The best CES products break through the haze of marketing hype at the Las Vegas Gadget Show to reveal innovations like: it might improve your life.
The worst that could happen is that it could harm us, or our society, or the planet, in a way that's so “innovatively bad” that a self-proclaimed panel of dystopian experts deemed it “the worst in the show.” there is.
The third annual competition, which no technology company wants to win, announced its decision on Thursday.
“From easily hackable lawn mowers to $300 earphones that fail after two years, these are products that put our safety at risk, encourage wasteful overconsumption, and perpetuate privacy violations.” said the consumer and privacy advocacy group that judges the awards. This contest is not affiliated with his CES or any industry association. run an expo.
They base their decisions on how bad the product is, what impact it might have if widely adopted, and whether it is significantly worse than previous versions of similar technology. I made my selection.
The judges included Consumer Reports, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and right to repair I support iFixit.
dangerous car technology
automotive technology is a big focus at CES every year. And two Brickbats were awarded to automaker BMW, one of which was related to its partnership with Amazon's voice assistant Alexa.
By leveraging large-scale language models, the kind of AI systems behind chatbots like ChatGPT, Amazon says Alexa's “auto experts” can “in a more human, conversation-like way. It says it will be able to provide quick instructions and answers about the vehicle's features and can even act on your behalf. ”
Being able to ask Alexa to unlock the front door or turn off the porch light seems convenient.
But what if it's the voice of a violent ex?
“We are seeing more and more horrifying stories of people, typically women, trying to escape abusive domestic situations, where their cars end up acting as vectors of pursuit and abuse.” Cindy Cohn's “Worst on Show” judge said. Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
He added: “Alexa and BMW, and frankly all the car companies competing to turn our cars into tracking devices, need to make sure victims can turn this off.”
Jay Hanson, a BMW Group spokesperson, said the company designs and offers its voice assistant with privacy in mind, and customers can choose whether to use it or not.
“BMW and Amazon share a strong commitment to maintaining customer trust and protecting customer privacy, including giving customers control of their data,” he said in an email Thursday.
BMW is also showcasing augmented reality glasses designed by Xreal that overlay useful information and virtual objects visible in front of you while driving. Another judge called this a “recipe for distracted driving” that could pave the way for a future of blinding ads.
Hanson said the augmented reality experiences demonstrated at CES were a showcase of “potential use cases” that could help and entertain people, but that the augmented reality experiences BMW offers to customers could be used to distract drivers. He said that minimizing the amount of risk remains an important principle.
Defective earphones
German audio electronics manufacturer Sennheiser showcased the fourth generation of its Momentum True Wireless ear headphones, which are typically known to last a while.
But iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said the latest $300 earbuds were a “betrayal to the brand”, saying they were too disposable and had three separate batteries. This is because they are likely to break down after a few years and cannot be easily replaced.
“Let's start by selling batteries and publishing repair instructions,” he wrote. “Then we'll work on making the battery easier to replace.”
Sennheiser did not respond to a request for comment.
Who asked for more grocery ads?
Nathan Proctor, national campaigns director for consumer advocacy group US PIRG, named Instacart's new video ad “the worst of the show.” “AI-powered” shopping cart.
General Mills Co., Del Monte Foods Co. and Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Co. are among the companies that will place ads in carts during an upcoming pilot at West Coast stores owned by Good Food Holdings. There is one.
The cart is equipped with cameras and sensors that display a screen that shares real-time recommendations based on what customers put in their cart, such as promoting ice cream if they buy a cone.
“Use your past shopping behavior to push the junk food you bought earlier,” Proctor writes. “Grocery stores are overwhelmed and promotions are a pain to navigate. I question the sanity of anyone who thought they should make the situation worse.”
Instacart did not respond to a request for comment.
robot vacuum cleaner and macrowave
The “worst in show'' cybersecurity award went to Ecovacs, a Chinese-based robot vacuum cleaner manufacturer.
Robot vacuums aren't new, but Paul Roberts of Secure Repairs says the new X2 combo has all the elements for intrusive home surveillance, including a camera, microphone, LiDAR, voice recognition, and computer vision that can recognize objects. There is no guarantee that unencrypted images or images are secure. Video feeds cannot be hacked.
Environmental impact 'worst in show' was on one of the many networks connected to the internet food tech home appliances Revolution Cooking's $1,800 “Macrowave” combines a microwave and a convection oven, but these trendy devices typically have short lifespans and aren't available to people who already own them, according to Consumer Reports' Shanika Whitehurst. The government is encouraging people to dispose of simple household appliances.
“Adding electronics to a fully functioning appliance dramatically increases the environmental impact and requires vast amounts of resources and energy,” she writes.
Revolution Cooking and Ecovacs did not respond to requests for comment.
Matt O'Brien covers the business of technology and artificial intelligence for The Associated Press. He is based in Rhode Island and focuses on how AI technology is built and the people it impacts.
