The world’s largest tech fair, CeBIT, showcased some amazing new gadgets this year. Some with their benefits, and others not so much, the huge range of gadgets entered included eye-controlled arcade games, water-powered clocks and pole-dancing robots.
Always a magnet for the lastest in robotic technology, this year’s CeBIT was no exception , with humanoids showing off their ability to vacuum clean the house, empty the dishwasher and even sketch your portrait.
Another useful invention was by Dutch company, “phoneclip,” who have designed a small yet strong device, which can attach your iPad or smartphone to any vertical surface.
Entrepeneur Hugo Passchier explained that the clip, which costs just €20, can attach your device to every things from walls to bike handlebars, a car steering wheel or dashboard, shopping trolleys and even sportswear.
A favourite with the crowd was a “car of the future,” that shrinks itself up to just 50cm, which should make it easy to avoid parking problems! The cobalt blue two-seat pod designed by the German Centre for Artificial Intelligence is as yet only a prototype, which, at the touch of a button will pick you up and avoid other traffic using motion sensors.
South Korean firm Neo Reflection unveiled it’s “finger mouse” which is hailed as the world’s first device which, when worn on the user’s finger, can control a computer or presentation when pointed from up to 10 metres away.
German firm getDigital showcased their latest range of self-proclaimed “nerd toys, and after a year’s absence, they did not disappoint.
getDigital returned to the tech scene with novelty pizza cutters and bottle openers in the shape of the Startrek Enterprise from Star Trek and a machine in the shape of Star Wars’s R2D2 which makes ice cube. What sci-fi lover’s kitchen could be without such innovations?!
For heavy-sleeping geeks, the laser target alarm clock is a must have. A sleep-lover’s nightmare, the alarm can only be turned off by hitting a bullseye on the clock using a laser target – a sure fire way to make sure you’re awake!
More pointless albeit fun gadgets were brought to the table by Satzuma, with a clock powered only by energy produced by running water and a teddy which holds your mp3 player and plays music through the soles of it’s feet.
But a pair of life-sized pole-dancing robots stopped the show. Yours for an astonishing €30,000, these sleek-white models are made from scrap and powered by old car motors. The exotic dancers gyrated their robot hips to music played by another robot, this one with a megaphone for a head.
Large crowds also formed around Tobii’s eye-tracker arcade game, in which gamers use just the motion of their eyes to pilot a spaceship through an asteroid field.
