Mind-blowing, futuristic gadgets created in China

The four-day CES 2018 has come to an end in Las Vegas. Because it was my second year covering CES, the largest global gathering of innovation, I was not much surprised by the sprawling and overwhelming blur of booths, press events, demos and gadgets.

Still, some of the showstoppers blew my mind, and many of them are from China.

This year, I was assigned to cover the “Top 20: Best of CES 2018 Chinese Innovation” video series for social media. Before I got on the plane to Las Vegas, I thought 20 might be too much. But after a first look at Chinese tech, I thought 20 might be too few.

At the top of my CES Made-in-China mindblowing futuristic gadgets list are: a real-time multilanguage speech transcription tool, a smart-fitting room that can “try on” an outfit with a virtual body, a glasses-free 3D display and simulated reality, a foldable eBike that can fit into a backpack, an underwater 4K fish drone, and so much more.

And I wasn’t the only one bowled over by Chinese innovations. Plenty of industry attendees were wowed as well.

One of the showstoppers was the O2Nail mobile fingernail art printer, which can print any picture, including selfies, on to a fingernail in minutes and last for a month.

Former IBM and AT&T executive JT Ippolito, founder of Media Marketing Management, had a cute pineapple printed on his fingernail.

“This is amazing. It definitely makes my top 10 list for CES,” said Ippolito, smiling and showing off his brand new nail art for my camera. “I always love covering the Chinese technology. They seem to be moving much faster than we are in forward-thinking technology.”

“I have always seen Chinese technology drives innovation. I am seeing more and more of it in North America. I think it’s only the beginning,” said Nick Bogias, director of Bell Canada, who was fiddling with the iFlytek electronic voice translator powered by artificial intelligence.

Some were saying that CES should stand for “China Electronics Show” because about a third of the roughly 4,500 attending companies and organizations were from China, with nearly 500 of those from Shenzhen in South China. It’s four times more than those from the US, according to official data.

In April, the real “China Electronics Show” — China Information Technology Expo (CITE) — will take place in Shenzhen.

“CES is a good platform to showcase the uprising of Chinese innovation power to the world. We want to present more of that. That’s why we are hosting CITE as the largest comprehensive electronic information show in Asia annually in our tech hub Shenzhen,” said Chen Wenhai, CITE’s top executive.

CES attendees better start booking their tickets to Shenzhen soon to get their minds blown by even more futuristic gadgets created in China’s tech hub.