Sample Space Like Costco
The AI-driven, robotic ping pong player from CES 2020. Credit: Paustian Each year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada offers a chance to see the most promising and impactful technologies on the horizon and look back at past shows to see the trajectories technology has followed. It is at once inspiring and overwhelming. When I attended CES in 2000, many of the technologies we take for granted today—flash drives, Internet gaming, Bluetooth wireless technology, smartphones, and even cell phones with built-in cameras–– didn’t exist. Many products on display now incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), automation, and robotics. This year’s line-up included voice-activated automatic frying pans, “bionic” floor cleaning machines that simultaneously sweep, mop, and dry floors, golf balls with Bluetooth trackers to make them easier to find, baby beds that monitor an infant’s vitals while rocking it to sleep, and weara