Tech companies flocked to the Las Vegas Convention Center as the 50th Consumer Electronics Show--a quaint descriptor in the era of self-driving cars, big data and cloud-based storage systems, as the New York Times pointed out--kicked off Thursday morning. However, techies across the globe unable to foot the bill, let alone make it to Sin City for the couple dozen free conferences, can tune in to the CES 2017 live stream for free. Although many see CES as a "schmoozefest" and a giant publicity stunt for the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and Google, the conference offers plenty of reasons for the world's tech-obsessed to take a look. Versions of Amazon's popular artificial intelligence-equipped speaker and home helper, the Echo, are likely to be ubiquitous. BBC's preview of the event pointed to a demo by the French startup Bixi that allows tablet and smartphone users to control their devices from a short distance by making hand gestures.