At CES 2018, Ubergizmo was a media partner of Aving’s Made In Korea (MIK) tech program that includes many startups from Korea. We had time to look at ~10 companies and products, and we picked three that we thought were the most interesting for an American and International audience. Here they are, sorted by alphabetical order:
Anyractive GoTouch
GoTouch is a device that can turn any display surface such as TV and projector screens into a touch screen. The device is a sensor that can estimate where on the surface the user is interacting. The installation is simple, and the proposed value is simple: it is much cheaper than buying a large touch-display.
The device has been around for some time, but you probably never heard of it. Yet, the idea is quite good, and that is why GoTouch has gotten 368% of their requested funding on Indiegogo. GoTouch has started to ship a couple of months ago, so it’s a real product now. We haven’t tried it in real-world conditions, but so far, this looks very promising. You can see how it works from the official video below, and there’s more on YouTube.
GoTouch also has drivers for tablets and PCs, and the demo video shows that clearly. It has won other awards such as the Samsung WEnnovation and has been selected by Best Buy as an innovation product. We agree! GoTouch is a product from Anyractive, owned by Edward Lim.
Coding & Play
This is an educational product to teach basic coding thinking to young children (4-12 years old). The goal is to have kids thinking about “problem solving” as a form of fun. It’s nice to see many products aimed at roughly this goal, with many of them using programmable blocks and parts to assemble. The downside of that approach is that it is often too challenging for the youngest children.
Coding & Play was explicitly designed to be friendly to kids as young as 4, but at the same time remain challenging until the age of 12, when average students are deemed able to write “text code.” At CES 2018, Coding & Play has partnered with the Wyss Institute Root Robotics of Harvard University that makes the ROOT Robots. ROOT Robots can work with content from Coding and Play, which gives the Wyss Institute access to the Korean market.
Coding & Play says that it works with 200 schools (~10,000 students) in Korea, and forecasts a fast increase in 2018. The video below shows how simple it is to use paper cards to enter a series of commands to a robot, making it an elementary form of coding.
GazeDesk Workstation and Giiromat
With the health benefits of stand up desks being promoted regularly, more and more people are switching. However, standing also has possible downsides, depending on your stance. It is very common to lean on one leg or have a posture that may stress some joints over time.
The original GazeDesk was introduced in 2016, and we even gave it a MIK Award back then (see it here on YouTube). The new version is more straightforward and sits on a desk instead of “being the desk”. It is much simpler to build and will hopefully be more affordable to more people. There is still a motorized keyboard surface and the ability to memorize several positions.
The Giiromat will look at the pressure from your feet to check if your standing position is correct and will send an alert if it needs correcting. This month, GazeDesk Workstation (the table) will start selling on Amazon, and its Giiromat will follow in March.
You can also check More Things’ Standing Desk Mat which we featured in November 2017 if you want to look at alternatives.
*CES 2018 MIK Awards photos courtesy of Aving.net