CES 2018 in Photos: What We Remember Most

In a recognition of how massive some of the displays are at CES, they're now called "cities." I paced off one side of the Samsung super booth and it was nearly 100 yards long. Fittingly, their light show on the "short" side of the booth included a display of a city skyline.

When we wrote about the new Netgear Orbi Outdoor Wi-Fi satellite, I got lots of questions about Netgear's use of the term "weather-resistant." It doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Well, I went to the source and spent time with the product manager, and got reassurances that you can basically leave it out in any weather. Just don't put it in your fish tank or swimming pool (which is why they didn't want to say waterproof or weather-proof). Here you can see their demo unit, which is happily beaming away despite being in a waterfall. They were also showing some smaller, lower-cost Orbis, which will be nice for those who don't have massive homes.

I know there are many people who don't know how to properly fold laundry, and I know there are plenty who care that their laundry is folded. But startup Foldimate is hoping there's a large market of people who both care about their laundry being folded and don't know how, or don't care to, do it. The technology is pretty cool, and it's really fun to watch a shirt get sucked in to the top and come back out neatly organized at the bottom. But the machine is the size of a laundry room appliance, so unless you have a super-huge family where you're able to not fold dozens of shirts a day or maybe per week, it is a little hard to see it flying off the shelves. Might be an interesting product for commercial laundries, though, as while it isn't super-quick, once you've put the shirt in the top, you can do something else while it folds.

Despite the happy "Life's Good" slogan on the LG booth, it wasn't good for many at the show mid-week as power went out in the largest of the Halls — Central — for about two hours. Thousands used their smartphone flashlight apps to steer their way off the show floor. Las Vegas called in city buses to help people get someplace else. Fortunately the North Hall — where I was busy getting Lidar demos — only experienced a brief power brownout. For the curious, the LG logo is lit in the photo because it is right at the entrance and drawing power from the Concourse building.

CES has been famous for demos of internet-connected appliances that don't add much value. We've certainly reported on over-teched refrigerators, stoves, and gardens, for example. However, there does seem to be a happy medium emerging. For example, the Gourmia product line, demoed here by celebrity chef Cat Cora, is internet-connected and Google Home-accessible, but not crazily so. You can still use the appliances the same as you would normally, beefed up with some additional Auto functions based on sensor technology. Just like most microwaves can try to properly cook a certain type of food or beverage when you press the appropriate button, the Gourmia multi-cooker helpfully lets you pick settings like "Meat" to get started. No, I definitely don't think you should trash a working appliance to get the new features. But if you're looking for a new kitchen gadget, having one you can talk to can be handy when your hands are greasy or busy doing something else.

The most amusing (or at least darkly amusing) event during my CES was getting a notification there would be traffic delays on the street in front of the Sands Convention Center yesterday afternoon. Now that's kind of a joke, because that street was essentially gridlocked for the duration of the show. But in this case, it indeed got even worse. VP Pence was in town, so they shut the street entirely, and canceled the shuttle buses during his visit. Hopefully it was worth it, but it certainly didn't help logistics for attendees.

The holy grail of the digital lifestyle is eliminating cords. We've done a pretty good job of transitioning to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for data transfer, but wireless charging is lagging behind. There are small inductive chargers for wearables that require careful placement, and various ways to charge a smartphone wirelessly, but they aren't standard, and still require small, specialized, base stations. The AirFuel alliance is hoping to change all that. It's promoting a low-cost technology for placing large, flat, antennas on surfaces, with inexpensive receivers that can be added to just about any device. Impressively, they can power up to 300 watts with a single transmitter. So everything you see on this desk (including the laptop, monitor, and lamp) are being powered wirelessly. The first products incorporating this technology for both transmitters and receivers should be out later this year. I look forward to the day when I can reduce the cable clutter in my office using it.

These women either have too much energy, or aren't spending the entire week trudging around Vegas, as they were dancing up a storm playing an AR game on a massive Changhong screen reminiscent of the Kinect demos that were common here a few years ago (especially when Microsoft had a booth and gave a keynote). It made me wonder how so much enthusiasm for a groundbreaking device has petered out to the point where Kinect is essentially dead. No worries, though; we can have another run at it with AR-enabled screens and glasses and see how that goes.