CES is officially over, which means it's time to talk about the weird stuff.
And so today's video will also be a little weird in regards to its structure.
Which stories are quick bits? We don't know! AI startup Rabbit came out of nowhere and took CES by storm with the announcement of the R1,
a $200 device that dares to ask the question, what if the Google Assistant was good?
CEO and founder Jesse Liu claims the slick looking device,
co-designed with Teenage Engineering, is powered by a large action model, or L-A-M.
Lam. Thank you. That can, similarly to the $700 humane AI pin, act as a sort of universal voice assistant,
performing actions on computer applications as if it was a human with a soul.
It thinks it's people. Apparently, the model was trained by humans using popular apps so it could learn, for example,
what a settings icon or an order now button looks like, even though those should be pretty
self-explanatory. But if it's still too dumb to figure something out, you can enter training mode and teach the
device specific tasks yourself. As an example, Liu says you could walk the R1 through the steps
to remove a watermark from a Photoshop image, and after just 30 seconds of processing,
the device will then be able to automatically remove all watermarks going forward.
Kinda weird that I have to teach the AI how to steal content, but whatever.
Why would they make that the demo it does? The R1 has really fired up the AI true believers, and to be fair, a $200 device with no subscription
that promises that IT is what everyone thought Siri and Alexa were going to be.
It does sound cool. It also maybe sounds too good to be true, but that didn't stop the company from selling out
two 10,000 unit pre-order batches in just two days.
And can 20,000 tech bros be wrong? Automakers made a splash at CES this year with Hyundai announcing they want to make hydrogen
cool again, now that everyone is kinda cooling off on EVs.
The South Korean company claims it wants to help make the infrastructure for a hydrogen society
and fuel it by making hydrogen gas out of plastic and sewage.
Is that every hole? Yep. What water?
Hyundai's head of fuel cell development says sewage can be digested by a microorganism to
create biogas, and that biogas can be upgraded into hydrogen.
To be fair, anything is an upgrade when you're technically poop, made from poop.
That's what biogas is. Oh, like methane.
Other automakers had different ideas. Honda decided to promote their upcoming zero series of EVs by not talking much about them
and showing concept cars instead. Allegedly, the first zero series model is based on one of the concepts, but we have no idea what
that means. But at least they actually make cars. LG decided to design a car just to advertise what they think the future looks like.
They put a fridge in the front of the cabin so it could pick up groceries for you since the car
is autonomous. Something that's really easy to say about a fake car.
If you decide you want to drive it, however, a steering wheel will pop out on command.
That doesn't drive the car.
It'll just make you feel like you're driving. Again, you cannot drive it.
But all 700 of the displays inside the concept look great.
Nice job, LG. Samsung reintroduced their Bali robot that debuted at CES 2020, but now it's got a new
look and may actually be released this year. If you didn't know, Bali is a ball.
Sat on three wheels that patrols your house and sends you texts about what's happening
at home while you're not there. Like a six-year-old that caught a hold of someone's smartphone.
I moved my Legos. According to the YouTube video, Bali has a projector it can use to entertain your dog
with bird videos or extravagantly welcome you back home.
Other than the projector, it seems a lot like LG's Q9 robot we previously covered.
But without the eyes that look like they've seen things, they can never unsee.
If Bali doesn't do enough for your dog, there's the Oro Dog Companion,
a smart bot specifically designed as a pet nanny.
It connects to an automatic pet feeder to dispense meals,
but the robot can dispense treats by itself and has a ball thrower for playing fetch.
It even has two-way audio and a video screen so you can talk to your dog.
For just $800, you can have a parasocial relationship with your own pet,
for people who like the idea of having a dog.
If you don't feel like your dog is doing enough for you,
Hong Kong-based startup Zoo Gears can help turn your pooch into your personal pianist.
Sort of. Their device called the butter?
What consists of four light-up buttons that you can train your dog to play?
And if you don't want to give out the treats yourself, there's an upcoming feeder attachment that will automatically reward your dog.
Now, your hands are free enough to jam alongside Fido in a two-piece band.
Go on tour, call yourselves Simon and Raar Funkel, and you'll be a hit.
Why? Why do you want-
Because it's cute, it looks cute. Oh, on the subject of dog music, Japanese startup One by One Music
trained an AI to make music specifically for dogs struggling with separation anxiety.
Oh, this is perfect for all the dogs that it will be taken care of by these robots.
The company claims that many dogs adopted during the pandemic
are having a hard time with their humans heading back to the office.
Their solution is AI-generated music you leave on when you head out for work,
but they don't know the difference. Sure, it costs $7 a month, but One by One claims your dog's stress
can be reduced by 84% just by having their AI DJ play lo-fi beats to chill slash sniff butts to.
Which would be perfect if there were any butts around for them to sniff, but no one's there.
But fret not, cat lovers, there's even some weird tech for you.
A Swiss startup called Flappy showed off an AI-powered cat door
that locks automatically if your feline friend tries to bring in a mouse or other prey.
Because they're a lonely as s***. None of these pets have friends.
Yeah, that's why the cat's got a mouse in his mouth. He wants to be its friend.
He wants a friend, but he doesn't know how not to kill the mouse. The company claims it has a unique and proprietary dataset of videos featuring
different cats in different lighting conditions holding different things in their mouth.
The startup also claims the cat flap's assessments are right more than 90% of the time.
So you may still get the occasional mouse.
But come on, your cat works 30 minutes a day to try and put food on the table,
and this is the thanks it gets? Getting the door slammed?
I only get 14 hours of sleep a day. Now it's time.
And away! We now continue this special oops all quick bits episode of Techlinked.
It's not part of a balanced breakfast, it's too much sugar. In a slightly expected move, Kohler debuted smart shower technology,
so alluring one tech radar journalist was nearly driven to public indecency just for a rinse.
The company showed off a multi-sensory showering experience using their Anthem Plus showering
system, thankfully unrelated to the game. The tech allows users to control lighting, sound, water temperature and flow and even steam.
The system can be controlled with Google Home or Amazon Alexa and costs only hundreds.
Not including the compatible thermostatic valve required for installation.
Though to be fair, if you own a shower with six shower outlets, you can afford a $2,000 valve.
You could probably also afford the PureWash E930 Bedet toilet seat that lets you ask Google
to clean your butt. Aside from voice control, the seat has motion activated opening and closing,
UV self-cleaning and even a child safe mode.
I wouldn't let my child anywhere near this thing, but okay. You don't love them enough to have a clean butt?
If you like looking at birds but can't be bothered to learn their names,
Swarovski Optic has a solution for you.
Their AX Visio are a set of 10x magnification binoculars that also features an AI that will
identify over 9,000 species of birds and other wildlife.
The best part is, you won't know whether it's making it up. After identifying the subject, text will pop up with a species name like a Bethesda RPG.
Even better, the binoculars are actually a camera.
Now, you can always remember the moment. You finally spotted a fluffy-backed tit babbler.
Real bird. BIRDFACTS!
Motion-capturing gloves aren't the newest tech in the world, but what the palm plug has going for it is the fact that it doesn't make you look like your
idea of a hacker hasn't been updated since the 80s. Its minimalist design will no doubt make it more welcoming to patients with limited mobility,
since palm plugs creators designed it partially for therapeutic purposes.
But it's also got haptic feedback and can be pre-ordered for just 350 bucks,
so you're also allowed to use it for gaming or to bypass the virtual reality firewall
protecting the greed-corp servers. This ominous looking box with a hand hole will give you a manicure in less than 25 minutes,
complete with a poison needle lest you remove your hand too early.
Fear may be the mind-killer, but this device called the Nimble will give you killer nails,
using machine-vision-enabled sensors, a tiny robotic ARM, and a fan for quick drying.
Nimble's founder, Omri Moran, says he got the idea for the device after having to wait for his date
to arrive because she was trying to fix her botched manicure at home.
He decided to invent a device, so he'd never have to wait at a table alone again.
And Adam X isn't your typical CPR dummy.
He can breathe, his pupils can dilate, and he can even piss blood.
Was this written by AI? He's tall, he's handsome, he pisses blood.
The AI doesn't know that we don't piss blood yet. He was designed by the company Medical X to possess the same skeletal and anatomical structure of a
human to simulate a multitude of medical scenarios.
Everything from intubation and IV insertions to literally puncturing his lung or removing his limbs.
Apparently, an update is planned to give Adam X a voice via GPT technology.
I see no problems with putting AI inside of the robot designed to be tortured.
Worked great for the attendees at Westworld. You turn it on, it just screams.
Ah, turn me off, turn me off! And it would work great for me if you came back on Monday for more tech news.
We promise it will be 100% robot torture free.
Just news.