Living January 12, 2016

A Peek into the Future

This article originally appeared on WindermereSeattle.com 

 

The International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) trade show took place last week in Las Vegas. If you thought last year’s best technology from CES was cool, this year brings a whole new meaning to “innovation.”

Samsung Family Hub Smart Refrigerator

Samsung’s latest smart device was unveiled at CES this year and it might be something you have to see to believe. This is the first third-party home appliance to feature Amazon Alexa. Alexa is the always-listening digital assistant first introduced in Amazon’s Echo device late last year. This fridge allows you to see what’s inside while you’re at the grocery store. The Family Hub Fridge features a pair of cameras on the inside that take pictures of the fridge’s contents every time you open and close the doors. You’ll be able to access those images on the Samsung app (iOS or Android). Picture yourself at the store, checking if you enough milk or juice. Your stress level just went down a notch. Read more here.

Hydrao Smart Shower

Let’s face it, we all waste water whether we mean to or not. Now there’s a way to find out how much and it doesn’t use any energy whatsoever. The white shower head, which was introduced at CES, is equipped with built-in LED lights that can tell you about how much water you’ve used. The Bluetooth device connects to an iPhone or iPad app, which lets you set three alert intervals, such as five gallons, seven gallons and 10 gallons. It even lights up in different colors depending on the one you choose. It fits any shower head and has a tiny turbine inside that uses the water flowing through it that produces energy to power the lights and the Bluetooth connectivity. Talk about eco-friendly! You can set profiles for different users and track water usage in the app, in order to encourage family members to change their over-use habits.  Get the rest of the down low on Mashable.

SCiO food scanner

A French startup, DietSensor, has invented a device that tells us just how many carbs and calories are on our plates. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the French, we can no longer enjoy food. It’s like when you go to a restaurant to have a good time and they put the calories on the menu and you feel shamed for eating. This pocket-sized device called SCiO uses near-infrared spectroscopy (the analysis of how molecules interact with light) to determine the chemical makeup of food and drink. Although dieting Americans will never leave this device out of sight, it was actually intended for those with diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. Check out the best of CES 2016 here.

Netflix

We’ve all spent many Friday nights and long weekends cuddling up with our significant other: Netflix. The most popular streaming service stole the CES show and we aren’t surprised one bit. They rolled out their streaming service worldwide – 130 countries and 70 million homes. The day of this announcement their shares grew nine percent. Who runs the world? Netflix.