CES 2023: ‘the great reconnection’

© Mark Ollig

The Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES, is a yearly international technology event managed by the Consumer Technology Association.

In 1967, the first CES took place in New York City and included 250 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees.

CES 2023 took place from Jan. 5 to Jan. 8 in Las Vegas, with an attendance of around 115,000; press and other media totaled over 4,700.

Technology vendors provided approximately 3,200 exhibits of technology, covering nearly 2.2 million net square feet of floor space.

US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm spoke during CES 2023, and forty-four others in the technology sector gave keynote speeches.

John May, the chairman and CEO of John Deere was among the keynote speakers.

“Farmers never have a shortage of work to do on any given day,” said Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer for John Deere.

As they say, “nothing runs like a Deere,” and the winner of the CES 2023 award for Vehicle Tech and Advanced Mobility was the fully autonomous, self-driving John Deere tractor at CES, presented initially during CES 2022.

The 8RT 310 to 410 horsepower tractors equipped with the autonomous driving package reportedly cost around $600,000.

The autonomous functionality will be available for retrofitting other John Deere tractor models.

Portable refrigerators for camping have been around for a while, but the EcoFlow Glacier is exceptional for those who enjoy camping off-grid.

This one features a built-in icemaker. Just pour water into the icemaking chamber, and you will have up to 18 ice cubes in 12 minutes.

The refrigerator’s interior is lighted, and a rechargeable 297 Wh (watt-hour) battery keeps the fridge operating for up to 24 hours.

I was impressed with its direct solar charging, how it doubles as a power supply to recharge smart devices, and its built-in USB-C port to charge laptops.

The EcoFlow Glacier looked very durable, and its portable wheel configuration provides it with mobility.

The refrigerator can also be fully controlled remotely using a smartphone app.

EcoFlow did not release the refrigerator’s dimensions, but it reportedly can store around 50 cans of your favorite beverages.

The company said their new refrigerator would be available in the spring of 2023.

An official price has yet to be released.

Other products at CES 2023 included self-driving vehicles, electric scooters, and a flying car called the ASKA A5.

Yes. A flying car.

Founded in 2018, NFT, Inc., doing business as ASKA, is building a flying hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle.

ASKA A5 is the first four-seat electric vehicle one can drive on the highway and soar in the air.

The company’s website askafly.com is taking pre-orders of the ASKA A5, where they priced it at $789,000.

ASKA, with headquarters in Los Altos, CA, expects to have our Jetson’s flying car ready by 2026, so stay tuned and keep your eye on the sky.

The CES 2023 also showcased the Smart Mirror – SMRT6090, made by EONEOMS Ltd. in Seoul, South Korea.

It is also known as the Hey Mirror, possibly referencing the command “Hey, Google” when interacting with the Google intelligent Hub Nest device.

The Smart Mirror – SMRT6090 is an artificially intelligent electronic mirror allowing user interaction.

One can use it to see video and text, check the news, weather, or other information, and have it presented on its electronic display through touch or with its voice recognition feature.

It has LED illumination and an LED 405-based sterilizing light, which can be automatically activated to remove airborne impurities.

An impressive 5.8 GHz radar module sensor in the mirror detects the presence of anyone in the space it occupies.

The mirror can also pair with your other intelligent devices.

In addition to all the bells and whistles, the company says it functions as a “reflecting surface,” which most of us would agree is an essential mirror feature.

The company’s website says, “Through ‘Hey Mirror,’ you can experience extraordinary joy in your living space. It can be installed directly in the bathroom, bedroom, dressing table, living room, as well as in the entryway.”

I’m all for joy.

Two years ago, CES 2021 canceled public attendance of the show, making it an entirely online virtual event due to the COVID-19 virus.

CES 2022 saw sparse attendance because of the ongoing virus fears. It was once again primarily an online digital event; Twitter, Meta (Facebook), T-Mobile, and Amazon did not attend it.

“CES 2023 was the great reconnection and rocked by every measure, from attendance to the keynote stage to press conferences and product debuts on the exhibit floor,” said Gary Shapiro, president, and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association.

CES 2024 will take place in Las Vegas from Jan. 9 to Jan. 12, 2024.

The theatrophone visits the US

© Mark Ollig

In May of 1898, the New York City Electrical Show took place at Madison Square Garden.

The New York Times newspaper reported 300,000 people attended the month-long event.

At the Electrical Show, The New York Telephone Company installed a switchboard with telephone wiring connected to five New York City musical theater locations where stage microphones were installed.

The switchboard would allow sixty listeners in Madison Square Garden to hear musicals using the theatrophone (the theater phone).

The theatrophone was invented by Clément Ader, who demonstrated it during the 1881 World Expo in Paris, France, where it was well received.

On May 24, 1898, the Brooklyn Daily Times newspaper reported people in Madison Square Garden were astonished listening to the stereophonic-sounding musical performances telephonically transmitted from the theaters.

The newspaper added theatrophone listeners were surprised to hear a live musical performance from Milwaukee, WI (through the long-distance telephone network) via the New York Telephone Company switchboard.

During this time, entertainment and news sent over telephone wires had become popular in France with the Theatrophone Company, in England with the Electrophone, and in Budapest, Hungary, with the Telefon Hirmonde, meaning “Telephone Herald.”

Originally called the Telephone Newspaper Company of America, in 1909, it was incorporated in New York as the United States Telephone Herald Company.

Its business would be to bring telephonic audio entertainment, special events, and news services over telephone lines into homes throughout the U.S. The success of Telefon Hirmonde strongly influenced the company’s creation.

The United States Telephone Herald Company planned to establish a network of 14 associate companies, each providing telephonic news and entertainment to subscribers for a monthly fee.

The associate companies would obtain the wired network infrastructure needed for telephonic audio services by leasing telephone lines and equipment from the local telephone companies.

In 1910, the New Jersey Telephone Herald Company, one of the associate companies, attempted to lease local telephone lines from the New York Telephone Company.

The New York Telephone Company refused to lease them; however, they ended up cooperating after being persuaded by a higher power.

On Sept. 8, 1911, the New Jersey Passaic Daily News newspaper reported the New York Telephone Company was directed by the Department of Public Utilities of New Jersey to furnish leased telephone wires to the New Jersey Telephone Herald Company.

A month later, the New Jersey Telephone Herald Company officially began providing telephonic audio services over leased telephone lines. Its telephonic services included a daily music schedule, special events, and up-to-date news from telegraph wire reports and newspapers.

On June 14, 1912, the Oregon Telephone Herald Company, another of the 14 associate companies, wrote in the Oregon Daily Journal that it was “commencing their full commercial service, which ‘Heralds’ to you over our telephonic great party lines news as it happens.”

They added, “baseball play-by-play right from the park, theatrical performances, opera, and happenings of every sort in clear and melodious tones, the human voice itself reaching you over a separate wire system.” Their newspaper article said the billing rate amounted to five cents per day.

Only two associate companies, the New Jersey Telephone Herald Company and the Portland Oregon Telephone Herald Company, would provide telephonically delivered services to paying subscribers.

However, both companies could not raise the revenues needed to remain solvent, and in 1913, their telephonic operations ended.

On June 14, 1914, the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune newspaper reported: “conversation and music floating through the atmosphere above the housetops and buildings of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and audible only through a wireless receiving apparatus [radio receiver].”

Minneapolis residents James Coles, an amateur radio operator, and William Reynolds built the radio transmitting station broadcasting music from a phonograph; at times, Coles spoke over the radio transmitter.

Radio broadcasts were seen as the future for obtaining news and entertainment, as amateur radio stations had begun over-the-air transmissions listenable at no cost to anyone having a radio receiver.

In February 1915, the United States Telephone Herald Company lost its corporate charter due to nonpayment of taxes and was out of business.

On Nov. 7, 1916, U.S. presidential election returns were transmitted wirelessly with the voice of Walter Schare from Lee De Forest’s amateur radio station 2XG in New York City.

Schare read the election returns over the air via telephone reports from the telegraph office of the Buffalo News.

Music was played by 2XG to radio listeners whenever Schare waited for updated election returns.

“Seven thousand wireless telephone operators within a radius of 200 miles of New York City received election returns,” was reported in newspapers.

On Oct. 27, 1920, the first U.S. commercial radio broadcasting license was obtained by

KDKA (radio call sign 8ZZ) in East Pittsburg, PA.

By 1922, radio was enormously popular with the public; even the 1922 Chevrolet Touring Sedan automobile featured a factory-installed Westinghouse radio.

Radio stations would rule the airwaves for the foreseeable future – or so it seemed.

That is until May 1928, when pioneering television station W2XCW (WGY/WRGB) began a three-day televised schedule from Schenectady, NY.

Looking back to 1881, Clément Ader would probably have invented the “theatrophone radio television” if the technology had been available.

New York Newspaper ad from 1898

Nineteenth-century ‘Paris Wonder’

© Mark Ollig

Years before commercial radio stations wirelessly transmitted theater opera music to home radios, a wired system was operating on the other side of the pond.

Clément Ader, a French engineer, designed the first private telephone network in Paris, France, in 1879.

He also engineered a telephonic dual-channel audio system for the first broadcast of live stereophonic sound.

Ader’s transmission system used a listening device he invented called the theatrophone (the theater phone), which worked over telephone wiring.

The magneto-electric theatrophone used soft iron metal in each of the two receiver’s diaphragm earpieces, which increased electromagnetic induction, sustained current flow, and provided quality sound wave reproduction.

In 1881, Ader demonstrated his stereophonic electrical audio reproduction system during the World Expo that took place in the Palais de l’Industrie (Palace of Industry) building in Paris.

A mile away inside the Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera House), Ader wired 12 telephone microphone transmitters on the stage floor along the front footlights where the audience would not see them.

Several Leclanché 1.5-volt direct current dry-cell batteries (invented by French scientist Georges Leclanché in 1866) powered the microphones that would pick up the voices and movements of the singers and actors performing on the stage.

The microphone wiring passed through electrical amplifiers and induction coils within Ader’s transmission circuit and continued through an empty water pipe leading into the Palais de l’Industrie building. From there, the wiring ran to four portico gallery rooms, where it made connections to several theatrophones.

Each theatrophone was equipped with two earpieces used by the person listening to music playing inside the Paris Grand Opera House.

The left earpiece retransmits audio from microphones from the left side of the theater stage, and the right earpiece retransmits the audio sounds from the right side.

People in the Palais de l’Industrie location listening on the theatrophones were astonished and described hearing the actor’s voices and movements on the stage as if sitting in the audience at the Opéra de Paris building.

“This phenomenon is very curious. It approximates to the theory of binaural audition and has never been applied, we believe, before to produce this remarkable illusion to which may almost be given the name of auditive perspective,” the Dec. 31, 1881, Scientific American magazine wrote about the theatrophone listening experience.

By 1890, Ader’s engineering work led to the Compagnie du Theatrophone (Theatrophone Company) in Paris, which began live-streaming audio connections from theater performances over telephone lines to its paying subscribers.

These connections were established and monitored by switchboard operators.

The Theatrophone Company signed contracts for the commercial delivery of live music and other audio content with leading play theaters, opera houses, vaudeville clubs, café chantant (cafe-concert) locations, and church Sunday services.

An agreement with the Paris telephone exchange provided cross-connection wiring for new and existing subscribers and business locations to the Theatrophone Company.

The telephone exchange installed special six-conductor cabling from each theater location at the Theatrophone Company switchboard, located on the lower level of the Rue Louis-Grand building in Paris. It served as the central distribution hub for connecting audio content providers with paying subscribers.

To use the service, a subscriber asks the local telephone exchange operator to connect them to the Theatrophone Company.

The Theatrophone Company switchboard operator connects with and asks the subscriber which theatre location they want to listen to.

The operator then plugs the subscriber’s line patch cord into the round, metallic brass spring jack wired to the theater’s location, connecting the subscriber with the desired theater’s performance audio.

Above the switchboard, rows of printed cards display regularly updated performance schedules and times for each theater.

Each theater has several jacks on the switchboard, so multiple subscribers can be plugged into audio content using their regular telephone or the theatrophone and its dual earpieces.

A subscriber can end the theaters audio by signaling the Theatrophone Company’s switchboard operator. Also, the local city exchange switchboard operator can break into the live stream audio to connect with the subscriber for an emergency call.

On July 2, 1892, Scientific American magazine reported 100 theatrophones installed in Paris.

“A Paris Wonder” is the title of an article from Oct. 2, 1892, in the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune newspaper describing the theatrophone.

People deposited coins in specially-designed theatrophones installed at hotels, cafes, railway stations, and other public locations to listen to live performances.

“Like gas from a gas jet, one can turn on music to flow for any desired time and pay for it according to the measure of the meter,” the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune article stated.

The Theatrophone Company obtained direct telephone trunking with exchanges outside Paris to provide live telephonically transmitted audio theatrical performances in France and other countries.

By 1932, the popularity of home radios had become the preferred method for listening to live theater and musical performances. As a result, the Theatrophone Company ceased operations.

One hundred-year-old predictions

© Mark Ollig

On Jan. 1, 1923, the front page of The Minnesota Daily Star newspaper printed “2-0-2-3” in bold typeset.

Underneath were the italicized words, “It is interesting to note what eminent men and woman visualize for 2023 in their respective sphere, should they awake, Rip Van Winkle like, in that year.”

On Jan. 7, 1923, the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune contained an article by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building in New York, forecasting city architecture in 2023.

“I believe that buildings in the future, except in more congested parts of large cities, may be of less height than those of today. We may, as the result of certain laws, have cities of towers or of terraces and roof gardens,” Gilbert wrote.

In 1923, the tallest building in the US (and the world) was the Woolworth Building in New York, at 792 ft.

Today, One World Trade Center in New York is the tallest building in the US at 1,776 ft, symbolizing the country’s independence in 1776. Its observation deck height is 1,266 ft.

On Jan. 2, 1923, the Minneapolis Morning Tribune printed predictions for 2023 from Major General Edward F. McGlachlin, of the United States Army War College, who said, “There will still be wars in the twenty-first century.”

He added, “There will be wars when fear reaches the limit of endurance, and we will become engaged when our existence, our interests, our pride, or our ideals are sufficiently at stake.”

McGlachlin anticipated, “huge tanks that can go underseas, submersibles that can fly, are not beyond the possibility before 2023.”

He also forecasted that “communication by radio may be secret and direct over vast distances, as though one whispered to a friend. The helicopter may raise airplanes vertically. Helium may make balloons safe. Aerial photographs may be transmitted by radio. Land survey from great heights may be accurate.”

Today, an estimated 1,000 US classified military intelligence-gathering satellites orbit the Earth. Many are used for accurate reconnaissance “land survey from great heights” photography transmitted via encrypted radio signals to US government military facilities.

Currently, the largest US submarine is the Ohio class of nuclear-powered subs; it is 560 ft long, with its four-deck sections being 42 ft in diameter. Its gross weight is 37.5 million pounds. 

Presently, the US military has the Bell Boeing V-22, Osprey, a vertical takeoff and landing capable aircraft using propeller blade rotors like a conventional helicopter.

This year, the Department of Defense will deploy helium-filled balloons to monitor US skies 24 hours a day as part of JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System).

On Jan. 2, 1923, the front-page headline of the California Colton Courier newspaper read, “Planes will fill the sky in 2023.”

“The people living in the United States in 2023 will look up and see the sky filled with different types of aviation craft flying along well-laid-out and controlled routes or highways. Hundreds, if not thousands, of aircraft will be in use,” the newspaper wrote just 20 years after Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their first airplane.

Today’s skies are filled with an average of 9,700 aviation craft flying along well-laid-out and controlled routes or highways.

In 1923, Schick manufactured the first electric shaver, Frigidaire introduced the refrigerator, and Clarence Birdseye began selling frozen foods.

The same year, RCA was manufacturing the Radioloa IV, a self-contained wood cabinet radio receiver featuring a built-in speaker.

William Kerridge Haselden’s futuristic cartoon, first drawn in 1919, was republished by London’s The Daily Mirror newspaper Jan. 23, 1923, with the title “The Pocket Telephone: When Will it Ring?”

The cartoon illustrated how having a small pocket telephone would cause embarrassing interruptions when it rings at a concert, a baby’s baptism, or a wedding, and frustration while running for a train, holding items with both hands, or walking in the rain with an umbrella.

“We shall certainly be rung up at the most awkward moments in our daily lives,” says the cartoon caption.

Today, one hundred years later, we adjust our “pocket phone” ring volume, or set its mode to silent or vibrate. What would Mr. Haselden have thought about that?

By 2123, some four generations from now, technology will have advanced significantly. Those living then will be using ultra-smart devices that would seem magical to those of us today.

One hundred years from now, people will interact with semi-sentient devices linked through a post-quantum quark-scale hierarchical computing network employing advanced algorithms – or something like that.

Of course, the big question all of us would want to ask of those living in 2123 is, “Do people travel around in flying cars?”