Chatting robots and music: fun gadgets on show in Barcelona

Here's a glimpse of some of the gadgets and apps displayed by start-up companies this week at the fair, the world's largest for wireless technology.

Israeli startup Living Box offers a modular, unfoldable, solar-powered little greenhouse that you can use to harvest anything from tomatoes to tea and herbs.

The hang, a metal percussion instrument shaped like a flying saucer, is beloved of street performers the world round and often associated with meditation practices like yoga.

Musicians Ravid Goldschmidt and Alex Posada, the co-founders of the Spanish startup that makes the Oval, say they sought to start a "revolution of percussion" with this instrument.

[...] on the market, the Oval is aimed at all kinds of consumers, with about 40 percent estimated to be amateur or professional musicians.

The gadget, shaped like virtual reality glasses, recasts images of the world in a way that someone with vision problems can see more clearly.

The glasses are still in a developmental stage and, although it's still too early to venture a market price for them, Samsung Senior Engineer Junghoon Cho hopes to compete with other more expensive visual aids out there.

Besides correcting blurred images, the headset can eliminate blind spots and improve peripheral vision.