At CES, the annual tech conference in Las Vegas, the excitement never stops and neither does the Digital Trends team. Throughout the first day of CES, the DT crew roamed the halls of the convention center, seeking out strange inventions and fascinating people, while Digital Trends Live broadcast all day long from our very own booth, with appearances from a variety of guests.
Resolve wants to catch poachers before they strike
The first guest of the day was Eric Dinerstein, director of Biodiversity and Wildlife Solutions at a nonprofit organization called Resolve that for over 30 years has been focused on environmental and public health issues. To achieve its goals, Resolve partners with powerful corporations such as Intel, whose artificial intelligence tech is present in Resolve’s new TrailGuard system. Developed in collaboration with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and National Geographic, TrailGuard is a motion-activated camera designed to keep watch over wildlife refuges. Using the power of Intel’s Movidius vision processing unit, the camera takes photos when it detects movement, analyzes those photos, and if it catches something important (such as poachers), alerts park rangers.
“We’re trying to stop poachers before they kill,” Dinerstein said. “There’s other technologies that are out there that use, say, DNA or isotope analysis on elephant ivory to figure out where the poachers came from, or gunshot detectors … you get the point: The animals are already dead by the time that you’ve recorded data.”
The next Impossible Burger
Beef: It’s delicious, but also bad for the environment, thanks to the massive, industrialized manner in which it is typically produced. It would be a huge boon for nature if people were to cut back on their beef consumption, but that can be a tough ask, since plant-based substitutes generally don’t capture the flavor or texture of real meat.
Enter the Impossible Burger, a plant-based patty that not only tastes similar to meat, it even “bleeds” like it. The first incarnation of the Impossible Burger is pretty tasty, although not a perfect imitation of good ground beef, but Impossible Foods is back with a new recipe, which the company showed off at CES. Drew Prindle, DT’s Emerging Tech editor, got a chance to try the new burger, and he raved about it: “Everything is dialed in — the smell, the color, the texture, the flavor — it’s all so similar to the profile of real hamburger that unless you’re really scrutinizing it, you’ll be hard-pressed to tell the difference.”
Patrick Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, and chef Mary Sue Milliken stopped by the Digital Trends Live booth to talk about the new burger and the importance of reducing meat consumption.
Samsung’s foldable phone is coming soon
Rumors have long been swirling about a foldable phone in development at Samsung, and we’ve been itching to see the final product. The wait is nearly over, according to Suzanne de Silva, Samsung’s director of Product Marketing and Strategy, who stopped by the DT panel to talk about the future of phones with our experts. Although she didn’t divulge the name of Samsung’s foldable phone, de Silva did reveal that we can expect it in the first half of 2019.
Digital Trends Live airs at 9 a.m. PT from Monday through Friday, with highlights available on demand after the stream ends. For more information, check out the DT Live homepage, and be sure to watch live for the chance to win occasional prizes.
