The Coolest Stuff From CES (And A Few Of The Dumbest Things)
The techies have taken over Vegas, as the annual Consumer Electrics Show (CES) is in full swing. Here's some of the coolest tech that companies have showed off so far — and also some of the worst:
The Coolest Stuff
LG's Disappearing, Roll-Up OLED TV
If you're looking to Marie Kondo your life and declutter your home, but you also love TV (and have a buttload of money lying around), LG's Signature OLED TV R — which rolls up into a sleek box — might be for you:
Samsung's Clever Space-Saving External Monitor
External monitors are great, but they tend to be pretty bulky. Samsung's aptly named Space Monitor is a 27-inch display that's designed to take up very, very little real estate on your desk"
LG's Neo Art, also shown off at CES, is another space saving and "portable" external monitor.
The Impossible Burger 2.0
Impossible Foods showed off their new fake beef, and made a believer out of Gizmodo's Adam Clarke Estes (who thought the original Impossible Burger tasted like "sawdust"):
And here's what CNET had to say:
[T]he burger I tried at the test kitchen a couple of weeks ago was wholly different. It had a juicy pink interior with a smoky charred crust. And the faux meat was soft and savory. Impossible Burger 2.0 is a tinkering of and improvement on the first version. If the current burger tastes like an OK Sizzler steak, then this new version is a well-massaged Kobe ribeye.
[CNET]
The All-Screen Honor Magic 2
2018 was, regrettably, the year of the notch. 2019 might end up being the year of the cutout. But Honor, a division of Chinese tech giant Huawei, is already looking ahead to our all-screen future:
Control Your Smart Home With A Block Of Wood
The Mui is, essentially, a fancy 2×4 that you put on your wall and use as a hub to control your smart home. It actually looks pretty great?
Samsung's Massive MicroLED TV
MicroLED is the future (according to The Verge, it promises "picture quality that should rival or beat OLED without any of the pitfalls of using an organic compound") and Samsung is leading the charge:
Sony's Silly And Great Party Speaker
Cup holders. Mic inputs for karaoke. Come on, this is great:
Shure's Mobile Vlogging Setup
Smartphones can shoot good video these days, but audio still lags, which is where Shure's MV88+ setup steps into handle audio capabilities for iPhones and Androids:
Alienware's Bonkers Area-51M Gaming Laptop
The Area-51M is billed as a desktop-replacement — and it has replaceable/upgradeable CPU and GPU, a rarity for laptops. Also, it looks crazy:
Google Assistant's Conversation Intepreter
We still have a ways to go before we match the Babel Fish, but Google's Interpreter mode is pretty cool:
The Dumbest Stuff
Kohler's Alexa-Enabled Toilet
Nothing says privacy like a microphone and a speaker in your toilet. Thanks, Kohler.
The Royole FlexPai
Bendable and foldable phones are, presumably, the way of the future. But the FlexPai, from Chinese company Royole, is indeed flexible. It's also pretty useless, which might be okay if it was just a prototype. But no, it's currently on sale in China:
Here's The Verge's Vlad Savov:
The biggest failure of the FlexPai is, predictably, its software and basic operation. Any time you rotate the device or fold / unfold it, it gets deeply confused and freaked out. I saw apps stacking on top of each other and overlapping with widgets as the tablet was transitioning into phone mode… Logic and predictability are at a premium anytime you pick this device up.
This Collection Of Buzzwords
