Regardless of how many times you yell into that one friend’s ear that the world is not going to end this Friday, December 21, he or she remains unconvinced. They’ve already packed their basement full of Twinkies (what’s left of them at the supermarket) and Jell-O packets, bottled water to last several months, and some tactical gear in case aliens and zombies invade. Well, if they’re going to act like an insane person, the least you can do is help them out with some modern day tech and accessories.
For years, your friend has been convinced those rattling noises at night aren’t just leaves blowing in the wind. Since the Ouija board didn’t reveal much, maybe it’s time you let science help a pal out. The EMF Ghost Detector is an attachment for iPhones that looks for electromagnetic field radiation to recognize strange things human eyes cannot see. Your friend could theoretically use it to see some a visual EMF waves coming from the TV or microwave, but also under the bed or in the closet to check for the supernatural.
Of course a flash light is necessary for an impending apocalypse. Duh. But the Wicked Lasers Torch isn’t your average flash light. This thing is powerful enough to cook scrambled eggs and whole turkeys and probably light a zombie’s face on fire. The most clever weapons are ones disguised as ordinary objects – even if the flash light itself only has the power to last six minutes of torching per battery.
Sure, laugh now, but your friend will definitely have the last laugh when he or she catches zombies, aliens, thieves, pesky journalists, and cats approaching the front door with this giant security camera bundle. The all-weather cameras can record footage for up to 120 days into an included 500GB hard drive, and have night vision of up to 50 feet. The set also sports a lifetime warranty … if there’s anyone on the other end of that customer service line to tend to the requests.
Want to indulge in a fun experiment? Gift this Secret Decoder Ring to your friend for the holidays, then send them a letter filled with random, nonsensical words. Your friend will spend years trying to figure out what the powers beyond the human world are trying to communicate via snail mail, when all you did was randomly pound your keyboard for 2000 words.
Twinkies and Jell-O are pretty tasty, but they’re no match for these gourmet(ish) post-apocalyptic dried foods. Thrive offers a full line of dehydrated meals that cover more than just the basic fruits and vegetables; with this care package, your friend will enjoy a six-grain pancake mix with instant milk and powdered sugar, freeze-dried sweet corn and celery, and even freeze-dried roast beef and chopped chicken. If your friend follows the food regime included in the set carefully, that’s a full 2,200 calories per daily consumption. He doesn’t even have to leave his house!
Just in case the military decides to launch an electromagnetic pulse to wipe out all the electronics in the city, help your friend prepare with these EMP covers. The protective bags can guard EMPs of up to 49 dB so no radiation or satellite waves will get to the gadgets inside. Since spacesuits are kind of hard to come by on Amazon.com, maybe you should consider buying a few of these bags for your conspiracy theorist friends and tell them to stitch together a track suit.
So, cops are outside of your friend’s house asking him to come outside and face the fact that the world has not gone to bits and people are not out to get him. Your friend has one last shot at fighting them off with this mobile phone signal scrambler. What, you think calling his mom is gonna convince him everything is alright? With this little baby, phones running on CDMA, GSM, 3G, and DCS PHS won’t stand a chance of functioning so don’t bother calling to say the apocalypse didn’t happen. Now, seriously, get off his lawn. He might have land mines in there.
Depending on the brand you choose, you might be crafting a dollar store hat or Reynolds Wrap heavy duty stuff for your precious friend. Your paranoid friend will probably want about 50, so get crafting.
Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.
From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.
CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:
Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.
Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."
Regardless of how many times you yell into that one friend’s ear that the world is not going to end this Friday, December 21, he or she remains unconvinced. They’ve already packed their basement full of Twinkies (what’s left of them at the supermarket) and Jell-O packets, bottled water to last several months, and some tactical gear in case aliens and zombies invade. Well, if they’re going to act like an insane person, the least you can do is help them out with some modern day tech and accessories.
