CES: First look at the hottest new gadgets and gizmos
The annual International Consumer Electronics Show is getting under way in Las Vegas. There are plenty of hot new gizmos this year, from TVs with buzzy new features to wearable gadgets to self-driving cars.
Brian Cooley, editor-at-large for CBS's partner website CNET.com, told the co-hosts of "CBS This Morning" that the biggest buzz is over products that utilize sensors as part of their technology. He said they are "things that can tell what we're doing, our motions we're making, where our eyes are gazing."
Wearable devices
Among those products are things like the iOptik from a company called Innovega. "This set of glasses works with a special set of contact lenses -- not the ones you already have -- to project from the side of the glasses onto those lenses, and give you this kind of built in screen onto your eye," Cooley said. "It gets into this world of virtual and augmented reality, placing things on your view of the world." The product is one of a number of so-called wearable devices, Cooley said, like Google Glass. "This was sci-fi and the stuff of Hollywood movies a couple years ago. These products are now real."
Smart homes
Another interesting category of items, said Cooley, are products related to smart-home technology. There is a home-monitoring device from that you can control from your smart phone, called iSmartAlarm. "It lets you take the
usual door sensors, cameras,
a door bell that can show you
who's at the door, and operate that
from your smartphone." While this technology has been around for a while, Cooley said, it is now starting to function in new ways -- instantly notifying the home owner that an alarm has been triggered, while at the same time flipping on a camera so they can get a look on their phone, notifying the security company, and even automatically locking all the doors.
Self-driving cars
Meanwhile, more automakers are trying their hand at self-driving cars. Cooley said, "we went in a car that was able to drive itself completely, up to 40 miles per hour, using a new form of laser as well as existing radar and sonar." That car was an Audi. At the same time Ford is showing off technology that allows vehicles to communicate with each other while on the road, allowing them to do things like avoid each other while in motion.
4K televisions
The final buzzy item of the first day of CES, according to Cooley, are the 4K televisions. These are ultra high-def TVs -- "super, super wide -- wider than what you already have, in higher resolution," he said. Cooley predicts these will start showing up in American households, replacing current HD TVs, in just a few years. To stay on top of this trend, both Netflix and Amazon announced they are going to be offering 4K digital streaming and downloads.