Top 20 Weirdest Sights At CES 2015

Weird And Wonderful Sights At CES

Besides cutting-edge tech from consumer electronics giants, CES is known for its over-the-top Vegas-sized weirdness that can sometimes pop up on the Las Vegas Convention Center floor. CES 2015 was no exception. Besides the awesome 8K HDTVs, next-gen tablets and connected wearables, we spotted plenty of weird, wacky and downright strange tech as well.

Here is the best of the strangest and sometimes unexplainable tech that we spotted at CES 2015 last week.

Human Hamster Wheel

Ever feel like your daily grind is a bit like running on a huge hamster wheel? Don't say that to folks at Paris-based Parrot, whose booth had people jogging on what looked like a giant human hamster wheel while showing off the Parrot Zik Sport wireless in-ear sport headphones.

CES Until You Collapse

Some people party until they drop in Vegas. Others wander the CES showroom floor until they collapse. Here are two CES attendees taking a break at the Changhong booth that decided to go full-on carpet break.

Green Giant Big Headphones

Panasonic showed up in Las Vegas with some obnoxiously mammoth headphones to put on display at its booth at CES. The company drew attention to itself as passersby stopped and stared at the giant headset.

Panasonic used CES as an opportunity to launch its new line of 2015 headphones to add to its already robust collection. The company launched the new FOLDZ on-ear headphones in addition to the BTD5 Bluetooth wireless headphones.

Nikon 360 Booth Brings Out The Goofy In People

Nikon strung together a circle of SLR cameras to create awesome 360-degree videos for anyone willing to wait in line to have their picture taken. By-products included not only entertaining keepsakes for participants, but also entertainment for gawkers who watched as people jumped and otherwise struck odd poses and said "cheese" to nearly 100 Nikon cameras.

Robotic Spider Woman

Intel's CES booth did not lack in the strange department this year. Intel had tech gadgets galore from robots, 3-D printed prosthetic arms and futuristic high-tech fashion. In this case, a model was wearing a robotic dress that had mechanical legs around the shoulders similar to that of the robot spiders crawling around at her feet. Robotic spider legs at her shoulders could rise up off her shoulders and extend themselves, pointing at those who stopped and stared for what made for a spooky tech scene.

VR Nuts

One of the most popular sections of Samsung's massive booth was its Galaxy Gear VR area. People would wait in line to sit in a chair and wear Samsung's virtual reality headsets and space out as they entered another dimension of virtual reality media.

Of course, to those of us who were watching them and not wearing VR headsets, people were sitting in chairs staring off into space with their mouths wide open. This was a recurring theme for all stations surrounding virtual reality at CES.

See-Through Car

Cars were everywhere at CES. There were the weird, wonderful -- and then the head-scratchers. TRW Automotive brought its sporty see-through car that allowed people to get an inside look at the car's semi-automated vehicle system.

This Is Tablet Man

We aren't sure what "Tablet Man" was promoting, and we were afraid to ask. The rather creepy dude wandered the show floor, seemingly only promoting his oddness -- as far as we could tell.

Fake Arm Factory

It's one thing to display a prosthetic arm that was created with a 3-D printer. It's another thing to demo that arm along with the 3-D printer in action printing a backup arm. Now add in that the person is opening and closing the prosthetic arm's hand using Intel built-in robotics. Well-played, Intel. Very impressive.

Levitating Speaker

Looking like a mini-UFO, the Air 2 (Air Squared) floating Bluetooth speaker from Axxess CE wins the CES prize for funky. This Bluetooth speaker, which can function as a conference-call system, uses magnets to levitate over its base while the speaker and microphones spin in midair.

Spurting Speaker

SuperSonic's dancing water speakers were another attention grabber here at CES. Not quite up to par with the Bellagio's famous fountains, these speakers shoot water up in the air that dances to the beat of the music being played. Under the water, jets are colored by lights so the streams of water are different colors, making them look pretty cool as they dance to the music.

Catching CES Fever

Pixe Social set up camp in the middle of CES and allowed attendees to send social media postcards from the show-room floor to their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. We loved the idea and like the nerd pride it inspired from those that had their quirky social media moment captured.

Drone Party

Aside from wearables and IoT devices, drones were a big part of the CES craze this year. Drones were flying all around, and whenever a booth had one, people would stop in their tracks to see what it would do. The high-flying, remote-control robots are no longer just for military purposes as they've been transformed for consumer use. These drones boast high-resolution cameras, some even with 4K resolution and 360-degree views.

Toshiba's Virtual Fitting Room

Toshiba's virtual fitting room is reminiscent of Alicia Silverstone's in the 1995 movie "Clueless." If you've ever been jealous of Cher mixing and matching her outfits before running off to her first-period high school classes, Toshiba's booth at CES was for you.

A long line of folks formed a waiting line to virtually try on new outfits and looks at the Toshiba booth. Users mixed and matched different clothes and accessories, which would be handy for any bedroom closet, but sorry fellas, Toshiba's virtual fitting room is for women only.

Telepresence Was Huge, In More Ways Than One

State-of-the art mobile telepresence is standardizing around a computer monitor mounted about 5 feet high on a remote-control wheelbase with a video camera on top. We spotted nearly a dozen variations of these telepresence bots zooming around CES that allowed virtual attendees to move about on the show floor from afar.

Suitable Technologies took the telepresence bots to a whole new level with its Mega Beam giant robot that towered over the CES crowd.

Steering Wheel Stuck In The Back

While we waited in line for a CES event on Sunday night, we were greeted by a duo of tech innovators who were pitching their steering wheel sensor product to the media. Mounting the product on your business partner's back was a good way for the two to cover more ground, but it also made for an odd spectacle and the first of many strange scenes we saw at CES.

Intel Dancers

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich wowed the CES audience with his opening keynote, which featured everything from wearable "selfie" drones, RealSense technology that allowed computers to "see," and a button-sized computer named Curie. But before all that, there were the Intel dancers. Ahead of Krzanich was an elaborate musical performance that included a cello player, dancers and a troupe of hip-hatted singers.

Nixie, Autonomous Wearable Camera Drone

We're not going to lie. The coolest demo we witnessed at CES was of the bizarre gizmo called Nixie. This gadget has everything a geek could ever want. The Nixie is an autonomous wearable drone you wear on your wrist that can fly up above you, take your picture, fly back to yo, and syncs images with your smartphone. Oh, and did I mention the demo unit they had on display at CES was made using a 3-D printer?

Nixie, you are as weird as you are wonderful.

Climbing The Walls At CES

The visceral rawness of rock climbing and synthetic world of high-tech go together about as well as oil and water. That is unless you are at CES and you are at Panasonic hawking your latest ruggedized camcorder, the HX-A100.

In this noisy corner of CES, Panasonic hired a number of Lycra-wearing rock jocks to climb, hang and swing from a monkey-cage-sized box, all while using its latest A100 camcorder.

Fire The Valet

Self-driving cars -- been there done that. How about an autonomous car that can park itself and pick you up via a smartwatch command? During the Samsung keynote address, Samsung head BK Yoon invited BMW Senior Vice President Elmar Frickenstein on stage. There he wowed the crowed. The auto-maker exec played a video of himself in a parking garage, where he hailed his BMW from his smartwatch. His car turned on, drove up to him and opened its door to let him in before he drove off. James Bond, eat your heart out.