CES 2017: Highlights from Showstoppers

Tuesday evening we had CES Unveiled and on Wednesday it was the Pepcom Digital Experience.

Tonight, the evening of the official opening day of CES 2017, the next event was Showstoppers.

The basic premise of all three events is the same - give exhibitors the opportunity to highlight their products and services to more than 1,500 members of the media with an eye to catching that next wave of opportunity through coverage by the tech press.

I decided that the goal I would have at my first Showstoppers event was to walk around the room to see what I could find that was unique among the more than 120 vendors so that I can bring your attention to them.

Ultimately, I decided on the three items listed below to highlight for you and while they were not the only products on the show floor, something about them pulled me in unexpectedly and that was my general criteria for picking them. It does not make the others products better or worse - they just are what they are - this was just my very unscientific method.

Let's get started.

Ockel Sirius Pro A Mini PC

When you walk by a booth and see Windows 10 running on this very small form factor, well you stop and look.

This device runs Windows 10 Pro (64 bit), has 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of eMMC Flash storage. It runs on the Intel Atom x7-Z8750 Quad core processor and also has Wi-Fi connectivity.

What about ports - well it has a few:

Storage can be expanded by adding a MicroSD card and the 6 inch display has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The 3,000 mAh battery provides approximately 3 hours worth of video playback.

Quik Pod Twist Smartphone Holder/Tripod

This item caught my eye because it had a strange shape but by approaching this booth I got a bonus piece of information.

The folks behind Quik Pod Twist - were the same company/people who launched the Selfie Stick at Showstoppers 10 years ago!

You quickly figure out that Quik Pod twist is a technology agnostic accessory because it does not matter if your phone is iOS, Android, or even Windows Phone because the Quik Pod twist will give you the ability to mount your phone to most any surface for a quick selfie or group image.

It uses a proprietary material to get its sticky nature and can be easily cleaned with some hand sanitizer (thanks to the alcohol in it). To remove the holder just give the Quik Pod a twist, this its name, and then snap shut the hinged back cover to keep the sticky material clean and ready to use again.

As an added bonus the Quik Pod Twist ships with a small tripod, a silicon strap for mounting devices on handlebars, and a remote bluetooth trigger so that you can easily snap those selfies/group images.

Moore Unlimited Storage Capacity USB Flash Drive

This is the first prototype of the Moore Unlimited Storage Capacity USB Drive.

A newer version of the product is coming out this year but the real magic is how the company takes a 64GB USB flash drive and makes the storage unlimited.

In this case it is all about the algorithm which runs on the flash drive itself. As it runs it tracks which files you save on the drive and how you access them, how often, etc.

Using this machine learning it will begin to load less frequently stored files in the cloud and keep your heavily used files locally on the flash drive.

If a file is needed that is no longer physically stored on the drive, then it will be downloaded from the cloud so that you can access it locally.

According to the company, all of this happens in the background out of the users view.

So in effect, this one flash drive becomes an unlimited storage option.

Creative to say the least and a process they continue to develop and improve.

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