CES 2017 aka Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada is the annual pilgrimage some of us make (the ones who pull the short straws).
This year more than 175,000 attendees converged on the strip this week to be among the first to see what the world’s top technology companies have to offer. There was plenty to take in at CES 2017, and we had a blast checking out all of the exciting new gear headed to store shelves in 2017 and beyond. Check out 10 products in particular that rose above the rest and really wowed us at CES.
Faraday Future presented its vision of a revolutionary new world of transportation—one where your car parks and sometimes drives itself, freeing you to be the pampered passenger in your own self-chauffeured luxury electric crossover. With a claimed 0-60 time of just 2.39 seconds, the FF 91 lays unverified claim to the title of world’s quickest production car, narrowly edging out the most recent acceleration king, the Tesla Model S P100D.
An iPhone 7 is 7.1 mm thick. A number 2 pencil is 6 mm thick. LG’s new Signature OLED TV W7 television is 2.59 mm thick.
2.59 mm!
This stunning next-generation television truly represents the future, packing 4K Ultra HD resolution and HDR into a razor-thin panel that practically becomes part of the wall thanks to a special magnetic mounting system. The components are offloaded into an accompanying sound bar, and the result is a design that will literally reshape televisions for years to come.
Amazon’s virtual personal assistant Alexa was everywhere at this year’s CES, and for good reason. Alexa facilitates a seemingly endless range of functionality and electronics companies are eager to make use of it, rather than having to build their own voice-powered assistant solutions. Of all the Alexa integrations we saw, however, Ford stood out from the crowd.
Ford SYNC 3 AppLink puts everything Alexa offers at a driver’s fingertips. Them home integration will also allow people to start their car, lock and unlock the car, and even check fuel levels using Alexa commands with any compatible Amazon or third-party device. The video above runs through the highlights.
Samsung’s just-announced Chromebook Plus is everything a person could want from a Chromebook in 2017. The 12.3-inch touchscreen display features Quad HD resolution and support for a built-in S Pen stylus. The 2.0GHz hexa-core processor packs plenty of power. The nifty hinge design allows the screen to rotate all the way open so the device can be used as a tablet. And it ships with the Google Play store pre installed, giving users access to millions of Android apps in addition to apps made for Chrome OS.
WattUp is no longer just an exciting futuristic technology only available in demos. Energous announced a number of partnerships that will see a number of commercially available products launch with support for the first version of the WattUP wireless charging solution.
This first round of devices have to be within a few inches of the charging transmitter in order to refuel, but Energous plans to launch longer-range transmitters later this year and they will be backward compatible with all previously released devices.
Traditional pay TV is dead. Cable companies just don’t know it yet.
Dish’s AirPlay TV in an Android TV box that takes nearly everything great about streaming devices and adds an over-the-air HDTV antenna into the mix. What does that mean for users? It means that with one solution, they can enjoy streaming TV shows and movies from their favorite services like Netflix and Hulu, plus they get free live broadcast TV from all the major networks including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in 1080p Full HD.
Virtual reality is one of the hottest spaces in consumer tech right now, and the HTC Vive offers one of the best VR experiences money can buy. Like all dedicated VR experiences from big-name brands, however, using the Vive means being tethered to a PC. That’s where TPCast comes in.
With financing from HTCs Vive X Accelerator fund, TPCast created a simple solution that connects to the standard Vive headset and converts it into a wireless VR system. In other words, users get the best-in-class VR experience the Vive provides while also enjoying the freedom that a smartphone VR solution affords.
Beyond VR, augmented reality is the other half of the computing experience of the future. AR solutions involve overlaying digital elements on top of the physical world around you, opening the door to a wide range of exciting possibilities. Microsoft is leading the way in this space with its HoloLens headset, but ODG’s next-generation R-8 and R-9 smartglasses offer a much more compact solution.
Powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset destined to be found in nearly every flagship Android smartphone this year, the R-8 and R-9 smartglasses are both lightweight solutions capable of immersing the wearer in mixed reality. The higher-end R-9 model features a 50° field of view and 1080p resolution, while the less expensive R-8 glasses have a 40˚ field of view and 720p resolution.
Apple might never make a macOS laptop with a touchscreen. Well, actually, Apple already made a macOS laptop with a touchscreen, the company just didn’t know it.
AirBar is a brilliant little device that plugs into the USB port on a 13.3-inch MacBook Air and sits beneath the display. Using a special sensor array, the AirBar can see touches to the laptop’s screen, allowing users to control the machine as though it were equipped with an actual touchscreen.
Here’s a video of the AirBar in action:
Sleep Number’s latest “smart bed” isn’t just another connected mattress that lets owners make adjustments here and there on a remote or a smartphone. This is an entirely new sleep solution that monitors each partner individually and makes adjustments on its own to keep people sleeping soundly. This way, as sleeping positions change throughout the night, the bed self-adjusts to optimize the sleep surface and ensure comfort.
Here’s a video that explains how it works:
Awesome post!!