From cleverly designed toys and wellness
devices to alternative energy ideas and device virtualization software
for the Internet of Things, International CES has got it.
CES, which started out strictly as a tradeshow for dealers of audio/video and home entertainment systems, has become the annual make-or-break showcase for startups, software designers, and propeller-heads to test innovative product concepts, breakthrough technologies, and clever application ideas among fellow engineers, marketers, consumer electronics OEMs, and investors who gather here at the convention center.
The opening gadget salvo is called "CES Unveiled," a sort of indoor Maxwell Street for new technology and product ideas, all complicated by the presence of food tables and unlimited free alcohol. We don't know how many Unveiled newborns will be commercialized by the end of the year, let alone how big a commercial success any one might become.
Following is a sampling of the products (and sometimes prototypes) that caught our eye this year. (My colleague Jessica Lipsky here at CES also contributed to this story.)
Parrot offers toys as well designed as cars
Paris-based Parrot, always a crowd pleaser on the CES show floor, returned to show off the company's two new gadgets: its new-generation personal drone, called "Micro Drone," equipped with indoor wheels to roll on the floor or the ceiling; and a smartphone-controlled robotics device, "Jumping Sumo," that jumps 2.5 feet in the air but always lands on its wheels.
Demonstrating his new toys, Henri Seydoux (second from the right in the photo above), the founder and CEO of Parrot, told EE Times: "These are not quick gadgets. They are toys that are as serious and as well designed as cars."
Indeed, they are robust. Parrot's new Micro Drone comes with an unprecedented automatic stabilization system. Jumping Sumo, with embedded camera, can even make 90 degree turns at high speed, while its foldable wheels control speed and enable tricky moves.
CES, which started out strictly as a tradeshow for dealers of audio/video and home entertainment systems, has become the annual make-or-break showcase for startups, software designers, and propeller-heads to test innovative product concepts, breakthrough technologies, and clever application ideas among fellow engineers, marketers, consumer electronics OEMs, and investors who gather here at the convention center.
The opening gadget salvo is called "CES Unveiled," a sort of indoor Maxwell Street for new technology and product ideas, all complicated by the presence of food tables and unlimited free alcohol. We don't know how many Unveiled newborns will be commercialized by the end of the year, let alone how big a commercial success any one might become.
Following is a sampling of the products (and sometimes prototypes) that caught our eye this year. (My colleague Jessica Lipsky here at CES also contributed to this story.)
Parrot offers toys as well designed as cars
Paris-based Parrot, always a crowd pleaser on the CES show floor, returned to show off the company's two new gadgets: its new-generation personal drone, called "Micro Drone," equipped with indoor wheels to roll on the floor or the ceiling; and a smartphone-controlled robotics device, "Jumping Sumo," that jumps 2.5 feet in the air but always lands on its wheels.
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Demonstrating his new toys, Henri Seydoux (second from the right in the photo above), the founder and CEO of Parrot, told EE Times: "These are not quick gadgets. They are toys that are as serious and as well designed as cars."
Indeed, they are robust. Parrot's new Micro Drone comes with an unprecedented automatic stabilization system. Jumping Sumo, with embedded camera, can even make 90 degree turns at high speed, while its foldable wheels control speed and enable tricky moves.
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A supercapacitor with high stretchability has been developed by wrapping two layers of sheets built of aligned carbon nanotubes, which serve as two electrodes, on an elastic fiber. The use of these sheets offers high flexibility, tensile strength, electrical conductivity, and mechanical and thermal stability. The supercapacitor shows and maintains a high specific capacitance after stretching for many cycles.For electronic devices to be incorporated into textiles or plastic films, their components must be stretchable. This is true for LEDS, solar cells, transistors, circuits, and batteries—as well as for the supercapacitors often used for static random access memory (SRAM). SRAM is often used as a cache in processors or for local storage on chips, as well as in devices that must maintain their data over several years with no source of power.Previous stretchable electronic components have generally been produced in a conventional planar format, which has been an obstacle to their further development for use in small, lightweight, wearable electronics. Initial attempts to produce supercapacitors in the form of wires or fibers produced flexible—but not stretchable—components. However, stretchability is a required feature for a number of applications. For example, electronic textiles would easily tear if they were not stretchable.A team led by Huisheng Peng at Fudan University has now developed a new family of highly stretchable, fiber-shaped, high-performance supercapacitors. The devices are made by a winding process with an elastic fiber at the core. The fiber is coated with an electrolyte gel and a thin layer of carbon nanotubes is wound around it like a sheet of paper. This is followed by a second layer of electrolyte gel, another layer of carbon nanotube wrap, and a final layer of electrolyte gel.The delicate “sheets” of carbon nanotubes are produced by chemical vapor deposition and a spinning process. In the sheets this method produces, the tiny tubes are aligned in parallel. These types of layers display a remarkable combination of properties: They are highly flexible, tear-resistant, conductive, and thermally and mechanically stable. In the wound fibers, the two layers of carbon nanotubes act as electrodes. The electrolyte gel separates the electrodes from each other while stabilizing the nanotubes during stretching so that their alignment is maintained. This results in supercapacitor fibers with a high capacity that is maintained after many stretching cycles.
