The Best of CES

Here’s our take on the Consumer Electronics Show in five words: gadgets, gizmos, geeks, gear, and glitter. While Back to the Future missed the mark on what how 2015 would look, CES offered some technology that’s just as cool as those hoverboards.

Self-driving cars? Boring! Mercedes-Benz showcased its F 015 – which resembles a spaceship more than a car—an autonomous driving car that helps the elderly cross the street. While beaming a crosswalk onto the road, the car delivers an audio prompt notifying nearby pedestrians. How polite. It’s just a concept car, but it’s an amazing indication for the road ahead.

PCMag named the Lenovo Vibe Band VB10 the best smartwatch of CES because of its high battery life (a full week on a single charge), wearability, and reasonable price (under $90). The VB10 functions to track your fitness, sleep, steps, exercise, and eating habits.

Mobile Industry Review named the Lenovo Vibe Xtension Selfie Flash the best accessory of CES. Move over ‘selfie stick’, the Vibe Extension uses an LED ring to illuminate all your self-portraits. Simply plug in the accessory to your headphone jack and the flash will light up the darkest of rooms, almost as much as your smile.

Standard cable and satellite providers are embracing their demise through investments in streaming television online. The Dish Network’s new Sling TV provides new channels, like ESPN, that previously kept customers tied to their chord, or dish. Fast Company believes the ability to unclip televisions from your wall and into the rest of the world will bring innovative ways to interact with content.

The Tao Chair promises to put an ‘invisible gym in the living room’, letting the ‘sitter’ perform core and leg exercises through the chair’s armrests. An integrated app helps coach the user’s workout as well as tracking their exercise progress. The chair is ideal for those with disabilities, often stymied by traditional workout facilities.

Ignoring the clumsy name Baby Glgl (as in ‘glug glug’), this bottle case is smart. Calculating the weight and angle of the baby bottle, Baby Glgl then gauges the ideal degree inclination of its beverage to prevent the baby from sipping painful air bubbles with its milk. Plus, parents are reminded with a pair of motion-sensing arrows signaling when the bottle is tilted too high or too low.