CES is not all about cool new televisions, laptops, and smart phones.

One of the more fascinating sections of CES deals with Robotics. Last year, I discovered a company which is using robotics to address a serious healthcare problem: Agitation and anxiety in the elderly who suffer from dementia.

When faced with an agitated patient with dementia, the options for management are terrible. Step number one is to use non-medication means to calm the person. These are often useless and are always time intensive. Step number two, is the use of sedative medication. Unfortunately, such medication is usually not effective and always carries high risk for harm and premature death.

Another non-medication option involves the use of “therapy dogs,” which are surprisingly helpful. Unfortunately, in a nursing home setting, this is only possible for short intervals that render the therapy less useful.

An interesting company called PARO was, again, at CES displaying their “therapeutic robots.” It is a robot designed to look like a baby harp seal. The company calls this a “non-familiar animal” that people “can accept” more “easily without their preconception.” It is covered in “artificial antibiotic fur” with a hard inner skeleton.

It contains sophisticated intelligence circuitry to interact with humans, responding to light, sound, temperature, touch and posture.

It recharges with a pacifier like attachment.

To see these devices in person is remarkable. In a very short period of time, you find yourself petting and interacting with it as if it were a living pet that needed comforting. While the CES show floor does not allow “field demonstrations” with elderly patients suffering from dementia, the hands on experience and online video is convincing.

There is just one glitch: the device is not cheap: $200 per month. Insurance will not cover it.

On the other hand, a month of Zyprexa or similar harmful sedative easily exceeds $200 per month and every study confirms these drugs are always harmful and questionably useful. Yet, drugs are covered by insurance.

For the second year in a row, I walked away from the PARO booth convinced this would be a dramatic improvement in patient care. I do suggest this to families who might benefit, but no one has tried a device so far.

Anyone interested can visit the site: www.parorobots.com.

Many have been critical of CES: Why have the show in January, when people are burned out from the Christmas Holiday shopping hype? This completely misunderstands CES. CES is where companies gather to figure out what they will sell you NEXT Christmas. Most of the new products do not appear until mid-year, if they appear at all.

That last sentence brings up another interesting aspect of CES. Most of what you see at CES will never appear on a store shelf and will never be available for purchase. Many of the items are prototypes which are often killed before they can appear for consumers.

As you travel to some of the smaller company booths, you also see something interesting: A huge assortment of really cool gadgets that will never appear in the U.S. Many of these are designed for sale in countries with lower income levels. The gadgets tend to be “almost as cool as an iPad or iPod,” but are more cheaply made. Sometimes, they even have extra cool features like 3D screens. Unfortunately, the build quality, feature set, and software are simply not up to standards demanded in the U.S. Nonetheless, these products are still often really cool. I love traveling through these back vendor booths.

CES is a glimpse into the electronics world of the coming year. It is a look into electronics firms’ efforts to create “the next big thing.” Most of this stuff will fail. In fact, some of the most promoted and loved products will fail badly (Motorola Xoom, Blackberry Playbook, etc.).

CES is all about innovation….and a lot of hype.

Ultrabooks are here and they are getting dangerous!
Check out this CES animated coverage:

The newest tablet! It’s called “The Tablee!” See it in this short comical clean animation making fun of the tablet competition.

The software used:
Toon Boom’s ANIMATE PRO and HARMONY.
Number of animators: One. Just me.

Harmony allowed some extra effects not available in Animate Pro:
1. Pencil Lines that look like a real pencil (Overall, I’m not sure this added much.).
2. The ability to import 3D objects, seen in these animations as the Stealth Bomber.
3. Particle Effects, seen accompanying the Stealth Bomber.

The 3D Television Studio and show floors were created in Animate Pro.

Interesting problems encountered in the creation of these animations:
1. The Steve Ballmer address has many layers of crowds that were placed in a 3D manner to allow a sweeping camera motion over the crowd. I managed to choke my computer with the excess processing power. I played with various methods to not kill Harmony with an epic crash. Would a video upgrade card have helped? Maybe. My current card is not too wimpy, so I was surprised. The problem was severe enough that rendering beyond NTSC resolution was impossible.

2. Time is always an issue. The goal is to crank these out with reasonable quality, but fast enough to be useful. This means lots of short-cuts and limited fiddling when issues develop.

I became a Toon Boom Studio user way back in 2003.

How in the world would my middle aged brain pick up a totally new program?

After playing with the “Quick Start” tutorial that came with Studio, I realized I could learn the program “enough” to make a serious animation. Yes, vast areas of the program left me completely baffled, but I quickly found the basics and just started drawing. Roadblocks occasionally appeared, but the manual is very clear and complete. Within a couple of months, I created an animation that made it on television. This was my first Toon Boom animation:

Toon Boom’s catalog of “serious” animation products begins with Toon Boom “Studio” and graduates through “Animate” to “Animate Pro” and finally to “Harmony.” I recently became a “Harmony” user. Again, some of the menu selections leave me baffled.

One thing is reassuring: The interface you see in “Studio” will be similar when you get to “Harmony.” As you move into “Animate Pro,” new amazing tools like “Network View” will aid in the creation of complex animations. I love “Network View,” but know it would have made my brain explode if I had tried to learn it back in 2003 as a new animator.

So, for someone new to Toon Boom: Buy “Studio” now and get a Wacom tablet for under $100. Do the “Quick Start” tutorial. Don’t spend more than an hour or two. Then, start animating and see what happens. Do not fret over the unknown buttons. Do what you know first and slowly expand.

Then, when you feel ready, ask Toon Boom about upgrading. Toon Boom upgrades are very reasonable and your time will not be wasted.

This past month, the winning entry was traditional 2D in the style of Disney. This was a bit unusual. 3D models and animation tend to dominate the entries overall.

It would be great to see some entries using Toon Boom animation software.

So, navigate over to the site and start animating with the latest clip. You have until the end of September to do the current clip. What are you waiting for?!?!?!

Here is the site:

http://www.11secondclub.com/

The tablet was an excellent animation tool and handled even complex Animate Pro scenes. It was relatively compact and had great battery life.

On the negative side, screen brightness and viewing angles were less than other tablets. Its mouse pad was an acquired taste. The HP repair experience could be generally frustrating for its consumer product line.

Overall, though, we loved this machine for its audacity at packing so much power into so small a tablet convertible PC at a price point far below the competition.

This is still a great machine to use with Toon Boom products.

You can probably find them on Amazon and eBay, but make sure you get the ATI graphics option. It is telling that prices for this discontinued machine are actually higher than when you could buy it direct from HP.

Even for a company with so many faults, HP could still create winners. We will miss this one!

1. Draw the picture on paper, scan it, clean up and color the image on the computer.
Advantages:
Good for folks who still prefer the feel of paper.
Cons:
Post-production work needed.
Not as smooth as drawing straight into the animation program.

2. Draw the picture using a standard Wacom Tablet attached to a computer.

Advantages:
Inexpensive.
Wacom tablets offer quality pen on “paper” experiences.
Cons:
Unless you opt for an expensive Cintiq, you must learn to draw with your hand in one
spot while the drawing appears in a different spot.
Not very portable.
Ties you to a desk.

3. Buy a Windows Tablet PC.

Advantages:
Highly portable.
You can draw and watch your image in the same place.
You can draw anywhere.
Cons:
Can be expensive.
Hardware choices confusing.

So, what about buying a Windows Tablet PC? This is NOT the same as an iPad or Android Tablet. This is actually a laptop computer running Windows 7 and using a convertible screen that is also a Wacom Drawing Tablet.

As of September 2011, this is the list of current tablet pc’s to consider:

Tablet PC’s with Intel Integrated Graphics:
Fujitsu Lifebook T731
HP EliteBook 2760P
Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Tablet

Tablet PC with additional Graphics co-Processor:
Fujitsu Lifebook T901

In a later post, I will review the Fujitsu T901 as an animation platform.

Hint: I really like it!