This week it’s the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, an annual opportunity for tech companies to unveil their latest gizmos during January’s traditional slow news week, thereby picking up precious coverage that might otherwise be spent detailing something – anything – more important than an egg whisk with a USB port in the side.

 

At the time of writing, the show is yet to kick off, although some of the offerings have already been unveiled – such as “Belty”, the world’s first “smart belt”, which monitors your waistline and tells you when it’s time to lose weight, just like a mirror or a close friend might. More excitingly, it adjusts to your girth (again, like a close friend might), and will tighten or loosen itself according to your current level of blubber. No word yet on whether it’s possible to pop a Belty round your neck and order it to squeeze you into the afterlife, but there’s no reason they can’t incorporate that feature in Belty 2.0, except maybe on basic ethical, moral and humanitarian grounds.

 

According to Bertrand Duplat, whose company manufactures the Belty, “the belt experience hasn’t changed in centuries”, which is a) true but b) wasn’t formerly a problem worth solving, and also c) how does “doing up a belt” qualify as an “experience” anyway?

There will be more announcements over the next few days – 5K televisions, a new Sony Walkman, sentient toothpicks that dream of a better life while they prise flecks of half-chewed poultry from your gums – but none will beat the following far more exciting products I’ve just made up for the sheer giddy thrill of it. Three, two, one. Commence:

 

The Selfpreciator
Last year brought widespread acceptance of the “selfie stick” – a stick you clamp your smartphone into so you can take a narcissistic self-portrait at a slightly greater distance than your feeble human arms will allow. What’s odd about the selfie stick is that while it might faintly improve the photo you’ll post on Facebook, it definitely makes you seem like a shallow, awful clown to any bystanders in the humdrum physical space you’re posing in. And it’s unnecessary anyway, because if you’re the sort of person who takes so many self-portraits you’ll consider spending money on a selfie stick, it’s a cast-iron certainty that absolutely no one needs or wants to see another photograph of you ever again. Until the invention of the Selfpreciator, that is. The Selfpreciator is a quasi-sentient head-shaped device with one giant eye and a fixed grin, programmed to gaze approvingly at every self-portrait you upload while issuing appreciative murmurs and tweeting encouraging emojis your way. It’s even got its own selfie stick, so it can take photographs of itself admiring photographs of you, then email them to you, so you can ignore them while adjusting your selfie stick.

 

Total Farage Plus

As 2015 dawns, Britain seems more divided than ever. But there’s one thing we can all agree on: we just don’t see enough of Nigel Farage. Sometimes you can eat an entire Twix without seeing a photograph of him raising a pint and guffawing or hearing his voice on the radio. Total Farage Plus is a tiny chip almost painlessly inserted into the back of your mind using a knitting needle and a croquet mallet. Once in place and booted-up, it hijacks the signal to your visual cortex, skilfully Photoshopping Farage into whatever you’re looking at. Enjoying a glorious sunset? It’ll be even better with Farage’s face peeping over the horizon. Bathing your kids? Nigel’s here too, with a cheeky blob of bath foam perched on his lovable nose! Staring into the eyes of the one you love? That’s not your own reflection gazing back at you – it’s Farage. Kicking a foreigner to death? Who’s that standing beside you, delivering the final blow with his steel-toe boots, real ale sloshing from the pint he’s still holding in one hand, a lusty guffaw bursting from his wobbly amphibian throat? It’s Farage again! What a card!

 

City Shittle
Our metropolises are blighted by two problems: a lack of public transport and a lack of public loos. This solves both issues in one fell swoop: a driverless biofuel vehicle and toilet cubicle in one. Step in, sit down, tap in the target postcode with your nose (more hygienic than fingers), then simply let go and defecate, secure in the knowledge that the supersmart vehicle is converting your excretions into fuel as it expertly navigates the city streets, allowing you to arrive at your destination as empty-bummed as you are relaxed. NB to prevent terrorism and/or mobile cottaging, the entire thing is made of completely transparent glass, and has a maximum speed of 1mph.

 

Pocket Timejump
A small handheld device that enables you to leap forward in time without even realising you’re doing it. Simply pull the small rectangular device out of your pocket midway through an episode of Call the Midwife or a dinner party or a wedding or something, intending to glance at it for mere seconds, then gasp in astonishment as you look up apparently moments later to discover an hour’s flown by and you haven’t heard or seen anything that’s happened in your immediate vicinity in that time. Twist: you’ve already got one of these. DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING, DID YOU? #christ #jesus #mindblown #wow