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Philips adds more garden lights to its Hue lineup
There's a bunch of new goodies for anyone looking to clad the outside of their home in Philips' Hue lights, so get excited. Unless, of course, you happened to spot these new entries when they were leaked last month, in which case you've been excited for the better part of a month already.
Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot was my CES road trip companion
I love a good road trip. I've spent hundreds of thousands of miles in cars during my life, and the best times were when I knew it would be hours or even days before I reached my destination. Typically a friend (or friends) or family members would accompany me, but on a few occasions, it was just me, my music collection -- and scenery screaming past me at 70 miles per hour.
OMRON's redesigned ping pong robot no longer holds back
OMRON is best known for its healthcare products like thermometers and blood pressure monitors -- now in the form of a smartwatch, even. But those who have been following our CEATEC coverage over the past five years may remember the company's ambitious exhibit: the Forpheus table tennis robot. Little did I know that I would bump into this old friend here at CES. The machine is now in its fifth generation and packed with some surprising upgrades -- let's just say my parents would be disappointed in me if they were there.
Tech and tariffs in Sin City
Last week, tens of thousands of people flowed through a congested walkway on their way to see the latest and greatest tech at the Consumer Electronics Show. In years past, this hallway, which connects the Central Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center to the South Hall, was generally free of any displays, with just a few couches pushed up against the wall. This year, however, a giant phone sat near the middle, off to the side of the aisle, with an approximately five-by-three sign proclaiming "Tariffs are taxes."
After Math: How we survived CES 2019
As cleanup crews descend on the Las Vegas Convention Center and the events attendees reluctantly make their ways home, it's hard to believe that the weeklong technology expo is already over. We saw autonomous bread machines, self-driving semis, and even self-heating razors amidst the gaggle of cutting edge gadgets. Here are some of the coolest tech toys that we got to play with at CES 2019.
All the laptops that came out at CES 2019
With the latest release of NVIDIA's RTX ray-tracing laptop chips, any manufacturer can make a fast and lightweight laptop. To stand out now, you need to try something new, so this year at CES 2019, the focus was on displays and eccentric designs. Dell and HP showed that the future of gaming and multimedia laptop panels is both brighter and faster. Alienware's laptop featured an upgradeable CPU and GPU, ASUS unveiled an all-in-one-like ROG laptop and Acer's Predator Triton 900 had a singular hinge and exorbitant price tag. At the same time, there were many excellent-looking new models rocking NVIDIA's latest chips. Without further ado, here's a roundup of everything we saw.
Formlabs pushes the boundaries of what 3D-printing can do
When 3D-printing burst onto the scene, its mouth was writing checks its capability had almost no chance of cashing. For all of its grand promises, the results the machines produced were useful for prototyping and very little else. Fast forward a few years, however, and companies like Formlabs have found ways to make the technology far more useful.
The technology behind the world's largest cannabis dispensary
Las Vegas is not a town for half measures. So it's of little surprise that when the state of Nevada legalized recreational cannabis in July of 2017, Sin City took the cannabis dispensary model and added a bit of Vegas' over-the-top magic. The result: Planet 13, a 40,000 square foot dispensary -- the largest of its kind anywhere on Earth.
The Void’s extra-sensory VR does what home experiences can’t
I walked through The Void's virtual reality center in the Las Vegas Venetian twice. The first time, armed with headset and wireless backpack, I was shuttled through Ralph Breaks VR, the company's latest experience. I saw my own shiny animated pink hands as I touched the walls and picked up a rifle -- both in the game and real life. Then, I ducked behind a café counter before firing pancakes at bunnies. When the area caught fire, my skin felt heat; when standing precariously on a skyscraper ledge I felt the vertigo-inducing wind on my face.
Gaming laptops are getting wonderfully weird in 2019
The gaming laptop renaissance is upon us. For the past few years, they've been getting thinner, lighter and more powerful, thanks to NVIDIA's 10-series Max-Q graphics cards. But this year at CES, they got truly weird and wild. Alienware's Area 51m lets you swap out its CPU and GPU, like a proper desktop! ASUS's ROG Mothership is basically an all-in-one PC masquerading as a notebook. And Acer's Predator Triton 900 has one of the craziest hinges we've ever seen.
When you’re the only company at CES from your country
There are more than 1,700 American companies at CES, 1,200 official exhibitors from China, and several hundred from France and South Korea. Many of them are veterans of the trade show circuit, one-upping each other's booths with elaborate curved OLED TV installations and Disney-fied cart rides. There are entire government-sponsored showcases to feature the best of their country's tech scene.
CES 2019: In pictures
We're wrapping up our reportage from this week's Vegas showcase. According to CES organizers, roughly 180,000 attendees hit the halls. In the thick of it all was photographer Will Lipman and our team of editors. Here, we try to capture some of the coolest highlights, some of the spectacle, and none of the queueing, toilet searching and taxi flagging.
Samsung and Qualcomm talk realistic expectations for 5G in 2019
The 5G hype at CES has grown each year, becoming unavoidable and almost unbearable over the past two shows. This year was no different -- we saw companies announce more partnerships and rollout plans, as well as the launch of new 5G mobile hotspots and networking chipsets. AT&T even pre-emptively started pushing out a so-called 5G Evolution signal logo to some phones on its network, which drew criticism across the industry, especially from rivals like T-Mobile and Verizon. Yes, 5G is going to become reality in 2019 -- that much the industry can all agree on. But what exactly are we expecting to see in 2019? Realistically, who will be able to experience true 5G this year, what will the performance difference be and, importantly, how much will it cost? Samsung's Derek Johnston and Qualcomm's Durga Malladi joined us on stage at CES 2019 to discuss the benefits, challenges and what to expect of 5G in 2019.
Health and beauty tech continues to fail pregnant women
There's a thread on Fitbit's Feature Suggestion forum titled, "Add Pregnancy/Nursing mode for more accurate calorie estimates," with the first comment logged in December 2013. It was locked at 328 comments and 1,388 upvotes. In the comments, hundreds of women chimed in to agree and add their own requests, including tweaks to Fitbit's menstruation-tracking features, nursing settings, weight-gain monitoring and other pregnancy-specific notifications. A moderator lurked, editing labels and updating the status of the request. At 4:41PM on May 6th, 2014, a moderator updated the pregnancy-feature thread to "New." By February 14th, 2015, the status had shifted to, "Not currently planned."
Chinese tech at CES: Politics is temporary, business is permanent
At the start of 2018, the US imposed a series of tariffs on Chinese products ranging from solar cells through to home appliances. It was the escalation of rhetoric between the two countries over fears that the US-China trade deficit had become too high. According to US Census Bureau statistics for 2018, the US bought $447 billion worth of Chinese goods, but only $102.4 billion went the opposite way. An additional $200 billion tariff package targeting the technology industry was due to be levied on January 1st, 2019.
How a hackathon helped build the Xbox Adaptive Controller
A small crew of designers pieced together the first prototype for the Xbox Adaptive Controller three years ago, at Microsoft's annual internal hackathon. The event invites employees to work on experimental or pet projects and present them to colleagues for feedback, and a handful of developers were interested in building a gamepad for people with limited mobility.
Everywhere we found AirPlay 2 at CES 2019
As is tradition, Apple was once again infamously absent at the biggest technology show of the year, CES. The company hasn't actually stayed out of the headlines over the past week, however. Apple didn't do any announcing of its own, but it was name-checked in practically all press conferences held by the biggest consumer tech brands at CES. The reason? AirPlay 2.
How Royole built the world's first foldable phone
Samsung has grand ambitions for its forthcoming, foldable phone, but China's Royole somehow beat the tech titan (and everyone else) to market. Here's the thing, though: despite working on rollable, bendable, flexible screens since 2012, hardly anyone saw Royole's push into the smartphone market coming. To hear founder and CEO Bill Liu tell it, though, that was exactly how he wanted it. Liu joined us on our CES stage, to discuss what it was like for a company mostly known for screens to start working on a smartphone, walk us through how it works, and (perhaps most important) explain where Royole came from in the first place.
The Owlet Band monitors your unborn baby while you sleep
Owlet is known for making connected baby monitors and teeny tiny smart socks (yes, really), but its latest innovation is built to use before baby is actually born. The Owlet Band is a soft, thin circle of fabric that wraps around an expectant mother's abdomen and lower back, and it has a small plastic sensor front-and-center. Using passive ECG technology, the Band is able to read and record the baby's heart rate, count its kicks, identify contractions and track the mother's sleeping position. Essentially, it's a sleepy-time peace-of-mind machine for anxious parents-to-be.
CES 2019 recap: it's a wrap!
If you like weird products, the tail end of CES is the best part. After the usual TVs, gaming products and fitness devices, the final day of CES 2019 gave us waffle-toting robots and exoskeletons. Samsung unveiled its Bot Care butler-style robot, along with the Bot Air, an air purifier on wheels.
