Five environmentally friendly technologies we saw at CES in Las Vegas

That of respect and protection of the environment was one of the key themes of CES in Las Vegas (here all the news)which was held from 5 to 8 January last: the CTA itself, the association that organizes it, spoke of the arrival of “innovative products that will help solve global challenges” and of companies that “are demonstrating how technology can save energy and increase its production, address food shortages, create more sustainable agricultural systemspower smart cities and support access to clean water.”

THE SPECIAL CES 2023

Below we have collected 5 of the startups engaged in this sector that we have seen strolling through the pavilions of the fair and which seemed more interesting to us. Starting with an Italian one, of course.

Smart Geo Survey

It comes from Sassari and was among the 50 startups that had the possibility to show their ideas in the Italian Pavilion (here are the others): thanks to the use of drones, the land is scanned to understand what to grow and where. In particular, the data collected is crossed with information on the characteristics of the field for maximize crops and lower consumption, especially of water.

Acwa Pathfinder

Based in Corsica, this French startup has won 3 CES Innovation Awards with its Pathfinder: it is a 20-30 cm long robot that travels in water pipes and is able to identify any leaks and report them, reducing waste. In Italy alone, every day more than 40% of the water that passes through the water mains is lost due to infrastructural defects and Acwa explained to us that “we are in contact with some Italian cities that are part of the Water Alliance, such as Rome and Milanand soon we should start working with them too.” Meanwhile, Pathfinders are in use in Bastia, other parts of France and the UK.

60Hz

This South Korean startup is part of Hyundai’s ZER01NE incubator and develops technologies and services for the use and management of environmentally friendly energy sources. Their software, which is called Virtual Power Plant, connects power plants to renewable energy sources (especially solar and wind), so as to better manage and distribute the needs of procurementalso using technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing.

Orbisk

In the world over 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year, which is something that doesn’t go well twice: because it polluted itself to produce that food that won’t be eaten and because there is someone who maybe would eat that food. The idea of ​​the Dutch startup Orbisk is to avoid this waste starting from the kitchens of restaurants, which is where most of it happens: a camera placed above the garbage can keeps an eye on what is thrown away, recognizing the type of food, the quantity, the time of day and its origin (a pan, a pot, a plate), so as to collect useful information for the restaurateur to better manage resources food.

CES 2023

Withings U-Scan, the smart device that analyzes urine in real time

by Lorenzo Fantoni

09 January 2023

OneThird

At CES there was another startup, also Dutch, which does a similar thing, but focused on fruit, and in particular on avocado. Which are among the foods whose consumption has grown the most in the West and also more difficult to understand, in the sense that it is difficult to understand when they are ripe: the scanner invented by OneThird, intended for supermarkets, uses optical sensing and AI to evaluate a variety of parameters that help the customer know if the fruit he wants to buy is perfectly firm and ready to eat. And also avoid throwing away fruit that is still good in the supermarket. The startup is called that (in Italian, UnTerzo) because according to the UN, food wasted every year is more or less a third of that produced.

@capoema