[book] The Rise of Superman

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler is mostly about extreme sports — the people behind really crazy activities like kayaking off a 56.7 meter waterfall or snowboarding off impossibly-high cliffs). If that part interests you, then you’ll hear insider accounts of the various legends you already know about. I’m not an extreme sport-watcher, but I came away with new respect for the people who do that stuff: they’re the modern day equivalents of great explorers past, like Magellan or Pizzaro. 

But the interesting part to me was the discussion of “flow", the mental state achieved by these people and by anyone working at peak performance.  Flow, also known as “being in the zone” or in religious contexts something like satori or enlightenment, is a place where every ounce of your being is fully alive, where you are “acting on all cylinders” and being the best you can be. Kotler dissects this state with scientists like Keith Sawyer and many others, including neuroscientists who study the phenomenon and divide it into these stages:

• Struggle: trying to amp up and get a handle on problem, focusing with all your might. Very nerve-wracking here.
• Release: the ‘aha’ moment
• Zone: now you’re in pure perfection
• Recovery: consolidate memories 

And these neurochemicals:

• dopamine (pleasure producer like cocaine)
• norepinephrine (like speed)
• endorphins (opiates more powerful than morphine)
• anandamide (“bliss”, inhibits ability to feel fear)
• serotonin (helps cope with distress)

 Flow is about focus and concentration, and it happens in groups too. Here are some of the key characteristics:

• serious concentration
• shared, clear goals
• good communication (immediate feedback)
• equal participation
• element of risk
• familiarity: the group has a common knowledge base
• blending egos
• sense of control
• close listening
• always say yes

There’s obviously much more to say about Flow, but I found many of the lessons were buried in anecdotes about extreme heroes, who if that’s your thing will be more interesting to you than it was to me. Still, I definitely want to learn more, especially about some of the Quantified Self devices mentioned, like BrainSport from SenseLabs (formerly Neurotopia) and of course the Flow Genome Project.

Interestingly, Kotler is also co-author with Singularity University and X-Prize Peter Diamondis of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, a book I’ll have to add to my reading list.

Apple Watch: the first wearable good enough to criticize

The Apple Watch launch event was so popular that the livestreamed version I saw kept breaking down, but I saw enough to be impressed.  My overall takeaway, to paraphrase what Alan Kay said about the first Macintosh: it’s the first wearable good enough to criticize.

As expected, Apple did it mostly right: a gorgeous high-quality design with plenty of personalization and rock-solid at its core time-keeping function. The first iPhone had brilliant, very clear positioning that helped excite people and make it easy to understand what was in fact a new product category.  Broken into three easy-to-understand pieces, Steve Jobs announced it was (1) a widescreen iPod  (2) great phone (3) the internet in your pocket.  Apple's Watch message isn’t quite that simple (or, frankly for many people, compelling) but here it is:

1. incredibly precise timepiece,
2. immediate, intimate way to connect,
3. intelligent health and fitness companion

The first one is strong, though I might have said something about the fashion rather than the precision time-keeping. Do normal people really care that it’s within 50ms of the correct time?  On the other hand, a mass-market watch had better look nice — and personalized for me — or you’ll have a hard time getting people to wear it. With its mens/womens sizing, the plethora of band choices, and three versions (including the real gold “edition” ), Apple clearly raises the bar for all wearables. Competitors can no longer release crappy chunks of plastic now that Apple is here.

The second message, an intimate way to connect, is the weakest piece of the story. I get the “intimate” part — it’s something you put on your wrist, it’s part of your daily appearance — but why do I want to “connect”? If it’s a Dick Tracy-style phone on my wrist (it has a built-in microphone and speaker, so it’s possible), why not just say that? The goofy “share a heart beat” with your friends sounds hard to get working, and few people will probably bother.

It will be nice to receive text updates on my wrist rather than having to pull my phone from my pocket, but I can’t see Maps being very important — certainly not enough to justify the time spent in the keynote demo. It’ll be nice to have the haptic feedback — a slight “buzz” when it’s time to turn corners — but for serious navigation wouldn’t I just want to use my phone? You’ll need your iPhone nearby to use the internet features like maps, so I just don’t understand the advantage of having it on my wrist.

But the third message — health and fitness — is immediately understandable and appealing. Apple’s new Activity app, with its easy-to-use three rings to show progress, and the Workout app for more serious exercising, look like the most well-thought and strongest features of the Watch. With sensors sensitive enough to tell when you’re walking up a stairs or rowing a boat, this will be one of the best wrist trackers ever.

That said, I have a few concerns. To get an accurate heart beat from the wrist, other wearables (e.g. Basis) rely on a tight fit (which would be uncomfortable after a while) or you have to explicitly request a reading by tapping a button — a real pain. Has Apple found a way to get real-time, continuous heart beat monitoring with a loose-fitting band?  It’s not impossible, so if they’ve done that, I’m impressed.

Also, if you need to recharge it regularly (nightly?), then unfortunately you can’t track sleep. There are apparently no other new sensors — for example, I had been hoping for galvanic skin resistance, or maybe even skin temperature, so really this is about activity tracking and not much else.

For now. The important feature Apple brings to the wearables market is legitimacy as an accessory. Now that we have something that looks and feels good, packaged on a platform that’s extensible for new uses (bluetooth/wifi and NFC are built in), it’s finally possible to begin making great personal wearable apps.

We can go on and on about what’s missing from the Watch, but it’s nice, at last, to have a stake in the ground — something good enough to criticize, and build upon.

Using the AliveCor Heart Monitor

Every few months, I feel a slight flutter in my chest, almost like a cough but coming not from the lungs or throat but from something deeper inside. It seems to come and go randomly, though I’ve noticed it is often triggered if I’ve had wine to drink or if I haven’t had enough sleep. No big deal, just something I observe about myself. Long ago, by coincidence, one of these episodes happened while I was at the doctor’s office having an annual physical, and the doctor too shrugged it off: a heart arrhythmia, perfectly normal. He told me the technical term for the exact type of arrhythmia, but that was long ago and I’ve forgotten. Now, maybe I’ve found a way to know for sure.

For the past week I’ve been using the new AliveCor Heart Monitor, a $200 iPhone case that gives me a high-fidelity Lead I ECG any time, any where I carry my smartphone. Here’s the sample I took this morning, right after waking up:

The device is just a normal iPhone case — with a funny two-part metal bulge on the back that acts as a two-lead electrode. You hold it with your fingers and it measures your ECG. Just like that! With FDA 510(k) clearance and scientifically validated for "excellent sensitivity (0.962), specificity (0.975), and accuracy (0.968) for beat-to-beat discrimination of an irregular pulse during AF from sinus rhythm”, it’s got serious medical chops too. The first time you use it, you send your results to trained technicians, who send you back a report (in my case, summarized as “normal sinus rhythm”). Each time after that, you’re given the option to send the results again as an in-app purchase:  $12 to a US Board Certified cardiologist, $5 for a 30-min turnaround by a certified technician, or $2 for 24-hour turnaround.

Unfortunately, there’s apparently no API, so although you can send each result (PDF) by email, there’s no automatic way to upload to Zenobase, for example, so you can easily compare with other self-tracking results.

The technology was invented by cardiologist David Albert using hardware that communicates with the phone via a clever, patented process that uses low-frequency, inaudible sound waves picked up by the phone’s microphone. No need to pair bluetooth with the device, no need for any physical connection to the phone at all.

Satish Misra is a medical doctor who wrote a balanced and thorough review, pointing out the wonderful breakthroughs possible with such a device, but also noting that because it doesn’t detect some important heart ailments as well as a full-scale ECG, it can provide false security. He notes, incidentally, that the US Preventative Services Task Force rates ECG screening generally (not just for this device) a “D” as a medical test:   “recommends against routinely providing to asymptomatic patients”. (They say that about exercise treadmill tests and coronary calcium scanning too, for what that’s worth.)

We’ll see what happens in my case. I really want to know more about my arrhythmia and it’s nice to know that, the next time it happens it’ll be easy for me to log it accurately.

By the way, whether you have an AliveCor or not, I wish everyone would join the Health eHeart study at the University of California San Francisco. You fill out a medical survey, give them your email address, and agree to be a long-term participant in their study. They especially want people who like to use gadgets — like the AliveCor — so they can collect as much data as possible. (Obviously, they have top-notch privacy standards to ensure your data remains confidential). If everyone did this, science would have a big head start in finding how to prevent heart disease.

The Clover of Brewing Machines

Five years ago, the Clover Coffee Equipment company was hand-assembling high-tech, excellent automatic coffee-making machines for the super high-end market. At tens of thousands of dollars each, they were intended for sale to boutique coffee shops, like Trabant and others, who could sell wonderful, precision-made cups of coffee to people who can appreciate the quality interaction of specialty beans, brewing times and temperatures.

Clover’s “factory” was an ordinary-looking building in Seattle’s Fremont district (very close to today’s MakerHaus by the way) and the founders were people who had a passion for the intersection of (industrial) design and the precision coffee experience. Those of us who knew the company and its products thought it was a great idea, and eventually Starbucks agreed when it bought them out.

How would you build something like Clover today? Well, I just saw the perfect example on Kickstarter: the PycoBrew Zymatic beer brewing appliance. At a high level, the hardware reminds me of the Clover: pumps, temperature sensors, relays, heating. Otherwise, instead of coffee beans, it uses grain and malt.

But the really exciting difference is the fantastic new business model that’s been enabled by Kickstarter. Whereas Clover had to be financed through (some deep-pocketed) angels and other traditional investors, PycoBrew can get its startup capital through its first customers. Through a pledge of about $1,500, the people interested in the product can help the new company financially right now, when it has no revenues.

Like the Clover founders, the people of PycoBrew seem very serious: their web site documents their progress through multiple generations of functional prototypes. To manufacture something that complicated, and then ship and support it around the country is a very big deal – the kind of business that in the past would have required (tens of?) millions of dollars up-front.

Think of a bread machine, only instead of bread you get beer. The basic idea is straightforward, and I personally know dozens, maybe hundreds of engineers who are entirely capable of building such a thing – or zillions of other similarly-interesting or useful products. But a great idea is useless without a profitable business to carry it out. Kickstarter and the wonderful set of internet-enabled ideas that go behind it, is lowering the costs and upfront hassles of actually starting and running the business side of ideas.

I can’t wait to see what additional new products we’ll see thanks to the new, really cool business innovation behind this.

Sleep Times: BodyMedia vs. Zeo

Most of those wrist-style activity monitors try to tell you how well you slept, but I’ve found the technology isn’t particularly accurate. Lately I’ve been trying the BodyMedia FIT armband, which also claims to tell sleep times.  But how accurate is it?

Here are my numbers after a week of wearing both devices.

The bold lines are from BodyMedia and represent the time spent lying down (which should be pretty accurate) versus actually sleeping (which depends on BodyMedia’s algorithms for detecting when sleep starts, and may not be very accurate). The other, non-bold lines are from Zeo, the headband device from the (sadly) now-defunct Zeo Inc, which is clinically proven to be about 80% accurate.

The good news is that the two devices seem to roughly agree, at least on overall sleep times. For that, BodyMedia is pretty good.

BodyMedia also computes another measure they call sleep efficiency that is simply the ratio between the time it thinks you’re in sleep versus the total amount of time spent lying down. Unfortunately, I found no correlation between this and the more meaningful Zeo-calculated sleep phases: REM, deep, or light.

Our bodies are motionless during the REM sleep phase, as muscles are turned off, and we move again when the REM phase is finished. These regular movements throughout the night usually correspond with sleep transitions, which the armband accelerometer can in theory detect, but I couldn’t find that information in the BodyMedia. Other accelerometer-based devices use these movements to guess at when a REM phase began or ended, so conceivably BodyMedia could add that information in the future; or perhaps they’ve considered it but concluded it wasn’t accurate.

Bottom line: BodyMedia is okay as a measure of overall sleep times, but won’t tell you much more.

Why I’m skinny

I weigh about the same today as I did in college: 160 pounds. In my entire life I’ve never weighed more than 170. Maintaining my weight has been effortless: I eat pretty much whatever I like, whenever I want, and in whatever quantity suits me at the time.  I know, I know, this is not normal and I should be thankful.  The vast majority of people, especially past middle age, seem like they have to starve themselves to keep from piling on the pounds.

Why?  I’m not particularly athletic. Although I don’t think of myself as sedentary per se, I’m hardly the type who does regular biking or jogging.

It might be genetic, but it’s hard to say.  My 23andme results suggest, if anything, I have the opposite problem (72/100 vs 64/100 for people like me).  On the other hand, I have the GG marker for rs925946, which puts me at lower odds, but who knows.  Most of my relatives are on the thin side, but we have our share of porkers too. I doubt my DNA explains everything.

One of my favorite theories is that I’m host to a benevolent microbiome, a colony of bacteria in my digestive system that processes food as I eat it, to prevent me from becoming either too skinny or too fat. But I’ve been hospitalized with some powerful antibiotics that probably killed off whatever beneficial bacteria I have, so that’s not persuasive either.

That leaves the most obvious possibility – that I just don’t eat enough – but I’ve never proven that objectively. Until now.

For the past week I’ve been wearing the BodyMedia Fit, a $90 simple and non-obtrusive armband that’s so light it’s easy to forget I have it on. Using four hi-tech sensors, it calculates my metabolism with 92% accuracy compared to the Gold Standard lab equipment. To track my food intake, I use MyFitnessPal, a (free) iPhone app with a huge database of food types (and super-handy UPC code scanner) that makes it easy to enter what I ate each day.

Here are the results:

The bottom line is that I’m thin because I don’t overeat. Apparently my metabolism is set to burn off whatever comes in, which turns out to be well within the range of what it takes to stay thin.

I’m not a weight loss expert, and this is not a testimonial for how to lose weight. Everyone is different, and my results probably won’t help you. But if you want to understand what your body is doing – the first step toward making any changes – then I highly recommend getting a device like this one to understand your metabolism objectively.

Incidentally, a good follow-up question is why I don’t feel hungry. I don’t think weight issues can be solved with self-control: diets fail in the long run if they depend on willpower. Seth Roberts always has thoughts about this that intrigue me and I’ll spend more time thinking about that in the future.

[Placeholder: I’m writing up many more details, including the raw data, about my week with BodyMedia and I’ll post a link here when I’m finished]

My first Arduino project: a temperature sensor

I've been saying for two years now that hardware is the future of software, and one center of action is the world of Arduino programmable microcontrollers. You can't really learn what's possible in a new technology field without trying it out for yourself, so I took the plunge and tried my own project, a very simple one to measure temperature and humidity in my house. Here's what I did:

I bought the following items (at Amazon)

• Arduino Uno R3 $21.95
• this temperature/humidity sensor:
  Virtuabotix DHT11 Digital Temperature/Humidity Sensor $5.60.
• and a $22 collection of assorted useful parts from Seeedstudio called Arduino Sidekick Basic Kit (Version 2) that includes:

Breadboard, Jumper wires, Color Led, Resistors, Buzzer, etc., all of this comes in its own handy box for easy transportation and minimal clutter. Parts list: Breadboard X1, Breadboard jumper wire X 70, Red Led X 10, Green Led X 10, RGB led X 1, Ceramic Capacitor (10nF X 10,100nF X 10), Electrolytic Capacitor (100uF X 5), Resistor (330X10,1kX10,10kX10), Tilt switch X 1, Thermistor X 1, Photo resistor X 1, Diode X 1, Buzzer X 1, Push button X 5, switch X 5, Mini Servo X 1, Potentiometer with knob X 1, Resistor Instructor card X 1, Plastic Box X 1

I installed the Arduino development environment on my Win7 PC and then hooked up this simple temperature sensor project:

The temperature sensor is a DHT11 and Virtuabotix has easy-to-understand libraries and other installation instructions.

Here's a screen shot of the sensor and development environment in action:

The entire project took about 90 minutes, including unwrapping the Arduino UNO, installing all software and libraries, and configuring and connecting the sensor.

It's extremely exciting to think about (1) how easy it was, and (2) all the other things I'm able to try now that I have this basic level of knowledge.

Printing in 3D

There is a wonderful online tool, tinkercard, that lets you easily and quickly build simple 3D models entirely in your web browser.  It's a competitor to SketchUp, the very cool CAD software that Google sold earlier this year, except it's browser-based and therefore cross-platform.

It took literally minutes for me to build a simple model in Tinkercard:

 

and then, with the press of a button I was able to host that same model on a commercial site, Sculpteo, where it is now for sale to anyone who wants it:

 

My crude, simple model can be printed in 3D for $165. I'm not sure why it's so expensive. You can print the object in different types of plastic, ceramic, or aluminum, some more pricey than others. You can also choose your own size, which I presume affects the price as well. 

Mass, customized 3D printing is still in its early days, so the objects you print are usually not as well-made as something built the traditional way, and it's more expensive. But it can be ideal for special situations where customization is ideal. Imagine giving custom objects to attendees at a wedding, or as sales promotional items to valuable potential customers.

I'm still trying to understand where this industry is at, and what its future will be. It brings back memories to me of the very early days of PCs, i.e. around 1980, when the field was populated by just a few hundred thousand hobbyists. Back then, many of the people most knowledgeable about the technology -- the academics and successful computer industry engineers -- didn't bother with PCs because they already had access to much better computers.  But their expertise actually held them back in the end as they were outrun by new entrants to the field. History is repeating itself…

Testing the Cloakbox VPN router from Witopia

The internet is a chaotic place, where packets of information swim all over the world, ready to be scooped up, peered at, or blocked by anyone (or any government).  To be truly secure, and to own your own channel in that ocean of data, you need a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that encrypts everything and ensures that the rest of the internet will see only what you want them to see.  Companies operate VPNs all the time, but consumers have the same ability thanks to a plethora of services from companies like Witopia, who I chose for the VPN I set up this week at home.

The Witopia Cloakbox costs $199, a lot more than the $50 or so you’ll pay for a Linksys, but it includes one year of VPN service. On the outside it looks just like a regular Cisco Linksys router. In fact, the model number (WRT54GL) is the same as the Wireless-G router I’ve been using at home for years. Everything is so similar that at first I wondered if there’d been a mistake. The photos on the web site made me think the box would look distinctive somehow—maybe bright orange—but it’s not.

Setting up was trivial. I plugged it in and it just worked. I just substituted the plugs and cables from my previous router, and everything swapped over without change. Then I turned it on and it all worked.  The wireless features are disabled by default, but Witopia operates a Wiki site with easy-to-understand instructions for how to get that going, and I had my household wireless network running minutes after opening the box.

Upon starting up, I checked my IP address and (cool!) it thought I was in Kansas!  This is convenient because (1) it means I can access web sites (like iTunes) that restrict non-US users, and (2) any government-run site-blocking service won’t work because as far as the internet is concerned, I’m located in the United States.

Next, I checked my access speed. This was a little disappointing.  All that hopping around causes an exceptionally long ping time.  Here’s what my speed test shows when I run my computer using my regular (non-VPN) router from my home near Seattle:

And here’s what it looks like with the Cloakbox:

The results change slightly each time I run the test, but these were the best times I was able to get for each version.  As you can see, the Clockbox VPN gives me about 1Mbps slower download speed, and a much longer ping time (160-300ms versus 40-70).

Overall I’m very pleased at how easy it was to set up.  Although the speeds are slower, I think it will be manageable, and of course nothing can beat the convenience of being able to surf the internet securely and without restrictions.

But how well does it really work?  For that you’ll have to wait for future posts from this blog.  In a few days, I’ll be living in China, but if the internet thinks I’m in Kansas, you’ll know it’s working.

A Switcher with second thoughts

I'm a veerrry long-time Mac user.  I had one of the first 128K Macs.  I dropped out of college for a while with some friends to develop one of the first Mac applications.  I  worked at Apple for 6 years.  So I am pretty excited about getting back to Macintosh, after having gone to Windows for the past ten years (after my company was bought by Microsoft).  But now that I'm in my second week as a Switcher, I'm frustrated.  The Mac just isn't as great (compared to Windows) as I had hoped it would be.

I'm using an old Macbook Pro with 2GB, so you can probably start by laying the blame on an older machine.  But here are some of my initial frustrations:

• Macbook Pro keyboard and trackpad placement are poorly designed: my thumb has to travel very far to get to the mouse click.
• The mouse seems more critical than on a PC, where nearly everything is easily available with keyboard shortcuts, which I miss. Where's the ALT key?
• Video capture doesn't work out of the box. I plugged my camcorder into the firewire port but nothing happened. What's this about Final Cut?  Is it not standard on a MacBook Pro?
• The battery is super hot.  I mean, I can't have it on my lap while I'm wearing shorts.  Ouch!
• So many things are slooooww.  Safari seems to take forever to load pages, for example.  Maybe this is caused by the lack of RAM, but my Windows laptop is also 2GB.  Is the hard drive speed slow?

I should write up the list of things I like, because there are many of those things too.  I like the built-in video camera, and the super-cool geek factor of having a full-blown Unix machine at my fingertips.  I also love being able to set up my HP printer with absolutely no extra steps -- it just worked! There are no doubt many more things I'll prefer after having a few more weeks at this.  But in spite of a few nice things, I'm sorry that so far I haven't been blown away.  I guess you need to give me a few more weeks to play and ask me again which I prefer.

Write like me

I’ve hate handwriting. I’ve been using keyboards since I learned to write and my fingers just don’t want to use a pen. But there are too many occasions when people expect the “personal” touch of a handwritten document, so I couldn’t get out of it completely.  Until now.  Using the free font-generation software at http://www.yourfonts.com, I have a whole collection of handwriting fonts that let me give a personalized touch to computer-generated greeting cards and other documents I used to have to break out the pen for.  I even made a “handwritten” CD label for a Valentines present.

The process couldn’t be simpler.  The site is completely free; you don’t even need to register.  Just print a one-sheet template (don’t bother printing the second page, unless you care about special foreign characters).  Scan it and upload to the site.  Double-check that it looks right, and download to your hard drive.  Presto – you have a font you can now use in any of your applications.  I made one for each member of the family.

Here’s mine:

and here’s the same text “written” by my eleven-year-old:

It can take a few tries to get it perfect.  You can see a few problems with vertical character placement on the above samples, for example.  But it’s waaay better than writer’s cramp.

Test Driving the Miles Electric Car

Mike Cero, always looking for cost-effective ways to help the environment,  invited me to help test drive an electric car now available for sale from MC Electric Vehicles, a local dealership that specializes in green vehicles.

We tried the ZX40S, a 4-seater hatchback from Miles Electric Vehicles, and the first street-legal Chinese-made auto sold in America.  Good Clean Tech rated them the "Electric Car Company of 2007", and they're getting some buzz among die-hards who want no-pollution cars.  This one is solidly-built, though very basic:  no power steering or air conditioning, and since it won't go faster than 35mph you can't use it on the freeway.  But it might be perfect as a fleet vehicle for organizations looking for short-range shuttle cars, or for people who do all short trips in a small community like Mercer Island.

In terms of performance and handling, the part I love about electrics is their quiet ride.  My Prius goes into silent all-electric mode too, but you hear the engine again when you accelerate.  Not so with the ZX40S: it's quiet all the time.  In fact, it's so quiet we joked that you might need to take extra measures to ensure bicyclists can hear you on the road--it really runs silently.

Of course the big advantage of an electric car is the complete lack of a gas tank.  It says it charges in about 8 hours (i.e. overnight), giving you a range of about 50 miles.  We didn't test it that far, but I think you'd want to be careful counting on it past 30 miles or so.  The range seems to depend on how hilly the area is and how much load you have in the car (i.e. total passenger and cargo weight).  Of course, if you run low on a charge it's a simple matter of plugging it into the closest electric outlet.  (But be careful: it has to be a 20 amp outlet--not the more typical 15A sockets you'd normally find in your house).

So how did it do?  I think in a flat area this car would be just fine, but there's not a lot of oomph for climbing.  We found it slow going up some of the more challenging Mercer Island areas (like Gallagher Hill), especially as the charge runs down.  And as I noted, it's only legal for road speeds under 35mph, so you're limited to neighborhood driving.

The price, about $23K including taxes and everything, is about what you'd pay for a basic Prius--which has a lot more power and flexibility.  Still, if you live in a flat area, don't need high speeds, and you want zero-pollution without the hassle or expense of going to a gas station, this car will do what it says.  Meanwhile I think I'll wait for MC Electric to start carrying the Miles XS500, the new Camry-sized 80MPH luxury model scheduled to go on sale later this year.

I need a bigger living room

I'm at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, enjoying all the latest cool gadgets, including this one:

Okay, it's just a prototype for now, but how long till they make this available for normal people?

Here's another cool TV, from Sony.  It's made from OLED technology, which is not only very bright (i.e. easy to view) but it's also very, very thin.

   

Study the photo on the left carefully.  It's a side shot of the 21" TV set on the right.  It's so incredibly thin you'll have to be careful not to cut yourself if you hold it.

(See more of my CES experiences on my work blog)