It's day four of our CES 2025 coverage and I've barely talked about wacky robots at all.
Well, turns out there were lots of robots at CES this year, which makes sense. Robotics is kind
of in the middle of its chat GPT moment, or at least NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong wants that,
very badly, having debuted new AI-powered tools to develop and train autonomous robots. I mean,
if we have advanced AI that hallucinates and we don't stick it in a super-powered metal body,
what are we doing? Case in point, the go-to dog robot from Chinese company Unitry, who describes
it as a new creature of embodied AI and seemingly can't publish a single video where it doesn't do
a handstand. It just learned and it's very excited. Unitry says the go-to can use generative AI to
interpret spoken commands, so it figures out how to shake hands when you ask, but ask for a glass
of water and give me some water. Uh, what kind of robot did I buy? I don't know, you don't have
to do that. The go-to seems fairly physically capable, but it's actually a much more consumer-friendly,
safer version of Unitry's terrifying wheeled B2W robot, which has been demoed doing a barrel
roll in midair and other insane parkour tricks, careening down mountainsides through water and
over rough terrain, looking like some kind of manic assassin on rollerblades. While the smaller
go-to gingerly took the stairs, this thing lands a 2 meter jump into a handstand, and then let's
buddy ride it like it's the f***ing X games. Look, we're in control of these things, okay? It's
not like we're dealing with a brand new intelligent species, Unitry? What? What are you doing? Turns
out you can also slap some wheels on the go-to, and while Boston Dynamics' spot robot goes for
nearly $75,000, Unitry is selling the go-to for just $1,600. For $16,000, you can get the company's
G1 humanoid robot, who also loves to jump, and take a bow staff off of its back, and swing it
around like a weapon, and Unitry is training a virtual army and staff combat? What is it? Why?
Why didn't they show them making coffee or something? Why would you...
Why do you think humanity needs robots? Melee combat? Well, thankfully, there were a few robots
at CES that might not make you coffee, but could bring it to you. The Mimo from Japanese company
GZI is like a bedside table with spider legs, designed to carry items around a house or perhaps
a medical facility, and it maybe would have given me nightmares if I wasn't still thinking about
the Unitry dogs. Ah, a big trend at CES is also equipping robot vacuums with appendages, the
$2,000 Roborock Ceros Z70 conceals a clawed ARM in its body that can unfold to pick up
obstacles in its path, weighing under 300 grams. So, you know, socks, slippers, severed fingers.
But oh, the Dream X50 Ultra also has a robot ARM attachment. Plus, it's got extendable legs,
so it can climb over small ledges. Gotcha there. You know what, never mind humanoid robots, let's
just keep adding limbs to the vacuums and see where that gets us. Switchbot is thinking along
those lines with their K20 Plus modular robot system. The base model wheeled robot can be
combined with a vacuum module, multiple robot arms, cameras, screen holders, and air purifiers
with a tabletop. So, Switchbot says you can relax in bed while this thing brings you fresh coffee
and breakfast that you would have had to have made before racing your robot back to your bed.
Luxury. It's quick bits time.
It's quick bits time.
I'll fetch the milkman. Hey, what about Razer? Yeah, they usually have some wacky out there
concept to show off at CES, but the wildest thing they had this year was the Project Ariel gaming
chair with an integrated fan system that blows cool or warm air at your backside. I mean, that's
unusual, but the weirdest thing about it is how surprisingly practical it might be.
I mean, what else you got, Razer? The Project Ava AI gamer co-pilot? I mean, it does make some
pretty big claims about how capable it is. Kind of creepy, but not weird enough.
This is kind of cool. The Highsong Air Studio One, a professional looking handheld microphone
with built-in wireless earbuds you can slide out and use as in-ear monitors. It's such an
interesting idea to me that I almost overlooked their weird AI-generated promo video.
Long ago, humans discovered the natural phenomenon of echoes in caves and canyons,
giving rise to the earliest attempts at capturing sound.
Almost. Another one that caught my attention is the Shiftcam Plank, a tiny one or two terabyte SSDs
that can plug into iPhones so you can fill those up with ProRes 4K 120fps footage instead of your
onboard storage. It may be a surprisingly practical option for amateur filmmakers,
given how great iPhone cameras are and how insistent Apple is that you need to buy iCloud storage.
What, do you want to do anything? Shiftcam told 9to5Mac they're launching a Kickstarter next month.
Speaking of keeping things local, Google has made keeping control of your smart home devices as
local as possible much easier by integrating the Google Home runtime into over 40 million devices.
This will let homeowners control matter-compatible smart home tech
without pinging Google services every time. But Google normally wants to suck up all the data it
can, so they're either not telling us something or they're going to cancel this feature in six
months. And Microsoft has declared 2025 the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh. They're getting
serious about telling people to upgrade, but they may also be getting a bit sloppy.
At M's Konto on Twitter, reportedly got one of those now infamous full-screen ads for Windows 11
on their Windows 10 PC, only for it to crash immediately after popping up. And I don't want
to speak for Microsoft here, but the guy drunken public warning about the end of the world is
probably not the vibe Microsoft is going for. The vibe I'm going for tomorrow is weird. That's
right, we'll be talking about all the weirdest stuff we saw at CES this year. So hey, be there,
you're weird in a good way. I didn't mean it like that. I'm probably the weirdest. Where are you going?