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It was an interesting year for robots at CES 2025. While we had hoped the AI boom would bring a new wave of useful robots to the show, it seems that many robotics companies are still figuring out exactly how to best use AI. What we found instead was a mix of adorable robot companions, strange concepts and one, slightly terrifying humanoid. We visited a lot of robots at CES and, for better or worse, some really left an impression on us. These are the ones that stood out the most. TCL Ai Me Karissa Bell for Engadget Of all the surprisingly adorable robots we saw at CES, TCLs Ai Me (pronounced Amy) was one of the cutest. The concept was on display at TCLs booth delighting and bewildering everyone who walked by. With a voice and eyes that are meant to sound like an actual human child, TCL seems to be pitching this as an emotional support/companion robot for kids. At the booth, Ai Me wasnt doing much besides moving around in its wheeled, egg-shaped base, but the company says that the AI-powered robot could be used to control smart home devices or record vlogs, thanks to built-cameras and AI capabilities. For now, its unclear if TCL actually plans to sell this thing, but the company seemed to have put quite a bit of effort into its CES demo. In addition to the one slowly wheeling around a mock-up living room, TCL showed off a lineup of different outfits, including fuzzy bunny suits and a denim vest, for Ai Me. -Karissa Bell Ropet Karissa Bell for Engadget As we walked over to the Ropet booth, a person was waving a plastic hotdog in front of the little robot and small cartoon hotdogs flashed across its eyes in response. I was pretty much sold at that moment, but it turned out to have some other pretty interesting things going on too. Ropet responds to voice, touch and gestures, and has its own cute little emotional reactions. Its conversational if you want it to be, with ChatGPT integration. Mostly its just adorable. -Cheyenne MacDonald Mirumi Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget Mirumi is one of those CES oddities that makes you simultaneously go, What the hell is this? and, Omg I love this. Its small, fluffy and has no other purpose than to make you smile by looking around and staring at you like an innocent baby. I immediately felt the need to protect it with my life. CM Romi Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget Romi is a conversational robot that fits in the palm of your hand and is here for you if you want to chat, vent or just hang out. The newest model of the robot turned up at Unveiled, and we couldnt help but be charmed by its cute facial expressions. It fits nicely in your hands, so you can carry it around the house with you while you walk around complaining about your workday. -CM Miroki Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget Miroki was at CES last year, but the Enchanted Tools team was back showing off the latest version and some new skills, including LLM integration. If you were able to fight through the crowd surrounding it to get up close, you may have seen it rolling around waving at people, blinking its big cartoon eyes and flicking its ears like a deer. Undecided on whether its cute or a little unnerving. -CM Scorpion Not sure which had a bigger presence at #CES2025, robots or "APT." pic.twitter.com/NLZWey94dI Engadget (@engadget) January 10, 2025 Scorpion is an AI bartender from Richtech Robotics that unfortunately wasnt slinging drinks when we saw it (or scuttling around, apparently it doesnt do that), but did perform a synchronized dance to Apt. with the companys Adam bot. Come for the arthropodal robot, stay for the K-pop. -CM Unitree G1 and "Robot Dog" This robot attacked me.Karissa Bell for Engadget Of all the robots we saw at CES 2025, Unitrees take the prize for most terrifying. The company was showing off its new quadruped robot dog and humanoid G1 robots. The quadruped, which is essentially heir take on Boston Dynamics Spot robot, showed off to onlookers by running around the booth, climbing stairs and sitting on its hind legs. But it was the G1 that proved to be the robot we needed to worry about. I was taking photos of the roughly 4-foot tall humanoid when it suddenly ran at me full-speed. I was only a foot or so in front of it at the time due to the crowd in the booth, so the roughly 60-pound G1 slammed directly into my body at an all out run. The surrounding crowd met I was essentially pinned in place for a few seconds while the robot continued to attempt to run through me until its operator was able to regain control. Fortunately, this was a case of user error and not the beginning of a robot uprising. The person holding the gamepad-like controller for the robot had mistakenly mashed the joystick, sending it directly into my body. At least I can now say I know what it feels like to be body slammed by a robot. -KB Mi-Mo Cheyenne MacDonald for Engadget One of the more unusual robots we saw at CES, Mi-Mo is a six-legged table with a lamp on top. We didnt see Mi-Mo do much besides shimmy around the show floor and wave, but there are some really interesting ideas behind the AI-powered robot. It runs on multiple large language models and "thinks and acts" based on its environment. Its creators say it could help with childcare and eldercare tasks. Mi-Mo will be available to developers and researchers as a dev kit later this year. -KB Reachy 2 Daniel Cooper for Engadget Pollen Robotics was here at CES showing off Reachy 2, its latest machine thatll cost you $75,000 if you have that sort of cash laying around. Its an adorable open-source machine with a human pilot that, its makers say, is ideal for tele-operation and data acquisition. I just think its cute, especially when it waves at you. -Daniel Cooper Additional reporting by Daniel Cooper.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/the-robots-we-saw-at-ces-2025-the-good-the-bad-and-the-completely-unhinged-174529774.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
It was while walking past the RadioShack booth at CES 2025 that I spied the Kodak stand not far ahead. And it was while musing about the fate of those two storied okay maybe not storied names that I spied another Kodak booth two rows over. For a company thats been dead more than a few times over, its certainly enjoying something of a renaissance. Look, its not as if there havent always been brands that die and get revived in pursuit of a quick buck. Especially if the price is cheap and theres any residual degree of affection for it, but even so there are a hell of a lot of them now. Do we need four different companies selling Kodak-branded wares? Daniel Cooper for Engadget Perhaps the most egregious example at this years show was from Mizari, an LA-based company that sells hardware under a variety of names. This year, it was showing off a lineup of products under the Memorex brand, including e-bikes, scooters and golf caddies. If youre unfamiliar, Memorex made recordable media in the analog era: computer and cassette tapes, VHS, CDs and eventually DVDs. Its slogan was Is it live, or is it Memorex? boasting its superior audio quality. Does that slogan work as well for e-bikes, scooters and golf caddies? Thats less clear. Daniel Cooper for Engadget The companys representatives said that using the Memorex name was an experiment to see how much affection the public has for the brand. Theyre targeting people over the age of 40 who remember what they slammed in their tape decks. At the same time, theyre targeting younger generations who may feel the pull of that retro name, since were apparently in an era where anything old is inherently laudable. Mizari also holds the license for Delorean, albeit just to make e-bikes, scooters and go-karts, for the kids, you know? Daniel Cooper for Engadget RadioShack has been passed from owner to owner since it initially filed for Chapter 11 back in 2015. In May 2023, it was bought by Unicomer, a RadioShack franchisee from Central and South America which is now relaunching the parent brand in the US. It will act, like so many of these companies, as a distributor, adding its name to a variety of products made elsewhere. Its lineup is already 400 products strong, from gaming keyboards and mice to portable projectors and speakers. The idea, as you might have guessed, is to cash in on the fact people likely remember the name of this over some generic product they'll find among the dregs on Amazon. Daniel Cooper for Engadget The two Kodaks nearby share the Kodak name, but very little else: One is showing off the Kodak Mini Shot (lead image), made by Prinics Co. Walk 50 yards further down the plush CES carpet and youll find another Kodak (pictured above), this one selling digital photo frames and tablets. Staffers at both booths are happy to talk about which part of the sprawling Kodak license they are paying for. Hell, the latter Kodak stand was also advertising those same products under the Thomson name, an old French electronics company that was rebranded as Thales 25 years ago. Daniel Cooper for Engadget A little walk and youll soon find a large stand from RCA, which also holds the names Thomson and Blaupunkt. All three are nothing more than names and logos slapped on products that are shipped in from various manufacturers. RCA is famously known for making radio equipment and other electronics before branching into broadcasting, music and movies. So its natural, too, that you can pick up an RCA-branded e-bike and scooter, cashing in on all those bikes RCA made when your pop pop was in diapers. Daniel Cooper for Engadget Next to Mizaris Memorex-branded exhibits was the third Kodak booth Id stumbled across, this one showing off a wide variety of products. This included smartwatches, cameras, binoculars, mirrors with halo lighting and Bluetooth speakers, all made by various licensees. And, quite literally two booths over, was another Kodak stand, this time from C&A Global, which makes Kodak branded photo printers (and the HP Sprocket) as well as projectors and scanners. Daniel Cooper for Engadget Im not sure I need to wave my hands around and try to make some sort of grand point about All Of This. One one hand, it doesnt matter. Lots of low-cost products are sold to folks who arent going to interrogate their purchases. Given how common the practice of buying a dead brand and slapping it on whatever you sell, it must be profitable enough to justify doing it. But it just leaves me scratching my head, wondering whos going to remember the tape company from the 9s and want to ride an e-bike with its logo on the side. Or who would think theres any trust left in the Kodak brand given the near-homeopathic levels of dilution its subjected to. Maybe these companies' real lingering value is to serve as a reminder to all the other tech brands that this is the fate that awaits them if they keep messing up. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/a-tale-of-four-kodaks-173040742.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Were officially recovering from CES 2025! In this episode, Devindra and Senior Reporter Sam Rutherford dive into their favorite PCs from the show, NVIDIA's RTX 5000 GPUs and debate the merits of Lenovos extra-large Legion Go S handheld. They explain why they like ASUSs ultra-light Zenbook A14, and Sam gives us his final thoughts on Dells clunky brand transition. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics Lenovos surprising CES showing: ThinkBook Plus Gen 6s rollable screen 0:47 Legion Go S by Lenovo is the first third-party handheld to run SteamOS 4:35 NVIDIAs RTX 5000 seems great 10:16 But Jensen Huangs keynote on NVIDIAs future lacked focus 15:29 MicroLED TVs shown at CES are gorgeous and pricy 30:11 Credits Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Sam RutherfordProducer: Ben EllmanMusic: Dale NorthThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/engadget-podcast-thats-a-wrap-on-ces-2025-171558731.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
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