What the Tech? Companies trying to make names for themselves

(ABC 6 News) – CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show wraps up Saturday in Las Vegas. It is the biggest convention of any kind in the world. The pandemic canceled CES in 2021 and it was mostly remote in 2022. Companies have been waiting for this moment to release products they’ve been working on for some time.

All of the big tech companies are here. Sony, Panasonic, Amazon, Google, wireless carriers, and car manufacturers. A crowd favorite though is a section at the Venetian Expo Center set aside for start-ups and inventors called Eureka Park. These are typically smaller products but with real-world solutions.

Taste Boosters is a start-up presenting three of its products including SpoonTEK, a taste-enhancing spoon. “As you’re eating it will light up,” developer Ken Davidov, explained. “That excites the taste buds
on your tongue and enhances sweet and salty and suppresses sour.” He further explained that SpoonTek is especially good at improving the taste of yogurt and ice cream.

Another smart gadget, Heat It, is already on the European market. It uses heat to neutralize pain from bee stings and bug bites.

“Heat it is the most amazing bug bite healer there is,” says John Pohl.

Heat It attaches to a smartphone’s power port to neutralize the venom going into your skin by pressing it directly on the sting and heating the area for 30 seconds. “That process of heating it and it’s 124 degrees; you feel it but it’s not painful, that heating process stops the release of the histamines which stops the itch or the sting,” said Pohl. Heat It launches soon in the United States.

A Canadian start-up has come up with smart glasses for people with vision loss. Seleste smart glasses have a camera and microphone. Someone with vision loss can look at something, like a menu, and a volunteer somewhere in the world connects to the wearer and reads it for them

Respiray is a wearable for people allergic to pet dander, pollen, and other particles by drawing air from below before it hits the wearer’s face.

“The device takes dirty air from underneath,” said Karl Annus. “Here is a HEPA filter that captures all particles and it’s like a buffer zone to make clean air in front of the person’s face.”

Some of the products in Eureka Park will never be sold in the United States. The inventors and startups come here to raise funding or in many cases, they’ll sell their technology to larger companies in the world. It’s a fun place to be.