2014 CeBIT Computer Technology Trade Fair: Photos

A five-year-old prototype of an "Air Writing" sensor wristband. Developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the sensor attached to the wrist records hand movements and a computer system captures the signals and translates them into text.

The "CeBIT" international computer expo is the world's biggest high-tech fair, Trade fair organized by Deutsche Messe AG and Great Britain is partner country of the fair. The trade fair is held every year on the Hanover fairground, the world's largest fairground, in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany, and is considered a barometer of the state of the art in information technology.

With an exhibition area of roughly 450,000 m² (5 million ft²) and up to 850,000 visitors at the apex of the dot-com boom, it is larger both in area and attendance than its Asian counterpart COMPUTEX and the no-longer held American equivalent COMDEX. CeBIT is a German language acronym for «Centrum für Büroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation», which would literally translate as "Center for Office Automation, Information Technology and Telecommunication".

An employee demonstrates the use of a Pearl FreeSculpt 3D Pen. The pen, which uses quick-hardening heated plastic enables the user to write in thin air.

An employee demonstrates the use of a "Smart Kitchen". The kitchen is able to determin cooking time and intensity for the stove, adjust water temperature and amount according the recipe chosen, as well as suggest recipes.

Engineer Christoph Amma demonstrates "Air Writing" with a sensor wristband. Developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the sensor attached to the wrist records hand movements and a computer system captures the signals and translates them into text.

The ape-like robotic system "Charlie" walks on all of his four limbs during a demonstration. Developed by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the University of Bremen within the iStruct project (intelligent Structures for mobile robots), the robot could conceivably be used in the kind of rough terrain found on the moon.

The lifesize humanoid robot "RoboThespian" interacts with fair visitors at the Engineered Arts Ltd stand of the 2014 CeBIT computer technology trade fair. The robot, featured at the fair's opening ceremony, is "a fully programmable interactive humanoid robot designed to inspire, communicate, interact and entertain".

View of a PINgrid interface on a smartphone, under a traditional passcode generating token. Pingrid, developed by Britain's Winfrasoft, is authentication technology which relies on the human ability to remember patterns and shapes. At logon the user is presented with a grid of random numbers, overlaying a pre-agreed secret pattern on the grid, generates the password.