Seven Wild Gadgets Unveiled at CES 2017

Despite the slowly increasing awareness for the need of private spaces for nursing mothers to pump milk, the act of pumping itself remains an awkward affair. “Even today’s best breast pumps feel as outdated as a typewriter,” write Geoffrey A. Fowler and Joanna Stern for the Wall Street Journal. But the company Willow is breaking the archaic mold of loud machines and awkwardly dangling bottles and cords with their new hands-free breast pump.

This wearable double pump runs on a battery and is easily positioned inside the user’s bra as she goes about her daily tasks. The company says that the motor is quiet enough to be worn outside of the home—or even on a conference call, reports Laura Vitto at Mashable.

Each pump collects up to four ounces of milk at a go, automatically stopping when it reaches capacity. It also connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone app that tracks milk volume and pumping time—but the app isn’t necessary to pump, Vitto writes. Such convenience doesn’t come without cost, however. The pumps will likely run around $429 per pair.

The most tedious part of doing laundry is by far folding. But for those with some extra money to burn and a bit of space in their closet, the startup Seven Dreamers has a solution: Laundroid. The size of a fridge, this (literal) black box uses artificial intelligence and image analysis to identify each clothing item and fold it just so.

Place clean laundry in the bottom drawer of the device and voila; Laundroid not only folds but sorts the clothes into stacks based on either type (towels vs. pants) or family member. That is, everything but socks—those are apparently too challenging for Laundroid to tackle. (The company doesn’t share in detail, however, exactly how the device works.)

Though it isn’t exactly a fast process (CNET reports that one T-shirt requires about five minutes to fold), Seven Dreamers estimates that the innovation will save over a year of time over the course of your life.

Air pollution is a global problem, causing a range of respiratory diseases and killing millions of people every year. And the situation is only getting worse. So the French company WAIR is trying to get more people to protect themselves by making pollution protection fashionable with their new air-purifying scarf. Available in three different designs and a range of patterns and colors, each of these scarves hides a multi-layer, battery-powered, air-filtering face mask, Laura Vitto writes for Mashable.

The tight fit ensures that most of the air the wearer breathes is filtered through the face mask. The air passes through three layers: an activated carbon filter, an electrostatic filter that catches larger particles and pollen, and a bactericidal filter. And, according to the company’s site, the mask catches particles down to 0.1 microns, or supposedly 99 percent of airborne pollutants.

When you don’t want to put it up over your nose, it can be worn around the neck like a normal scarf. “Style is important,” Caroline Van Renterghem, founder and CEO of Wair, tells Chris Foxx at the BBC. “So I thought creating a protection that is also not scary looking would help encourage people to use it.”

This innovation may seem like just another object in the Internet of Things, but it may be more useful than it initially appears. The Dring Smartcane from the French startup Nov’in is geared toward the elderly and others with limited mobility. It activates when the handle is touched and can monitor movement, sending alerts over phone, text message or email to caregivers in case of a fall. The caregiver can then signal to the cane user that help is on the way.

The cane’s algorithms can also track the user’s habits to flag any changes in activity or walking patterns that may be a sign of greater problems.