Human cloning stunt was the weirdest thing at this year's CES

CES is full of some crazy stuff, but one of the craziest things we saw was from newcomer PsychaSec, which promises to grow a clone from your cells and upload your consciousness into that clone. You know, in case you die or something similarly catastrophic.

When Tuan first sent photos back from the show floor, I thought someone had seriously lost their marbles. CES has its fair share of outlandish prototype tech, but human cloning is still a bit sci-fi. And I wanted to know why there wasn't a proper 'live' demo of a working clone. It also kicked off my déjà vu because I just read Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon last month, plus Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom last week. I went on a cyberpunk book binge over the holidays, and that name sounded awful familiar.

Surprise—the whole gig is a spoof by Netflix promoting its new Altered Carbon series, which will debut in February.

The booth operators all acted very serious, with white lab coats and a deadpan delivery, to the point that Tuan didn't realize it was a publicity stunt. That's some slick marketing (and Tuan, I have a bridge to sell you). It's also very comforting, because I'm not at all ready for clones and consciousness uploads to go mainstream. Especially if they're as ugly looking as the above mannequins. Maybe when I'm a bit older, though…

Jarred Walton

Jarred's love of computers dates back to the dark ages when his dad brought home a DOS 2.3 PC and he left his C-64 behind. He eventually built his first custom PC in 1990 with a 286 12MHz, only to discover it was already woefully outdated when Wing Commander was released a few months later. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Brigham Young University and has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance. 

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