Everything’s Gonna Be Fine!

It's day four of our CES 2025 coverage and I've barely talked about wacky robots at all. Well, turns out there were lots of robots at CES this year, which makes sense. Robotics is kind of in the middle of its chat GPT moment, or at least NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang wants that very badly, having debuted new AI-powered tools to develop and train autonomous robots. I mean, if we have advanced AI that hallucinates and we don't stick it in a super-powered metal body, what are we doing? Case in point, the go-to dog robot from Chinese company Unitree, who describes it as a new creature of embodied AI and seemingly can't publish a single video where it doesn't do a handstand. It just learned and it's very excited. Unitree says the go-to can use generative AI to interpret spoken commands, so it figures out how to shake hands when you ask, but ask for a glass of water and give me some water. Sorry, I can't reach it. I'll dance to pleasure you instead. Uh, what kind of robot did I buy? No, you don't have to do that. The go-to seems fairly physically capable, but it's actually a much more consumer-friendly, safer version of Unitree's terrifying wheeled B2W robot, which has been demoed doing a barrel roll in mid-air and other insane parkour tricks, careening down mountainsides, through water, and over rough terrain, looking like some kind of manic assassin on rollerblades. While the smaller go-to gingerly took the stairs, this thing lands a two-meter jump into a handstand and then lets buddy ride it like it's the f***ing X Games. And look, we're in control of these things, okay? It's not like we're dealing with a brand new intelligent species. Unitree? What? What are you doing? Turns out you can also slap some wheels on the go-to, and while Boston Dynamics' Spot robot goes for nearly $75,000, Unitree is selling the go-to for just $1,600. For $16,000, you can get the G1 humanoid robot, who also loves to jump, and take a bo-staff off of its back and swing it around like a weapon, and Unitree is training a virtual army in staff combat? What is it? Why? Why didn't they show them making coffee or something? Why would you? Why do you think humanity needs robots? Melee combat? Well, thankfully there were a few robots at CES that might not make you coffee, but could bring it to you. The Mimo from Japanese company Jizai is like a bedside table with spider legs, designed to carry items around a house or perhaps a medical facility, and it maybe would have given me nightmares if I wasn't still thinking about the Unitree dogs. Ah, a big trend at CES is also equipping robot vacuums with appendages. The $2,000 Roborock Ceros Z70 conceals a clawed arm in its body that can unfold to pick up obstacles in its path, weighing under 300 grams. So, you know, socks, slippers, severed fingers. But oh, the Dream X50 Ultra also has a robot arm attachment, plus it's got extendable legs so it can climb over small ledges. Gotcha there. You know what, never mind humanoid robots, let's just keep adding limbs to the vacuums and see where that gets us. SwitchBot is thinking along those lines with their K20 Plus modular robot system. The base model wheeled robot can be combined with a vacuum module, multiple robot arms, cameras, screen holders, and air purifiers with a tabletop. So SwitchBot says you can relax in bed while this thing brings you fresh coffee and breakfast. That you would have had to have made before racing your robot back to your bed. Luxury! Hey, you want to top convenience, check out our sponsor Saily, the eSIM service with regional and global plans. I told them I got roaming fees when I was traveling one time, and they would not stop laughing. With me. I was in on it. Because it doesn't make sense when Saily is right there with affordable eSIMs you can download once to keep you connected while traveling through multiple countries. When Saily heard about how I waited in line at the airport for a local SIM, they laughed even harder. It was pretty funny. Saily eSIM plans are compatible with most iOS and Android devices, and if yours isn't compatible, you'll get a full refund with chat support available 24-7. Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily eSIM data plans. Just download the Saily app and use code TECHLINKED at checkout. It's QuickBits time! It's QuickBits time? I'll fetch the milkman! Hey, what about Razer? Yeah, they usually have some wacky out-there concept to show off at CES, but the wildest thing they had this year was the Project Ariel gaming chair with an integrated fan system that blows cool or warm air at your backside. I mean, that's unusual, but the weirdest thing about it is how surprisingly practical it might be. I mean, what else you got, Razer? The Project Ava AI Gamer Co-Pilot? I mean, it does make some pretty big claims about how capable it is. Eh, kinda creepy, but not weird enough. This is kinda cool, the Hisong Air Studio One, a professional-looking handheld microphone with built-in wireless earbuds you can slide out and use as in-ear monitors. It's such an interesting idea to me that I almost overlooked their weird AI-generated promo video. Long ago, humans discovered the natural phenomenon of echoes in caves and canyons. Giving rise to the earliest attempts at capturing sound. Almost. Another one that caught my attention is the ShiftCam Plank, a tiny 1 or 2TB SSD that can plug into iPhones so you can fill those up with ProRes 4K 120fps footage instead of your onboard storage. It may be a surprisingly practical option for amateur filmmakers, given how great iPhone cameras are and how insistent Apple is that you NEED to buy iCloud storage. You wanna do anything? ShiftCam told 9to5Mac they're launching a Kickstarter next month. Speaking of keeping things local, Google has made keeping control of your smart home devices as local as possible much easier by integrating the Google Home Runtime into over 40 million devices. This will let homeowners control matter-compatible smart home tech without pinging Google services every time. But Google normally wants to suck up all the data it can, so they're either not telling us something, or they're gonna cancel this feature in 6 months. And Microsoft has declared 2025 the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh. They're getting serious about telling people to upgrade, but they may also be getting a bit sloppy. At EmsConto on Twitter reportedly got one of those now-infamous full-screen ads for only for it to crash immediately after popping up. And I don't want to speak for Microsoft here, but the guy-drunken-public warning about the end of the world is probably not the vibe Microsoft is going for. The vibe I'm going for tomorrow is weird. That's right, we'll be talking about all the weirdest stuff we saw at CES this year. So hey, be there, you're weird. In a good way. I didn't mean it like that. I'm probably the weirdest. Where are you going?