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MakerBot wants you to start 3D-printing in metal and wood (sort of)
The future of 3D printing may depend on the ability print things with properties beyond cheap plastic. We've seen composite materials appear for 3D printers before, but the arrival of MakerBot to the scene should make progress a bit quicker. Announced at this week's CES, MakerBot will be rolling out new composite filaments that have been chemically bonded with new materials. You'll have to wait until late 2015, but it's probably going to be worth it: Maplewood, limestone, iron and bronze PLA composites are coming. And in real life, they look and feel far more impressive than you might think.
Smartwatch-style notifications are finally coming to Polar's V800
Twelve months ago, Polar announced the V800, a supremely powerful GPS running watch that came with built-in activity tracking. The standout feature, however, would be that the device would offer-up Pebble-esque smartwatch notifications. Unfortunately, the company didn't have the development resources to make good on its promises, so the latter feature was iced in favor of improving the watch's swimming features. A year later, however, and the company is finally ready to make good on its pledge.
The future of fitness could be a chest-worn sticker
For the last couple of years, medical science has been working on a way to build health sensors into stickers for better patient monitoring. It looks as if the folks behind AmpStrip might have gotten there first. AmpStrip is a piece of wearable technology that sticks onto your chest (we're told that the ideal location is below your nipple) and monitors your vitals without needing any other of the numerous fitness products we've seen on the market.
iRobot's CTO wants bots that will map and interact with your home, not drones
The future for Roomba maker iRobot isn't in the sky; it's continuing to innovate on the ground. In a chat with iRobot CTO Paolo Pirjanian at the Engadget CES stage today, he dove into his vision for where the company is headed. And, surprisingly enough, drones aren't part of the picture -- even though they're all the rage now. Instead, Pirjanian says he's looking forward to building smarter and taller robots that will be able understand and interact with their environment. The keys to that dream are indoor GPS and 3D mapping, both of which, he says, iRobot is "keenly working on." Those futuristic home bots will be able to do things like collect and bring a tray of food to the elderly, or create an accurate map of everything in your home, so it'll know if you left your keys on the kitchen table.
Want to know what's happening at CES 2015? Watch CES Today!
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-55542{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-55542, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-55542{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-55542").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Are you a fan of VR movies, smart beds, witty banter and exposition on Ryan Seacrest? Settle in folks, because we're bringing you all that and more on our CES Today morning show. You'll laugh (we hope), you'll cry (we hope not), but most importantly, you'll learn all about the trending stories of CES 2015 and everything happening on the Engadget stage today!
Take a tour of Sony's massive CES booth
Sony's presence at CES is by far one of the most impressive both in terms of scope and spectacle. This year's booth unsurprisingly focused on the company's ongoing push to make 4K and hi-res audio mainstream mainstays. Its new Walkman PMP and super thin 4K TVs were accompanied by refreshed Handycams, PlayStation 4s, wrist-worn wearables, bluetooth speakers, projectors and a whole lot more. In order to grasp just how massive Sony's booth is, you have to see it for yourself, and you can do just that with our video and photo tours in the gallery below. For more from Sony and beyond, check out our 2015 CES Field Guide.
Vote for your favorite gadget at CES in our People's Choice poll!
We've announced our Best of CES 2015 finalists so now it's time for you to cast your vote! Head here (or below) to pick your favorite from our pool of finalists -- you have until 6 PM EST tomorrow, January 8th, to make your voice heard. Photo: Will Lipman
Introducing the Best of CES 2015 finalists!
CES 2015 is finally here and boy, have we been busy the past few days. Engadget's editors have been hard at work pounding the show floor here in Las Vegas to bring you what we think should win the coveted Best of CES awards. Now, we're ready to announce our finalists for all 15 categories, which range from best home theater product to the most innovative tech we've seen at the show. Tomorrow, we'll announce our winners of each category, along with who will win the Best of the Best award. The recipient for that will be chosen amongst the category winners. But we want to know what you think too. So there's an additional category called People's Choice, where you can vote for your favorite product in our pool of finalists. To vote, simply head on over to this poll to make your voice heard. The product with the most votes will win a special People's Choice award, which will also be given out tomorrow at a ceremony onstage.
Quell wearable promises to relieve your chronic pains
As expected, wearables are all the rage at CES 2015. And while most of them are about looking fancy and sending useful notifications to your wrist, there are also others whose goal is to keep you feeling healthy. Enter NeuroMetrix Inc.'s Quell, a wearable that attaches to your upper calf and promises to make chronic pains go away within 15 minutes of putting it on. Quell's OptiTherapy electrode-driven technology uses non-invasive nerve stimulation to make this possible, allowing it to provide "100 percent" prescription-free relief to anyone who uses it. NeuroMetrix says that Quell is capable of relieving different types of chronic aches, from nerve pain to lower back problems.
The Maserati of the future has cameras and displays instead of mirrors
QNX has become something of a staple for us here at CES, wowing us each time with new and more compelling auto gear packed inside the finest cars. This year's no different, as QNX has shown up with a flat blue Maserati Quattroporte GTS that has received a complete technological overhaul. What's most impressive to us is that the rearview and side mirrors have been completely gutted and replaced with cameras and displays as part of its ADAS (advance driver assistance systems) demonstration. Unlike typical car mirrors, the cameras on the QNX car are able to easily reposition when reversing, for example, offering you a safer view.
The Belty motorized belt keeps you comfortable, tries to keep you active
Fitness and activity trackers come in many shapes and sizes. Some you wear on your wrist; others you stick in your ears; and some you clip onto your belt. Emotia's prototype activity tracker actually is a belt; or more specifically, a belt buckle called Belty. As you'd expect, it measures steps like every other tracker, and connects to your phone via Bluetooth to feed this data into an app, which acts as a virtual fitness coach. You can also set it to vibrate when you've been sedentary for too long and, more importantly, it can keep tabs on your changing waist measurement, which can be a good indicator of your risk of developing weight-related conditions. What I've described so far is all well and good, but forget that, because this belt buckle is also motorized, and capable of tightening and loosening itself to keep you as comfortable as possible at all times.
Of course there's a band with 3D-printed instruments at CES
Because how could there not be, right? You have 3D systems to thank for this one.
The most beautiful tablet you'll ever own comes with an Audi Q7
Audi teased its tablet at last year's CES, but then went completely quiet until its press event at this year's show. The quick demo we were treated to focused on how well the tablet is integrated into the Q7; the specs were clearly an afterthought. Audi has this dead right: Sure it's a 10.1-inch tablet being driven by a Tegra 4, but we didn't care about that at all. We were wowed by its beautiful design, and how well thought-out every little thing is. For example, the matte display is designed to reduce micro vibrations passing through the car -- and as we saw in a demo, they are incredibly distracting. The display was also tested to ensure that during an accident, it wouldn't shatter -- from your face hitting it -- and have the shards cause further injury to the people in the car. The tablet's housing is a solid piece of beautifully sculpted aluminum with curved corners and smooth edges.
BlackBerry climbs out of your pocket and into the internet of things
BlackBerry's been doing its best to engineer a smartphone comeback, but its future doesn't just hinge on stuff that goes in your pockets. Those plucky Canadians have also had their sights on cracking the fabled internet of things, and today it's finally pulled back the curtain on a cloud-friendly system meant to do just that.
August Connect adds internet connectivity to its smart lock
August already has this smart lock thing down (at least in theory). When it works, August is as desirable as anything else on the market. But the company can't just sit still and wait for the rest of the industry to catch up. The August Connect aims to be a cheap and easy way to keep the company ahead of the curve. The small device connects to a power outlet near your Smart Lock and gets it connected to the internet through the power of WiFi. That means you can finally check the status of your lock remotely, "buzz-in" the plumber from your office, and get notifications about any little change. The Connect basically adds a bunch of features many say the August should have had from day one. But these remote-access options open up a whole bunch of questions about security and we think most would rather the company play it safe when it comes to the safety of their homes and belongings.
The long road to self-driving cars
Automakers are big on self-driving cars this year. Audi, fresh from breaking both the autonomous speed and distance records (and driving me around a track at over 120MPH), announced the Prologue piloted-driving concept, and although Ford didn't have a new car to show, it still proclaimed it would strive to be the first to offer an autonomous vehicle "to the masses." But it's Mercedes-Benz that has stolen the show so far with its jaw-dropping, but unfortunately named F 015 Luxury in Motion concept. The F 015 is full of awesome and downright ridiculous technology. The front grille lights up to show if the car is in autonomous or manual mode, and can also project turning signals, pedestrian crossings and other information to the outside world. Its rear does something similar, lighting up to spell out words like "stop" and "slow" to tailgaters. The exterior itself resembles something between a Prius and a child's imagining of what a future car should look like, and its interior is similarly striking.
BlackBerry's Passport for AT&T isn't quite so square
Love the idea of BlackBerry's extra-wide Passport, but wish its ergonomics were a little better suited to your hands and pockets? You'll want to pick up the newly announced AT&T version, then. This first (and only, since it's exclusive) US carrier model both rounds off the corners and adds a more pronounced chin that could make it easier to type -- sadly, though, this doesn't bring a fourth row of hardware keys. It's otherwise the same oddball BlackBerry you've come to know, including that signature square 4.5-inch display, a reasonably speedy Snapdragon 801 processor, 32GB of storage, a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front cam. AT&T hasn't pinpointed an exact release date, but its Passport will be available for $200 on-contract, $22 per month on a Next 24 plan or $650 up front.
Intel's Compute Stick puts Windows 8.1 on your TV for $149
Your Chromecast may be able to play Netflix, but can it play Crysis? Intel's HDMI Compute Stick probably can't either, but the tiny device does have enough power to run Windows 8.1 apps on your TV. Intel has rather impressively crammed in a quad-core Atom CPU, 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, along with a USB port, WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 support and a mini-USB connector for power (HDMI power will come later). "But why?" you might ask. Intel sees it as a low-priced computer or (pricey) media stick, or even a thin-client device for companies. To up the crazy factor, it may eventually launch a much zippier Core M version. The Windows version will run $149, and if that seems a bit much, a 1GB RAM/8GB memory Linux version is priced at $89. Both will arrive in March.
TiVo OnePass finds your favorite show no matter where it is
TiVo DVRs have been powering binge-watching since they first hit the market, but now that means something different. Instead of diving into an archive of recordings or even disc-based boxed sets, we're usually queuing up a few seasons from a streaming internet service, and now TiVo can help with that. An update coming to Roamio, Premiere and Mini devices will evolve the old "Season Pass" recording into OnePass, which searches out episodes across the multiple video apps the boxes have access to. It doesn't matter if they're recorded, have yet to air, pop up on streaming (Amazon, Netflix, Comcast VOD, Hulu, Vudu -- you get the idea) or are just coming soon to streaming, they all show up in one easy-to-navigate screen. It's a simple extension of what TiVo's various boxes already do, but it's something you won't get from cable/satellite, and set-top boxes like Roku or Apple TV usually don't have access to traditional TV sources.
Testing the smartglasses that actually look like glasses
What happens when a company that makes old-fashioned spectacles attempts smartglasses? You get something like Meme, from Japanese glasses maker JINS. Still in prototype stage and courting developers, the glasses will go on sale early this year for around $800 (correction: JINS expects the glasses to arrive priced somewhere far more reasonable: apparently that's the point). However, let's get out of the way what Meme doesn't do. There's no screen; there are no cameras. There's no voice activation or commands. But when I put them on, they feel like... glasses. And after testing some (if not all) of the other smartglasses, it was a relief. Is less more? JINS hopes so.
