest thermostat going. Not that that’s really saying a great deal. Nest is the iPod of thermostats. Where other manufactures make devices that are needlessly complex with near zero aesthetic appeal, Nest is taking a different tack. It looks like a chunk of obsidian. It’s got a matte metal bezel that, fully acknowledging that this is going to sound weird -- is a joy to twist. It’s the first thermostat we’ve seen with a full colour display. It’s Wi-Fi enabled and can communicate with other Nest thermostats as well as on the Internet at large for things like local weather which it uses to make intelligent heating and cooling decisions. It can be controlled via your iPad, iPhone or any other web-enabled device. It learns from you as opposed to needing to be programmed. Here’s where things take a turn for the worse though. It’s not yet available in Canada. No word on when specifically it’s coming, but coming it is, Nest reps assure us. We’ll see you in the store line up when that day comes.
Atari Arcade
We’ve seen this guy in pictures, but never in the flesh (or is that plastic casing?) The Atari Arcade is an iPad dock with a difference. When coupled with the Atari’s Greatest Hits app for Duo, it turns your iPad into a mini arcade machine, no quarters required. It’s got a suitably old-school joystick and four buttons to help you smash through marauding Space Invaders before they can... well, invade your space.
Energizer iSurge Travel Charger Station
Imagine you’re travelling to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say CES 2012. You’ve got a laptop in the hotel room, an iPad, an iPod, an Android phone and... a little achluophobia, fear of the dark. Come back to the hotel room after a day on the show floor and all your devices are dead. Rather than unplugging all the lamps in the room to try to find enough outlets to charge your stuff, plug everything into the iSurge’s three surge protected outlets, two USB ports or just dock right to the 30-pin connector on top of the device. Turn on the night light if you so desire and hit the hay. We acknowledge that it’s not the sexiest bit of kit going at CES 2012, but it is the one we most wanted to leave Digital Experience with.