GREAT TECH-SPECTATIONS
Here’s what giant firms Samsung, Google, Amazon and Apple served up at CES 2019
IT WAS all fun and games for tech minnows at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The weird and wonderful devices that will most likely never find their way to market ranged from a flying police drone to a gadget that can clean your teeth in 30 seconds.
While what the tech giants got up to wasn’t quite as odd, at least their plans have some kind of chance of actually making it to the shops... maybe. So here’s what Samsung, Google, Amazon and, yes, even Apple got up to.
1 Samsung
THERE are a few strands to what Samsung spoke about at CES this year... and the most interesting of it had to do with partnerships with others, which we’ll get to in a moment.
But the truth is, while Samsung spoke a lot about smart homes and robots, its biggest announcement wasn’t even about anything going on at CES at all, but the reveal of the date of the event at which it will show the world its next generation smartphone.
Yes – save the date, people, because the Galaxy S10 is coming at an event in San Francisco on February 20.
No more details were revealed, but there was some chatter that we might well see some more details of Samsung’s upcoming flexible display phone at the event, too.
In addition to that, Samsung showed off its new modular TV, which is made up of micro
LED panels that can be clipped together to make a screen of almost any size.
The panel is 75in – not massive by TV standards these days (in fact, Samsung itself showed off a new 98in version of its already groundbreaking 8K at the event, too), but what is new is the ability to arrange many of these displays into any size or shape to make a screen that is infinitely customisable.
Samsung showed off a 219in screen it calls The Wall, made up of the panels at the event.
There were also a couple of interesting Samsung robots on show – glossy white machines designed to give you a helping hand around the home and elsewhere.
One was a health robot – Bot Care, which can monitor your health using various sensors, and also remind you to take medication. A screen “face” can also show you exercises and stretches to do and talk you through the movements.
Another Samsung robot – Bot Retail – aims to help out in shops, taking orders and payment before delivering goods.
Pretty soon there’ll be no jobs for anyone and we can all just spend all
day at the beach.
2 Google
GOOGLE was all in on the Google Assistant at this year’s CES, but rather than showing off a load of new features, it was more keen to showcase how the technology is spreading to other devices beyond the ones it makes itself.
There was one new feature, though – interpreter mode for the Assistant which aims to crack the nut of providing real-time translation so you can converse with people instantly even if you don’t speak their language.
This version has your words translated into a language of your choice and displayed on screen as type (although the Assistant can read it out, too, once you’re done talking). It sounds like magic if it works.
Other than that, Google had a number of employees stationed around the exhibition telling people how the Assistant was EVERYWHERE... which sounds slightly sinister.
The Assistant is installed on somewhere in the region of 1bn devices if you take all Android smartphones into account, and if Google’s presence at CES shows us anything it’s the company’s determination to see the Assistant spread as far and as wide beyond the phone as possible – to devices as diverse as fridges and showers.
With its user-base growing fast – apparently there are four times as many people using the Google Assistant this year than last – who would bet against them?
3 Amazon
AMAZON’S presence at CES was a lot more low key than the other giants this year, perhaps reflecting its confidence that it’s still ahead of the others in the smart home assistant game.
It showed off some new features for its Ring smart doorbell, but was content to allow Google to take the limelight in most respects.
Even though Amazon’s smart Assistant Alexa is installed on a 10th as many devices as the Google Assistant, it remains the most used, and in many ways, the best.
4 Apple
APPLE never exhibits at CES but this year surprised everyone by making perhaps the most newsworthy announcement at the event.
The iPhone maker revealed it is allowing third-party TV-makers – including its arch-rival Samsung – to add iTunes film and TV streaming to their smart TVs, as well as AirPlay 2 steaming technology to allow iPhone and iPad users to stream video and audio from their devices to the third-party TVs.
It’s a real turnaround from a past in which Apple exclusively offered its services on its own devices as a way of making them more attractive to buyers.
Perhaps the news that iPhone sales are on the wane, perhaps permanently, has convinced Apple its services should be more widely available in a bid to make them more lucrative – after all, it’s already a part of the business that brings in around as much cash as the whole of Facebook makes.
Or maybe Apple is laying the groundwork for the launch of its own branded TV streaming service with original content – rumoured to be launching this week.
More likely, it’s a combination of both...