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Dublin: 13 °C Tuesday 21 May, 2013

PICS: Bendable phones, the ‘iPotty’… the latest in tech gadgets

Which one is your favourite?

THE 2013 INTERNATIONAL Consumer Electronics Show took place this week, where companies had the opportunity to show off their latest innovations.

From bendable phones to the ‘iPotty’, they showed that the gadgets of the future can be pretty, well, wacky – but some can be right on the button.

The key with much of these inventions appears to be reinventing an everyday item, or integrating mobile devices into household tools. But there were one or two that really pushed the boat out.

The biggest trade show in the Americas, the CES took place in Las Vegas, and here is our pick of the weird and wonderful crop:

PICS: Bendable phones, the ‘iPotty’… the latest in tech gadgets
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  • Gadget Show

    Eric Rudder, chief technical strategy officer of Microsoft, holds a prototype Windows smartphone with a flexible OLED display during Samsung's keynote address at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
  • Gadget Show

    The iPotty for iPad potty training device is see on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. No app is available to go with the trainer, but the idea is to keep the child on the toilet for as long as necessary by keeping them digitally entertained. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
  • Gadget Show

    E Fun's Apen Touch8 pen is shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Many people who have tried Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system without a touch screen have hated it because of the inability to use touch and swipe commands to get things going. Now a company has made a digital pen to allow people to use Windows 8 on their old monitors for less than the cost of buying a new touch-enabled computer. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
  • Gadget Show

    Panasonic's Shiro Kitajima, far right, and Vic Carlson, introduces the bone construction headphones during a news conference at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. he headphones connect to a TV via the Bluetooth wireless standard and attach to your head like a normal set of headphones. But instead of using your ears, the headphones work like hearing aids by transmitting sound waves through your skull. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
  • Gadget Show

    The IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC that Lenoovo say is the first "interpersonal computer." It is a PC the size of a coffee table that works like a gigantic tablet and lets four people use it at once. (AP Photo/Lenovo)
  • Gadget Show

    This photo provided by Lego shows “Reptar,” a robotic snake that is one of 17 possible creations available in the new, 0 Lego Mindstorms EV3 platform that will have the ability to talk to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches through Bluetooth wireless connections. (AP Photo/LEGO)
  • Gadget Show

    The HAPIfork, made by HAPILABS, smart electronic fork is seen on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The fork vibrates and lights up to help its user slow down to a healthy eating pace. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
  • Gadget Show

    Product Demonstration seen at CES Showstoppers, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Drip Drops debuts Color the World app turning a tablet into a 3d digital coloring book for preschoolers. (Photo by Al Powers/Invision for Drip Drops/AP Images)
  • Gadget Show

    Toymaker Cra-Z-Art empowers girls and boys to build their worlds with light using Lite Brix construction sets seen at CES Showstoppers in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Powers/Invision for CRA-Z-ART/AP Images)

Read: 4 stupidly simple but successful new inventions>

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Comments (23 Comments)

  • It’d be harder to eat off a fork that looks like a pregnancy test.

    Reply
  • Could really use a bendy phone! Between me dropping them and my 2 yr old chewing on them they dont stand a chance! :)

    Reply
  • I am a fast eater in general, but Man Alive! i would really get annoyed if my fork vibrated because i was eating to fast!

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  • The bendy phones are coming your way late in 2013, early 2014. Samsung is also ready to roll them out. They are more like memory plastic, ie you will be able to fold the screen/phone in half and put it in your pock (similar to the old flip phones). think about it like this, some people don’t like the Galaxy S3, because the screen/phone are too big to keep in the pocket. This problem is fully solved with the fully flexible screen ie small enough to be a phone (easy to keep in the pocket, or in your hand when answering the phone), but able to be opened up to produce a full OLED screen large enough to surf the web on.
    The other showcase that i really realy liked at this years CES, is the screen that actually creates a keyboard on the screen when you want to text or dial a phone number, but the buttons actually dissolve off the screen when you want to back to a full screen again … It is really like something from a sci-fi movie… Check it out
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20970928

    On top of that, the software/hardware capabilities are now merging to produce all sorts of capabilities, and tyhe number of new consumer products that will be generated as a result, will see a huge boom for multiple smaller companies, and not just the giants like Google/Apple/Samsung etc.
    eg Intel demo’d new Laptop technology that uses two built in video cameras to understand in 3D where you are looking at down to 1 cm on a screen. They demo’d a ‘wheres waldo’ game, only using your eyes to pick the character out on a screen multiple cartoon characters. This could mean that in the very near future, you will only have to select items on a screen by looking at them, rather than using a mouse, or touching them (like on touch screen pc’s phones etc). Imagine, no more ergo injuries, expensive mice/keyboards etc… Really fantastic opportunities, with only our imagination restricting what could be developed and put to market. Most of the software and hardware is not copy-righted, its just binding them together, and as one commenter above said, this could be the death-knell for monopolies like Apple etc.
    2013/2014 is really going to see Technology coming to meet the natural User behaviours/actions, rather than Users having to use gestures/actions to meet the Technology capability. Really exciting times ahead.

    Reply
    • That keyboard is very cool..kind of mind boggling to me to be honest..i love new gadgets and you’re spot on about the s3..its size of screen is why i want it yet its also the reason why i havent bought one..it wouldnt last a month before id break it somehow.

      Reply
  • RE the last one. – it “empowers boys and girls”. Ah here.

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  • A bendy phone? Can’t see Apple making that one! They rely on iDrones dropping and shattering them for repeat business!

    Reply
  • It would hard to find somewhere to put a coffee table sized computer/tablet!

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  • The bendy phone might get a bit annoying trying to answer it as it would be flipping everywhere

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  • ‘bone construction headphones’ and ‘he headphones connect’ – if you give me a few euro each week I can write your picture captions for you. I speaka d English.

    Reply
  • I got a non-touchscreen laptop this week with windows 8 on it. It’s the most infuriating, obtrusive and useless operating system I’ve ever used. I’m sure it would be okay on a tablet, but they just ignored what it would be like for people using laptops. After 1 day I upgraded back to windows 7.

    Reply
  • its when the OLED (bendy screens) reach tv level is what im looking forward too, A roll out tv like a projector screen, you dont have to have an imposing 50inch screen in the corner when your not using it but proper cinema experience when you are..

    Reply
  • Ben Gunn 12/01/13 #

    Can I have the bone construction kit in pic 4. I could use the extra bone to keep my at on in the wind.

    Reply
  • Some pretty cool ideas in there!

    Reply

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