Consumer Electronics Show Kicks Off Today
SAMBOLIN: Welcome back. Forty-nine minutes past the hour. Let's get you up to date. Christine Romans with the top stories.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, you two. Thank you. At least two Americans have died in a helicopter crash in Central Peru. Police say seven people in all were on board when this chopper crashed and burned just after takeoff yesterday afternoon. Three of the victims were recovered away from the crash site. Four bodies remain trapped in the wreckage. More trouble for the Dreamliner. A fire broke out yesterday inside a Japan airline 787 Dreamliner at Logan Airport in Boston just minutes after passengers left the plane. A fire official said a battery pack exploded and caught fire. The plane was brand new, was delivered only last month. There've been series of problems with the 787 since Boeing introduced them in 2011. Attorneys for Casey Anthony will be in a Florida courtroom today. Anthony is appealing four convictions for lying to law enforcement after her daughter, Caylee, was first reported missing in 2008. She was acquitted of murdering her two-year-old daughter back in 2011. Casey Anthony is not expected to attend today's hearing. Imagine being a young mother, you wake up in the middle of the night to see a python wrapped around the arm of your two-year-old daughter who is sleeping next to you. It happened to a mother in Australia who woke up from the hissing of her cat. The snake already had sunk its teeth into the child's left hand, but the mom managed to pry it loose.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After we went to the hospital, and techs came, they found the snake sort of down behind the bedside table and in between the wall. But I don't doubt that he was under the bed for days.</s>ROMANS: She knew something was wrong because her cat was jumpy and nervous for a few days. It apparently knew the snake was in the house.</s>SAMBOLIN: Oh, my goodness!</s>BERMAN: I mean, I guess the good news is the snake didn't eat her baby, but the bad news is that, like --</s>SAMBOLIN: Or choke the baby to death. Oh, my gosh!</s>BERMAN: Crazy.</s>ROMANS: That cat is going to get whatever it wants to eat for however long it wants to eat.</s>SAMBOLIN: For the rest of his nine lives. Wow! That's a crazy story. Imagine that Christine, waking up to that. What would you do?</s>ROMANS: I hate starting the morning with snake stories.</s>SAMBOLIN: All right. Thank you for that. It is 51 minutes past the hour. It's that time of year, tech companies are showing off their slickest, edgiest, most innovative gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It kicks off today in Silicon Valley. Correspondent Dan Simon, has an early look for us.</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a January tradition here in Las Vegas as crews work furiously to get the booths and exhibits ready for the start of the Consumer Electronics Show. More than 150,000 people are expected to roam these vast halls over the next couple of days to get a glimpse of the technologies that might hit the store shelves in the coming year. TVs are always the biggest crowd draw at CES. Last couple of years, the companies were pushing 3D TVs. It didn't really rake off the consumers this year. They're hoping the technology called ultra HD will win over consumers. These are 3Ds that have four times the resolution as a typical HD TV, but they're expensive. Some of these sets cost as much as a car. And speaking of cars, they're becoming a bigger deal every year at CES. This year, you'll hear the term connected car a lot. That means using your smartphone for a lot of different things including using the phone to start the car on those especially cold winter days. Another big theme, home automation. Run your home from wherever you are. This category used to be for people who were really wealthy. Now, these products are a lot more affordable. And it's about being able to control your lights, your thermostat, your appliances while on the go. And of course, look for the latest innovations in PCs, tablets and cameras. More than 3,000 companies are on display here. All of them really vying for one thing, attention. Dan Simon, CNN, Las Vegas.</s>BERMAN: It's like geek paradise. There's no question about that.</s>SAMBOLIN: It's fantastic. And you can play tricks on people. So, if you have that little device and somebody's staying in your home, you can turn on the music and turn it off without anybody knowing, and then, they start wondering what's going on. Turn on the lights. Turn them off.</s>BERMAN: You know how to have fun. You really do. You're crazy!</s>BERMAN: So, some of the other cool things we've seen in display, some mini-tablets. We know about them, but what about mega-tablets? Lenovo is introducing this 27-inch tabletop tablet called the Idea Center Horizon 27. CNN says it comes with air hockey paddles, joysticks, and a big six-sided dye (ph). It looks like, you know, the Galaga (ph) thing used to play in the pizza shop, you know?</s>SAMBOLIN: That looks like fun. I would love that. All right. Check out this no-frills phone. End the gadget reports Square One Plus promises a 15-year battery life from a single AA battery. Its makers say it isn't meant to replace your smartphone but could be added to a first aid kit, perhaps, or tucked away in your car if you have an emergency.</s>BERMAN: Fifteen years.</s>SAMBOLIN: That is crazy!</s>BERMAN: It's fueled by magic.</s>SAMBOLIN: Yes.</s>BERMAN: All right. We have a packed hour straight ahead on EARLY START, including the first look at a deep sea monster. A giant squid. What a morning. A giant squid alive in its natural habitat 3,000 feet below the surface. We're going to get reaction from the man who wrote the search for the giant squid.</s>SAMBOLIN: Plus, off the fridge and into your living room. Child art getting the 3D printing treatment. And these sculptures do not stay within the lines.</s>BERMAN: Plus, all the buzz about the Alabama beauty queen. She stole the spotlight from her quarterback boyfriend last night in Miami. We'll have this rather interesting story coming up next.