Two-way wireless power Courtesy of Fulton Innovation

Techeye greeted 2013 with a strong suspicion that it's going to suck. Badly.
We awoke in our own bed with no hangover, no difficulty reconstructing the events of the night before, no glorious sense of self-disgust, and no unexplained rashes. A terrible precedent for the new year, in other words. If 2013 continues this way, Techeye may die of boredom by June.

There is a glimmer of hope, though. The 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicked off last week and some of the new gadgets on show suggest the future will be interesting.

If you're not familiar with it, CES is a huge event, but an odd one. It's a massive technological chimera that includes everything from automotive accessories to tablets and smartphones to, uh, lamps.

There's always an amusing assortment of garbage as well, such as 2011's infamous ioPrego Electronic Rosary, which sounds like a guilt-exacerbating pregnancy test for unwed Catholics but was, in fact, far less useful. They're hard to find these days – apparently the market for creepy, beadless, talking rosaries was smaller than expected.

Anyway, there are so many products at CES – good and bad – that it's impossible to discuss them all; as always, Techeye will cover the highlights over a few columns. So let's start off with something from Fulton Innovation.
This forward-looking American firm doesn't sell much consumer technology right now, or at least not the kind you'd notice in your local electronics shop. Among other things, it's heavily invested in wireless charging, a feature which has only recently begun to appear in tablets and smartphones.

At CES 2013, Fulton showed off a new technology it calls "two-way wireless power," which enables power to be transferred between two devices when they're placed back-to-back. This could come in handy right now if, like Techeye, you've got a number of mobile devices around the house, all competing for a limited number of chargers.

Fulton is looking even further ahead, though, to applications involving smart furniture (tables-as-chargers, for example), wireless kitchen appliances, and even smart packaging or smart posters. Fascinating stuff. And no, you can't buy it yet. But expect to see more features like two-way wireless power creeping into high-end consumer goods over the next few years.
For its part, Samsung was as impressively present at CES as usual, though not all of its gadgets were impressive. As usual.

Vacuum Tube Soundbar Courtesy of Samsung

The Korean juggernaut brought cameras, computers, TVs, audio equipment and even a new robotic vacuum cleaner. Amid all that, the first thing that caught our attention was the Vacuum Tube Soundbar, a long, thin speaker that can be placed horizontally or vertically in your home entertainment center. The speaker's design incorporates an internal gyroscope to optimize sound quality regardless of position.

Samsung makes two major claims with the Vacuum Tube Soundbar – that it's the "first soundbar to feature a built-in vacuum tube to maximize sound quality," and that it's "the world's first soundbar that can wirelessly connect with a TV via Bluetooth." Isn't that amazing?

Er... maybe. We're not really sure what constitutes an impressive "world's first" when it comes to something as niche as a soundbar. But if you're looking to enrich your home theater with a soundbar offering "pure power and warm, natural sound" along with an additional subwoofer, then you might want to check this product out. No word on price yet; expect Samsung to publish this info in the nearish future.

Is the Vacuum Tube Soundbar the kind of product that could make 2013 an interesting year? Sure, why not. After the kind of boring New Year that Techeye had, even vacuum-tube technology seems pretty exciting.

In the market for a creepy, beadless, talking rosary? Let us know: techeye.wbj@gmail.com