by Liat Rubin

Editor-in-Chief

What was once a sci-fi fan’s dream came true at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The convention, which attracted over 160,000 visitors and 3,673 exhibits from all over the world, showcased incredible new technologies spanning from a self-driving car to a tangible virtual reality experience. Here are some of my favorites:

Self driving cars:

Mercedez-Benz revealed the F015, a self driving car. At first glance, the F015 resembles a spaceship, complete with glowing lights and a smooth, metal exterior. Its capsule-like shape consists of a seventeen-foot long, five-foot high body, with a long windshield that extends into a sunroof. Although the vehicle is far from being available for commercial use, the “concept car” also features six high-resolution touch-screen display panels on the doors to allow passengers to use touch, gestures, and eye movement to navigate.

Drones:

Companies have further developed their original drone models to reveal creative, more effective, higher-quality drones. The Bionic Bird, a drone brought to the market by the grandson of the man who invented the much-loved Tim Bird Windup Flying Bird toy, is a personal favorite of mine. It contains a bluetooth radio and can be controlled by a smartphone. To charge, it simply perches on a white plastic egg.

3D printers:

CES included 57 vendors from all over the world showing 3D printing devices ranging from $70 to more than $100,000. These are capable of printing in materials like metal, wood, stone, and even chocolate.

Virtual reality:

Since the invention of the Oculus Rift, a head-mounted display for virtual gaming, virtual reality has become one of the hottest technological markets. At this year’s CES, Oculus, which was recently sold to Facebook for 2.3 billion dollars, displayed the brand new Crescent Bay demo, which allowed users to observe and interact with virtual Tyrannosaurus Rexs. The company occupied a two-story booth where visitors tried out the demo.

Sixense Entertainment, a local Los Gatos VR company, showcased its own VR experience. In the Sixense demo, users were able to utilize the Oculus headset and the Sixense Stem Wireless Motion Tracking System to take part in an authentic Star Wars-style light saber duel.

This year’s CES brought the future to the present, and we can’t wait for the new inventions of next year’s show.

Sources: Mashable, Cnet, Wired, Gizmodo, TheVerge

Photos courtesy UploadVR