Editor's note: Mario Armstrong is HLN's Digital Lifestyle Contributor. You can follow him on Twitter @MarioArmstrong.
The biggest challenge of the International Consumer Electronics Show, without a doubt, is finding the hottest new tech. Seriously, it's like trying to find a needle in the haystack. I could go the easy route and just cover the major exhibitors and find something to get excited about. Huge companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Sony will always find ways to amaze without the absolute latest in tech. After all, they spend untold millions to impress us on the show floor, even if Microsoft won’t be back after this year.
CES Preview: Augmented Reality?
To start off small with a preview, Monday night I saw an awesome tech demo of an augmented reality app. Augmented reality in this case was a way for me to use my smartphone camera, point it at a physical object like a page in a magazine and watch the image cone alive on my phone with ways to interact with it. While I’m interested in augmented reality there are tons of companies competing in this space.
So how could I have possibly known that a company called Aurasma was the real deal? For one, their tech demo on repeat sold the concept: Somebody at the booth was constantly scanning objects and showing the results on an HDTV. For another, they were demonstrating the actual product. This was no designed-for-press trickery; rather, the Aurasma team was using the actual app on an actual iPhone, demonstrating how the tech worked in the real world. These were both good signs, as it meant that the product was not only ready for prime time but actually worked.
Could I have possibly known that the killer app last night was going to be a product I’d never heard of? Absolutely not, but I’m glad that’s how things turned out. With the exhibitors finally set up and the show beginning for real, for real Tuesday, I’m bound to stumble across a lot of tech that underwhelms but also a lot of stuff that will become the must-have gadgets of 2012.
Follow all my CES coverage on HLNtv.com. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter @marioarmstrong to get live updates from the show floor!
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