AI at CES: a look at the wild PCs, smart glasses, and body-scanning mirrors turning heads at the conference

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AI didn’t take over CES, but it’s showing off

Consumer electronics companies have just begun to incorporate artificial intelligence into products such as televisions, refrigerators and thousands of other devices on display. Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas this week. It’s still a little early: Researchers are just now developing artificial intelligence models small enough to run inside consumer devices, and chips cheap and efficient enough to run them. Still, several notable AI-powered products have created a stir.

New so-called personal supercomputer with artificial intelligence from Nvidia. Project figurescreated the biggest sensation. The compact desktop is powered by the powerful Nvidia GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip and can run the full suite of Nvidia software, from chip management to AI models and tools. It is an “AI workstation” designed for AI researchers and developers who will use it to create prototypes and fine-tune models. The machine will be built by Nvidia’s PC manufacturing partners, suggesting the tech giant is eyeing the consumer PC space. “This is a good start because they can show off the first real computer with artificial intelligence,” says the CEO and chief analyst of Creative Strategies. Ben Bajarin. “Additionally, this chip is a clear foreshadowing of their much-discussed PC market [CPU]“

Meanwhile, the Dutch company Nuwa is demonstrating its Nuva Penwhich writes like a regular ink pen but has three sensors near the writing point. The captured handwriting is then synchronized with a special application on the user’s smartphone. The app uses artificial intelligence to transcribe written text and can also perform artificial intelligence functions on the text, such as translation and summarization. The app integrates with a number of productivity apps such as Google Docs and Evernote. The pen costs $295 and will ship this quarter. Nuwa Pen can be useful for those who think better with pen and paper, as these ideas can now be captured digitally.

Holliday also amazed consumers with their new smart glasseswhich delivers digital content to the user’s eyes through a small display mounted on the top of the frame. For the user, it’s like seeing a permanent 3.5-inch screen in the upper right part of the field of view. The glasses, which connect to your phone via Bluetooth, can perform real-time translation, voice-to-text transcription and navigation. There’s an AI-powered assistant that Halliday says can proactively provide useful information to the user. The user controls the glasses using voice commands or the accompanying trackpad ring. The glasses will cost between $399 and $499, and Halliday plans to begin shipping them in the first quarter of 2025.

Whitingsa longtime player in the connected health space, unveiled something special at CES this year: a body-scanning mirror called Omnia. The device is a scale-like platform connected to a full-length mirror that displays all types of medical information. It scans the user for heart, lung, sleep, body and metabolic data. It also contains an artificial intelligence assistant that synthesizes data into actionable advice. The mirror has generated a lot of interest in X this week, but alas, it’s just a “concept product” designed to showcase the various health metrics that Withings devices (watches, scales, etc.) can collect.

The real reason Mark Zuckerberg wants to make Facebook more like X

On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg said his company is going to go out of business “fact-checking” user posts and moving toward a cleaner First Amendment approach to content management. Many believed this was another case of the tech mogul bending the knee to the new Trump administration. (The logic is easy to follow: Trump once threatened with prison Zuckerberg about Meta’s alleged censorship of conservative views, so it would make sense for Zuckerberg to capitulate to the president-elect in advance.)

But in reality, it’s more likely that Zuckerberg is using the current political climate as cover to do what he wants. I’ve wanted it for a long time: Stop trying to police truth and civility on your social platforms.

Facebook has rightly been accused of acting like Clearinghouse for Boomer Misinformation and Party Rage during the 2016 and 2020 elections. The company has come under intense pressure to crack down on fake news and conspiracy theories on its platforms. In response, Facebook banned a number of topics, such as anti-vaccination and Holocaust denial. The MAGA crowd screamed that such control amounted to censorship.

Now Zuckerberg says Meta has gone too far. And he’s using the shortcomings of Meta’s content moderation by humans and artificial intelligence as an excuse to take back control. “The fact checkers turned out to be too politically biased and destroyed more trust than they created,” he said.

The artificial intelligence systems that do most of the moderation work are expensive to train and operate, and they have been only partially successful. Toxic content and misinformation often take the form of memes, which use a clever combination of text and images to convey their message. The viewer often has to think before “getting” it. This is difficult for AI to do. Toxic or false messages can also be conveyed through video in posts (or advertisements) that can be difficult to detect. It is also true that systems tend to generate false positives, blocking content and penalizing users when no serious violations of community guidelines have occurred.

Zuckerberg said this week that the company is going to “focus on reducing errors, simplifying our policies, and restoring freedom of expression on our platforms.”

Meta will reduce its human and AI moderation and rely on user-generated “community notes” to flag most false or toxic content, much like Elon Musk does X. The dark side of this, of course, is that Meta can begin to profit again from rage bait content, which tends to grow larger and faster than other content.

World Economic Forum predicts major workforce changes by 2030

This was reported by the World Economic Forum (WEF). awaits The global labor market will add 78 million new jobs by 2030 as demographic changes and businesses embrace artificial intelligence. This is stated in the organization’s message. Future of Jobs 2025 Report that 170 million new jobs will be created but 92 million existing jobs will be eliminated, representing a 22% change in current employment. The results are based on data from more than 1,000 companies worldwide.

While technology skills in artificial intelligence, big data and cybersecurity will be in demand by employers, softer human skills including creative thinking and adaptability will remain important, the report says. The number of jobs in the renewable energy and environmental engineering sectors shows significant growth potential. Surprisingly, frontline workers such as agricultural workers, delivery drivers and construction workers will see a significant increase in job opportunities, as will workers in the health and education sectors.

Traditional low-skill positions (e.g., cashiers, administrative assistants) are likely to decline. Skills such as graphic design that directly challenge generative AI are likely to be in less demand in the market. The WEF estimates that by 2030, 40% of all job skills will need to be updated as AI impacts the nature of work; 63% of employers now cite skills gaps as their main barrier to adapting to and benefiting from AI.

“Generative artificial intelligence and rapid technological shifts create both unprecedented opportunities and significant risks,” said Till Leopold, who heads employment, wages and job creation at the WEF.

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