Highlights: Extraordinary and outlandish, CES 2024 does not disappoint. At Sony, you walk in on the white carpet of what has been set up as a huge living room. Korean microprocessor manufacturer SK Hynix doesn't even try to show off its products, but offers an experience worthy of an amusement park. The promises to achieve everything with AI are still promises, we'll see in a few months. The same approach is taken by the Korean Lotte, where a DJ is integrated behind a green screen and above it into a football stadium.

CES is a strange trade show, both focused on mass-market products and just as much a showcase for the most outlandish ideas in search of market opportunities. Supply often creates demand,...

Extraordinary and outlandish, CES 2024 does not disappoint

CES is a strange trade show, both focused on mass-market products and just as much a showcase for the most outlandish ideas in search of market opportunities. Supply often creates demand, it's a law in economics. So, alongside the behemoths of mass distribution, curious and very strange nuggets believe in their success.

Korean microprocessor manufacturer SK Hynix doesn't even try to show off its products, but offers an experience worthy of an amusement park. © Thomas Bourdeau

By: Thomas Bourdeau Follow

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This year, the stands of major brands are often organized as an enclosed space or an amusement park. At Sony, you walk in on the white carpet of what has been set up as a huge living room. On the one hand, the brand's iconic products and also everywhere and with just as much importance, PlayStation video games, renowned movies and also a car in partnership with Honda... It is no longer simple products but rather a total experience that is offered, from carpet to on-screen games to vehicle travel. This attachment, this strong bond of consumers addicted to a brand's products is felt even more strongly by Samsung and its connected objects. In fact, customers have never been so captivated once they have purchased a product from the brand. A TV? And what about the fridge connected to the TV and the subscription to the channel package that goes with it?

Walls, difficult access, not very open source all that

This method is a bit like the stands of the biggest brands, because we can still call a stand this area surrounded by walls three meters high, like a huge fort that you only enter through a small entrance. The exit is just as discreet, as if we should never leave it. What matters is the experience and that moment of attention that the consumer has devoted to the brand. Walls, difficult access, it's not very open source, is it? Moreover, the big challenge for the consumer at the moment will be, once he gets home, to connect all his favorite products, from the car to the lock on the front door of the house. Samsung boasts that it can do it, but only with its own products, but when you've bought Philips, a Nest box and a Samsung lock, how do you do it? "There's a Jeedom app," says an exhibitor, "it works very well. When I arrive home with my car, once I pass through the gate, the door opens and the lights are turned on with a scenario that I have programmed. The heating too or the open blinds, but you have to be a bit of a geek to handle it anyway," he smiles. The promises to achieve everything with AI are still promises, we'll see in a few months...

It's hard to tell the difference between the real and the virtual

At CES, Korean microprocessor manufacturer SK Hynix doesn't even try to show off its products (QR codes at certain points of the booth do the trick) but offers an experience worthy of an amusement park. It's quite surprising with a riot of colors à la Charlie et la chocolaterie with a serious theme on ecology and well-being nonetheless. SK is one of South Korea's largest conglomerates in the chemical, industrial, telecommunications, finance, hospitality and, for more than ten years, after the acquisition of Hynix, semiconductors. This is an essential part of running computers and graphics cards for AI.

At #CES2024 South Korean microprocessor manufacturer SK Hynix doesn't even try to show off its products (QR codes at certain points of the stand do the trick) but offers an experience worthy of an amusement park. @SKhynix pic.twitter.com/DBz5PAPiTU

— Thomas Bourdeau (@tbourdeau) January 11, 2024

The same spectacular approach is taken by the Korean Lotte, where a DJ is agitated behind a green screen and above it his performance is integrated into a football stadium atmosphere. It's going to get harder and harder to tell the difference between the real and the virtual. The gaze again on the DJ isolated in front of a green screen becomes different, it takes on relief, we feel a real distortion of reality.

"It's all strange"

And the hologram presentations are just as intriguing, check out the video below. When at first an elderly gentleman has fun dancing in front of the camera, his hologram model is projected a few meters away. He leaves the image and it's his hologram that replays the same scene, but this time he went through a Snapchat filter that saved him years. In the end, the two come together "in reality", the man and the hologram, and... It's strange when you think about it.

The #CES2024 is the year of transparency but also the year of duplication 😵 💫 The real plays with the virtual and vice versa... 👻 Hologram
Images have also never been so well projected video@XGIMI_Fr pic.twitter.com/H9Pz2Dm9no

— Thomas Bourdeau (@tbourdeau) January 11, 2024

Strange, this is what a visitor also said to his wife as he left the Amazon room at the Venetian: "It's all strange," he said as he walked through the exit. Earlier, he had entered a suite at the Amazon hotel. Above the front door, a slogan worthy of the Coué method: every day better. We walk through this suite through a sort of living room with ultra-thick carpeting, then a bedroom with decoration entrusted to an AI most certainly, then a kitchen without food to cook, only products to order from Amazon, functions to control by voice to Alexa Amazon's voice assistant, we learn about the partnerships of the American brand with Panasonic, BMW, Siemens and always with this high dose of AI of course... "It's strange," the gentleman concluded. "How strange it is"...

In brief

Two products show that you won't be able to escape AI. First of all, this rabbit r1 assistant, which is envisioned as a partner and not a substitute for the telephone. The idea: to keep your phone in your pocket and simplify interactions for all online orders, online searches, etc. You might as well express them by voice and Rabbit R1 will answer you... The AI acts like a human and is therefore different from a simple voice assistant that triggers applications. More than 10,000 copies have already been sold.

And this little robot 2XCL (t o excel i.e.excel) which is destined to be the best friend of children from 4 years old. It works by voice, with an AI that allows you to learn the native language.

It's the year of transparency at CES, but never before have images been so well defined, or even teleprojected. The feats are staggering, while Samsung, we offer an 8k ultra-short throw projector, Xgimi offers IMAX Enhance quality video projectors, bluffing.

And a demonstration of the capabilities of Unitree's GO2 robot is also quite strange, decidedly...

Pet 🤖😵 💫or guard dog, it's up to you...
Robotic atmosphere @UnitreeRobotics of the #CES2024 @prinkerofficial temporarily tattooed...
At the end of the video, watch out for the shaking 👻 pic.twitter.com/4T3TOwaccR

Extraordinary and outlandish, CES 2024 does not disappoint

Extraordinary and outlandish, CES 2024 does not disappoint

Walls, difficult access, not very open source all that

It's hard to tell the difference between the real and the virtual

"It's all strange"

In brief

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