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Trends with Benefits: Detroit-style pizza, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, robot back rubs

While KBIS sounds like it should be a Salt Lake City radio station, the Kitchen Bath and Industry Show is actually a huge event that takes place every year in Las Vegas. Jenny McGrath and Nick Mokey attended the show last week and let us know about some of the interesting products they came across.

From bear-proof glass (good if you live in Alaska or Siberia?) to glow-in-the-dark toilet seats, it’s definitely a unique show. Nick and Jenny both came away impressed with the GE’s $10,000  Monogram Pizza Oven. It gets up to 800 degrees and according to self-professed pizza snob Nick, it rivals a real pizzeria oven. We also get an education in pizza styles, learning that even Detroit has it’s own style of pizza.

In more conventional tech, Caleb let us know about the latest development for home-theater enthusiasts. Ultra HD Blu-ray will be available to consumers in March, when Samsung and Phillips introduce new players that deliver the best 4K picture you can get. While the upsides are obvious, it is worth making the switch?

We’ve heard about Amazon’s impending drone home delivery system and it appears Google is jumping into the game. Well … kind of. Its new drone will meet the delivery drone, and then store your package in a secure area. It seems like a lot of drone-on-drone action, but if it prevents thievery, we’re all for it.

Finally, a theme for 2016 seems to be the fact that robots will soon be taking all of our jobs. Japanese company SoftBank is at the forefront of this movement, by replacing salespeople with a robot named Pepper. It looks like it’s designed by Pixar, but Pepper is a high-tech piece of machinery. None of us really want to interact with a robot salesman, but a robot masseuse? Sign Caleb up, and warn the robot.

Today’s episode features Jenny McGrath, Nick Mokey, Caleb Denison and Greg Nibler. Please subscribe, share Trends with Benefits, and send in your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We also broadcast the show live on Periscope every Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Pacific.

Greg Nibler
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Greg has worked as a Host, Producer, and Writer in radio and television since the early 2000s, working for such companies as…
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