CES 2014

Despite the word “Consumer” in its title, the Consumer Electronic Show is basically a B2B event: It’s for companies to introduce products, technologies, and concepts to other companies with the goal of getting down to bizness and making money. That’s one reason why there are hundreds of conference sessions and press events related to stuff other than huge TVs, headphones, and other gadgets.

While most press conferences here at CES are geared towards big, life-changing electronics, there is a growing segment of conferences and products devoted to kids and families. While most companies target products to women by making them smaller and well, cuter, other companies are recognizing that moms also purchase serious technology to make their lives easier. Another oft-overlooked segment is the educational and children’s technology market.

Paris-based KEEKER was one of more than a dozen participants using an appearance at ShowStoppers LaunchIt Power Session at CES2014 to give the company’s pitch for higher-level funding and partnerships to a panel of judges. KEEKER is part mobile computer, part robot, part home entertainment system, and part security system. It looks a bit like a large, 16-inch wide by 25-inch tall egg on wheels; and it contains a built-in projector, 360-degree sound system, and a lot more. It’s either one of the silliest ideas here at CES2014, or it’s going to be a paradigm breaker. For example, one of the benefits touted in the brief pitch session was the ability of KEEKER to bring the TV to the viewer, rather than force the viewer to sit passively in front of the traditional “black box” TV set. The built-in projector can be used to display an image on any wall or ceiling. Since KEEKER is on a motorized, wheeled platform, it can be instructed to move anywhere in your home – displaying the news on the wall in your dining room, for example, and then rolling into your bedroom and shining a late-night TV show on the ceiling. (Or substitute a variety of viewing situations and content based on your own experiences.) In fact, later in the day, KEEKER was out and about in the hotel hallways displaying video on the vaulted ceiling above. KEEKER is shooting for a release date of sometime in the fourth quarter of 2014 with a tentative selling price of $5,000.

The audio industry, so given to soul searching and navel gazing, does have a reason to exist and here's how Audioengine's Dave Evans describes it: "Because you love music." Really, isn't it as simple as that? If it's not it should be. The maker of the giant-killer A2 compact powered speakers, great for the desktop and our TV speaker of choice, recently introduced the USB-driven A2+, which we've just reviewed. New for CES was the D2 USB thumb DAC, selling for $189 and shipping since late last year. We'll got our acquisitive eye on that too.

Having marketed soundbars for a couple of years in Europe, Maxell is bringing them to the United States. The top model is the SSB-4W ($299, shipping now), a console-type bar with SRS surround tech, HDMI times three, two bottom-firing woofers, and four smaller drivers across the front. Stop the servers: It has a fiberboard enclosure, as opposed to plastic. Could this be the ultimate killer budget bar? The USB port is also a charger.

The Holy Grail of 3D has long been 3D without glasses—technically known as autostereoscopic 3D. But past CES demos of this technology have been notable duds.

The only way to do 3D without glasses is to process the image so that the images to each eye are isolated. But this has a side effect. You can see the 3D when viewed straight on. Move off center by a few degrees and the 3D disappears, taking some image quality with it. Move a bit further off-axis and the 3D returns. And so on—and off. The result is you get 3D only in a limited range of viewing zones, and poor image quality in others.