Fish Tech | CES 2012 Wrap Up

Every dawn of a New Year, the latest and greatest electronic gadgets are on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.  This year, huge OLED TVs wowed the crowd, but the real story is all about waterproof gadgets.  Here’s a round up all the gadgets that stood out at the show.

Two companies, Liquipel and HzO have come out with a waterproof invisible nano technology coating that is applied internally and externally to any device. While, it showed the devices submerged, HzO described the technology as more of a preventative solution.  Liquipel, appears to be pretty much the same technology with a different chemical makeup. The real difference is that Liquipel is available now for only 68 bucks. Both companies are hoping that these technologies are implemented at the factory level, making the process ubiquitous in all electronics.  

A number of companies displayed their own waterproofing concepts in various devices.  A few android devices like the XOOM 2 have a splash resistant coating, but the Pantech Element’s waterproofing allows the device to be submerged. The official waterproof rating is IP57.  Will this be good enough?  It’s great to see companies finally acknowledging the waterproofing issue.  For now, I’ll stick to my Lifeproof case.  Now, they just need gadgets that float.

 The camera expo has been mashed together with CES this year and it’s a great fit. GoPro displayed the new HD Hero2 with a new Wifi BacPac. This will allow the camera to be remotely controlled via wristband or smartphone.  The really cool ability of the Wifi Bacpac is networking and streaming of video. Up to 50 GoPros can exist on the same network. I expect we will see a lot of this at Winter X Games. I can’t wait to see what uses they come up with. It’s truly a great idea.

Lastly, The Parrot AR Drone 2.0 is just plain sweet. I’d like to think that I would use this to spot jumpers, but It’s really just a really cool toy. This might be nice for getting interesting video, though. I expect this technology to show up in cheaper forms in the coming year.

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