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Google's CES booth was more show than substance
For the third year in a row, Google has a giant booth at CES, right in the lot outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. As before, it's all about the Google Assistant, complete with an interactive experience that shows you all the ways Google's AI helper can make your day easier. There's also the requisite hardware showcase, including Google's own recent devices as well as plenty of things from partners (even Sonos).
MSI's GS66 is a more tasteful thin and light gaming laptop
With the GS65 Stealth Thin, MSI delivered one of the most attractive gaming ultraportables we've ever seen. But with the follow-up GS66, it's going for a more subdued look. The new model features a matte-black case and no prominent lights (aside from the RGB keyboard) or gold accents. It's a powerful machine you can take to work or school while also hiding your gaming identity.
Playing 'NBA Jam' on a 16-foot cabinet at CES 2020
I know I'm not tall enough to dunk in real life, but I never thought I'd be too short to pull off the move in NBA Jam. That is, until Arcade1Up brought a 16-foot NBA Jam arcade cabinet to CES 2020 and proved me dead wrong.
The teenager who's at CES to network
It's not that Alishba Imran isn't impressed by her tour of Zappos HQ, the Disneyland of corporate campuses, with its "zapponians" who earn "zollars" and play "zing zong" on breaks. But she might not see herself working at a big corporation like this. Her goal is to be "influential." She describes herself as a blockchain and machine learning developer and researcher and sees her future in health care and finance infrastructure. She chats about fractional ownership and the direction of 5G as well as stoicism and first principles. She is 16 years old.
What happened to the doughnut-shaped Olly speaker?
A few years back, CES attendees went mad for Olly, a doughnut-shaped speaker with a voice assistant that adapted to your personality. It was a refreshing change to the seemingly infinite hardware packing Alexa and Google Assistant, and visitors were charmed by its ability to stand up and spin around a circular stand. Olly's creator, a London-based startup called Emotech, offered two prototypes at the show -- one that was excitable and spoke quickly and another that seemed a little more placid -- to demonstrate how Olly would mimic its owners. As TechCrunch reported, the company wanted to start its initial production run later that year.
Asics debuts a prototype smart shoe at CES (updated)
Japanese footwear brand Asics turned up at CES 2020 this year with a prototype of its first smart running shoe. The as-yet unnamed model harnesses technology made in partnership with Japanese sensor company No New Folk.
Intel's first discrete GPU is built for developers
At its CES 2020 keynote, Intel showed off its upcoming Xe discrete graphics chip and today, we're seeing exactly how that's going to be implemented. First off, Intel unveiled a standalone DG1 "software development vehicle" card that will allow developers to optimize apps for the new graphics system. It didn't reveal any performance details for the card, but did show it running the Warframe game. It also noted that it's now "sampling to ISVs (independent software vendors) worldwide... enabling developers to optimize for Xe."
Samsung’s SmartThings app will soon connect to your car too
Samsung wants to add cars to its smart home ecosystem. At CES, Samsung announced that it's teaming up with Smartcar to make its SmartThings app compatible with "most new cars" in the US. Through the app, users will be able to do things like locate and unlock their vehicle or check its mileage, fuel level and EV battery status.
CES 2020 recap: Day three
CES 2020 isn't a PC show per se, but recently manufacturers have used it to show off their most out-there prototypes. Take Intel's Horseshoe Bend, a 17-inch PC that's entirely covered by a flexible display to show off the potential of huge foldable devices. Dell, meanwhile, took another approach with the Concept Duet laptop that has two screens rather than one big flexible display. Just to show that it can do folding too, Dell also unveiled the Concept Ori tablet that supersizes bendy smartphones to tablet size. Lenovo went the farthest, however, with its ThinkPad X1 Fold, a folding tablet that it actually plans to sell. All of this shows that manufacturers are trying to make bendable devices happen, even if consumers aren't sure yet. For more, follow along with Engadget's complete CES 2020 coverage.
Eargo's next hearing aid promises improved sound in the same tiny size
Eargo has made a name for itself by doing things differently when it comes to hearing aids. Instead of the usual range of over-the-ear devices, all the company's products are "invisible" (completely in the canal, or CIC). That in itself isn't unusual, but the branding, packaging and user experience are all much more akin to consumer smart products than medical-grade devices. Last year's Neo buds were good, but this year's Neo HiFi promises to be even better (even if it doesn't stream music, as the name might suggest).
I want everything in Kakao's smart home collection
I don't use Kakao Talk (mostly because none of my friends do), but I've always appreciated the messaging app's sticker-based characters -- known collectively as Kakao Friends -- which include a mischievous peach, a Jay-Z-loving secret agent and a pickled radish that walks around in a rabbit costume. Kakao and Nendo, a design studio with offices in Tokyo and Milan, have used these lovable creatures as inspiration for a family of adorable smart home devices. There are seven pieces in total: a thermometer, humidifier, air purifier, scale, lamp, alarm and baby camera. In short, I want all of them. Immediately.
AMD vs Intel: CPUs at CES
Aside from a few laptop launches, recently CES hasn't brought much computer news. AMD seems intent on changing that, launching the Radeon VII last year, and this year announcing a slate of new mobile processors. While AMD's chips may be changing the desktop landscape, bringing eight, twelve, and now sixteen cores processors within reach of the average desktop user, they've struggled in the mobile space. Put simply, AMD's current desktop chips are too slow, use too much power, and were a generation behind the minute they launched. But now at CES AMD CEO Lisa Su announced their 4000 line of mobile processors, which promise double the performance per watt of its current lineup (critical for mobile chips). AMD's own benchmarks, which admittedly must represent a best-case scenario, show its 15-watt low-power chips trading blows with Intel's 1065G7 laptop chip -- which currently powers the Dell XPS 13. AMD says its new 4800U should be 4% faster in single-core performance, but a staggering 90% faster in multicore benchmarks.
The Morning After: Introducing the Best of CES 2020 finalists
The Consumer Electronics Show is a place where dreams are m-- pitched to dismissive investors and crowdfunders. There are thousands of companies, startups and interest groups all jostling for the eyes of CES attendees and the assembled media. It's easy to get excited, with flying taxis, home robots and folding phones all on show in one location. It's the future, the day before it happens. Sometimes everyone gets too excited, and I think that's particularly true for Neon, a spin-off company from the Samsung-backed STAR Labs program. Artificial human avatars sound totally Blade Runner, but the current state of the program's digitally generated Neons is more like Amazon Alexa with teeth and eyebrows. Hype is a fickle mistress. We have some incredible nominees in the official Best Of CES 2020 awards. You can make a difference by voting right here for the People's Choice. You can watch the results, live, later today at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT. --Mat
LG vows to make its failing mobile unit profitable by the end of 2021
LG hasn't made a profit from its smartphone division for years, but it reckons the tide is about to turn. Speaking at a press conference at CES, the company's chief executive Kwon Bong-seok said, "LG Electronics mobile business is going to be profitable by 2021. I can say we can make that happen as LG Electronics will expand our mobile lineup and steadily release new ones attached with some wow factors to woo consumers."
CBS All Access is coming to Xfinity X1 and Flex set-top boxes
If you're an Xfinity subscriber, you'll soon have another way to watch Star Trek: Picard when it premiers later this month. Comcast says it's adding CBS All Access to its Xfinity X1 and Xfinity Flex boxes later this year. The telecom and ViacomCBS announced the move as part of a renewed content carriage agreement that allows Comcast to continue transmitting 23 CBS-owned stations in 15 markets across the US.
Hands-on with Intel's Ghost Canyon NUC and Tiger Lake Xe laptops
The year 2020 is clearly going to be big for Intel's gaming presence. The chipmaker is gearing up to introduce its first dedicated graphics hardware, dubbed Intel Xe. But at CES it also made some surprising announcements, like its new NUC Ghost Canyon that can fit desktop graphics cards as well as the fact that it's breaking the 5GHz barrier with upcoming H-series 10th gen chips. For gamers, this all means one thing: It's going to be a very interesting year.
Segway's S-Pod is a ridiculous lounge chair on wheels
Yes, the Segway S-Pod looks a lot like the floating chairs that future humans use in Wall-E. Ok, that's out of the way.
A very Japanese virtual companion is being westernized
When Gatebox revealed its... shall we say, culturally specific AI assistant a few years back, it drew its fair share of attention. How could it not? It looked for all the world like a blue-haired anime girl living in a glass tube, and it could be yours for the extremely reasonable price of $3,000. Now that 2020 is upon us, though, Gatebox's girl is getting a revamp for use outside Japan.
L'Oreal's handheld skincare dispenser doles out custom formula at each press
Beauty tech is tricky business. Every other month it seems like a new company pops up, promising to make a custom blended product that targets your specific skin type and concerns. But there are also environmental factors that affect what you'd want to apply, and these change when you travel or move. You're not going to want to reorder a whole new bottle just for the winter and another for when you go on a beach holiday.
Neon’s ‘artificial human’ avatars could not live up to the CES hype
Neon and its "artificial human" avatars were the first viral hit of CES. They had everything to get the internet excited: a corporate giant (the company is from Samsung's STAR Labs), buzzwords (Avatars! Realistic AI assistants!) and confusion. Redditors combed the internet for details, and YouTube channel Good Content pulled together a surprisingly comprehensive dossier on a company that's barely half a year old. Neon then officially announced itself to CES in a press release rich in hyperbole, complicated machine learning jargon and a pretty opaque mission statement. There was also the promise of Neons "reacting and responding in real-time." I had to see it for myself.
