CES 2019: More refinements than breakthroughs

At CES 2019, you can say hello to Codi. It's a new interactive storytelling robot for kids, meant to provide them with developmental support. It allows access to hundreds of songs, stories and lessons for free. Codi boasts some artificial intelligence as it can learn from a child's usage patterns to become more personalized, Miami-based creator Pillar Learning claims.

Chinese startup Byton is presenting a huge 48-inch video panel stretching across the upper part of the dashboard of its M-Byte electric vehicle. With a screen as big as that, there's no doubt that selling content will be at least as important for the company as selling cars in the future. Another, smaller screen near the steering wheel provides access to most control functions.

Also debuting at CES 2019 is Harley Davidson's electric LiveWire motorcycle. Fans can already preorder the motorbike which sells at a retail price of a little under $30,000 (€26,100). If used in mixed city/highway driving, prepare to recharge after 110 miles (177 kilometers). According to electrek's website, the LiveWire is a motorcycle without a clutch or gears.

A group of innovative engineers from Shanghai and Italy are bending over backward to make consumers switch from ordinary selfie sticks to their AirSelfie models — pocket-sized drones with inbuilt aerial cameras called Air 100, Air Zen and Air Duo. The models will go on sale in the course of this year, first in Canada and the US, but later also in Sweden, Finland, Greece and a dozen other nations.

South Korea's Samsung wants to secure its market share in products monitoring people's health and well-being. The company's Bot Care robot, unveiled in Las Vegas, aims to assist people in their daily health routines, that is people who are aware of any such routines. The robot can take your vital health data such as blood pressure and heart rate, and can also monitor your sleep cycles.

No more nights spent tossing and turning is what the Somnox Sleep Robot promises the well-disposed buyer. The makers say it will make good on this promise by letting the robot regulate your breath, provide the best sound to both fall asleep faster and wake up naturally. It could become your ideal companion at night as "it won't hog the duvet," as The Times puts it.

Taiwan's Ganzin Technology engineering startup is assisted by top minds from the fields of psychology and human behavior. The company's latest eye-tracking module called Aurora aims to further unlock the potential of the human eye as the ultimate interface with the digital world. It can control a variety of functions using eye movement.