Cabinet of Curiosities at CES 2023

Every year, tech companies present their most original innovations at CES in Las Vegas. I found these six to be bizarre and impressive in equal measure.

The live streaming oven

On the subject of original products at CES, it usually doesn't take ten seconds for the name Samsung to come up. These include screens with absurd dimensions - last year, the Odyssey Ark, this year the Odyssey Neo G9. Equally whimsical are some of Samsung's new kitchen appliances. They give "consumers even more ways to express themselves in their kitchen," the Samsung media release says. Among those options is a four-door refrigerator with a built-in 32-inch monitor that will only appear in the US outside Korea.

You can express your personality even better with the Bespoke AI Oven, which is also available in Europe. With a built-in camera, the oven detects whether the dish is burnt - because you would never see or smell it yourself. This is done, how could it be otherwise, by means of artificial intelligence. Since there's a camera in it anyway, you can also create a time-lapse video or - according to theverge.com - set up a livestream on social media.

The urine tracker

The place to use the Withings U-Scan is in your own toilet bowl. "Gadget recognises user by urine stream" headlines heise.de, and a reader asks whether the thing can be used for two-factor authentication. Seriously, the device is supposed to enable private individuals to measure biomarkers in their urine themselves. For example, hormones to predict the menstrual cycle. This not entirely insensitive personal data ends up in the cloud on a smartphone app, as is customary with Withings. You can do it, but you don't have to.

Withings is by no means the only company dedicated to urine testing. Also on display at CES were solutions from Yellosis, Vivoo and Olive.

The real wireless TV

If everything the start-up Displace TV promises is true, it's not a curiosity, but a revolution. The eponymous TV can be attached to any reasonably smooth surface with two huge suction cups on the back. The cumbersome wall mounting is no longer necessary. Even better: the set does not need any cables. Not just without an HDMI cable, but also without a power cable. The Displace TV has several batteries that can be pulled out and replaced during operation. The batteries are supposed to last for a month if the TV runs for six hours a day. Despite the huge batteries, the 55-inch TV weighs only 9 kilograms. It uses OLED technology and costs about 3000 dollars. It is a prototype for which only 100 orders will be accepted at the beginning. It all sounds too good to be true to me. Let's wait and see.

The eyebrow tattoo artist

L'Oreal showed off a device at CES called Brow Magic. It's supposed to draw your perfect eyebrows on its own. First, you scan your face with an app and select a specific look in a preview. Then you run the device over your forehead. That's it. The technology works similarly to temporary tattoos.

Getting on the treadmill

Fear of a power shortage has taken strange turns in the past year. The Acer eKinekt BD 3, a home trainer with an integrated desk, fits the bill. The idea behind it: While doing mental work, physical work is also done and this is converted into electricity. By cycling on the spot at 60 revolutions per minute, the device, or rather its athletic user, generates 75 watts.

The desk and thus the handlebar grips can be moved - depending on whether you lean forward athletically or type upright on your notebook. Recycled plastic, a cup holder, USB-A and USB-C ports, plus a smartphone app - Acer has thought of everything. Except that no one wants to work like this. If anything, people will probably use this product for something else: Watching Netflix series without feeling lazy and useless.

Whatever the case, the product should be available from summer 2023 for around a grand.

The touch chameleon

At last year's CES, BMW showed off a concept car that can change its exterior. Similar to e-book readers, e-ink technology is used. Last year, the car was monochrome, this year it became a colourful chameleon.

The BMW i Vision Dee concept car also has a rather unusual interior. The windscreen is a "central control element". It replaces all touch screens and displays content for an augmented reality world. Or even a completely virtual world. BMW completely dispenses with physical controls - i.e. buttons. This looks beautiful, but is probably as practical as touch screens in the kitchen.
.