I’m at Computex 2015 in Taipei, Taiwan, but inside my mind I am completely lost. A few minutes ago, I was standing in front of a booth in front of a gadget that I just could not identify. I don’t know what it is or what it does, but I think I need to own it.
Here it is. It’s a plastic nest, intricately detailed and carefully sculpted, with an egg inside. With a USB cord attached at the back:
That USB cord provides power, I can tell you that much. It was plugged into a powerboard. But I didn’t notice any difference when I unplugged it, so maybe the Weird Egg Thing wasn’t actually switched on. It’s a broken egg, in a nest — maybe that’s meant to be symbolic in some way?
Maybe it’s not at all, and it’s just some Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturer’s roundabout attempt to make a little yolk at my expense? I’m sorry, it’s been a long day.
The stand that the egg-nest-gadget was at was filled with USB power products, powerboards that had multiple USB and sometimes AC power outputs as well as wireless chargers, cigarette lighter chargers and the like.
Here’s the little booth that the Weird Egg Thing was sitting on a table at:
It’s surrounded by strangely shaped things that I’m pretty sure are lamps, touch sensitive ones. They turned on and off when I poked them, at the very least. The company running the stand was called Wei-Sound.
Wei-Sound is a part of Wei Sheng Technology Ltd, the internet tells me, but I’m really no closer to knowing exactly what the Weird Egg Thing does.
I can’t find it on the Wei-Sound website, which is mostly filled with pretty generic Bluetooth headphones and clock radios. I don’t even know if it’s built by Wei-Sound, and I couldn’t find anyone there that could tell me what it did.
I can tell you that it charges/powers/lights/breeds over USB power, because it was plugged into a USB outlet. But that’s really all I know about it. Is it a gentle night light? Is it a speaker? Does it… speak? Someone please help me understand.