😬 Uninvited but Unbowed: An Outsider's Take on CES 2024
The Tales You WON'T Hear From People Who Actually Attended
Another year, another snub.
While hundreds of lesser publications attended CES in Las Vegas last week, hi, tech. had to settle for a seat on the sidelines again. If the consumer tech industry can’t handle the truth, that’s their business.
It won’t stop my meddling, that’s for sure. I still have the internet and, intermittent connection issues aside, I know how to use it.
In news from my other venture…
Yep, we’re already building our second product! Our Search simulation is live at Imperial College, Columbia Business School, University College Dublin, and an increasing number of elite others already.
Product 2 will be a social media simulation based on Meta Ads, ready for use in universities and businesses Q2 2024. Get in touch to find out more - I can guarantee that it will be tremendous!
In this week’s hi, tech., I’d like to discuss some of the funnest and funniest devices from this year’s CES. And if I’m nice about the event, maybe they’ll repeal my ban and invite me next time.
First up, this Rabbit R1 device. I went to their website to try and figure out what this “handheld, AI action assistant” actually is. The homescreen illuminated me only dimly (annotations mine):
As a call-to-action, “watch keynote” ranks alongside “swim in coleslaw” for me. It’s hardly a passionate cri de coeur to stir the passions, is it?
Does the “watch keynote” button even work? No-one will ever know.
Anyway, I’m splitting hares.
Otherwise, there are intriguing tidbits here. The rabbit assistant is undoubtedly cute and the lack of a monthly subscription fee takes advantage of a huge strategic misstep by Humane’s upcoming AI pin ($699 for the cheapest pin, then $24/month subscription!)
The price point will be tempting for a lot of people and it postions the Rabbit as an additional pocket device, not an “iPhone killer”.
But what does it actually do? Well, here’s the best summary I could glean:
It has a “natural language interface”. So, you talk to it like you would to Alexa or Siri, albeit only after pressing the Rabbit’s “push to talk” button.
The “Rabbit” assistant acts a bit like Google Bard/Assistant or ChatGPT would. You can ask it questions, it can translate content for you, and it can also act as an “AI agent” to take actions on your behalf.
It has a colour, touch screen and a scrolling wheel to the side.
It connects to your existing services like Spotify, Amazon, Uber, eBay, and so on.
It has its own operating system, Rabbit OS, which is built on top of Android.
Where ChatGPT is a Large Language Model, Rabbit claims to be a “Large Action Model”.
Basically, it’s a pocket device that can book your Ubers, research topics for you, play music, and recognise objects with the 360 degrees spinning camera.
You can also “teach it” new skills, so it will learn how to carry out actions the first time it completes them. For instance, if you like certain types of resources in your research or you prefer certain groceries from specific places, it will not need to ask next time.
To which, I hear you ask, “Doesn’t an iPhone do that? And if it doesn’t, couldn’t Rabbit just be an iPhone app instead?”
Yep. You could bet your tail on it.
Nonetheless, Rabbit has sold over 30,000 of these devices already. Whether through curiosity or fondness for rabbits, there is demand for this product. In fact, there is a lot more demand than the CEO anticipated - he admitted on Twitter that he had set up for 500 orders a day, not 10,000.
See, I can’t be the only person that is bored by iPhones by now. We go through cycles of consolidation and fragmentation over time; Apple has led us to peak consolidation in the smartphone age. It’s time for something different, please.
Clearly, some of us yearn for those olden days where lots of interesting new devices kept popping up. I recall a time, pre-iPod, when everyone in my class at school seemed to have a different MP3 player. Some could fit in your palm, others would barely fit in your garage, and they all had some “unique” feature. They have all been sent to the Great Landfill in the sky/ground now, of course. But what a time it was!
OpenAI is working on its own device to bring ChatGPT to the masses, while the aforementioned AI pin from Humane will be with us soon. In all likelihood, none of the devices we see in the next six months will be with us in six years. Yet, they are necessary stepping stones towards the next, everyday pocket device.
Our smartphones still contain a huge amount of unexploited technological potential, of course. If the impact of devices like the Rabbit r1 is simply to force Apple and Samsung to innovate and create truly new smartphones, that will still be a beneficial outcome.
Turn your iPhone into a BlackBerry!
On a related note, a new case that adds a physical keyboard to an iPhone is proving mighty popular. It’s $139, which puts the Rabbit price into perspective.
It also lets you use some new shortcuts on your iPhone by typing keys, if you think that’s worth over $100.
What’s more, it gives your previously sleek device a Habsburg jaw - should that be your thing.
Speaking of jaws
Are you sick of brushing your teeth one-by-one, like a chump? The Y-Brush brushes them all at once, taking just 15 seconds to complete the job.
Disappearing screens
This scrunchable screen does look somewhat useful from Arovia:
It’s a projector that you can fold right down and put in your bag.
Added to the transparent screen debuted by Samsung, it was a pretty good CES for people who dislike the screen-driven aesthetic of the modern world.
Volkswagen has also announced that it will use a version of ChatGPT in its cars:
If you have seen how this has already been working out for companies like Chevrolet, you’ll be fearing the worst:
See you next time! And CES, I’ll see you next year!
It was the "splitting hares" for me :)