The future looks bright
We pick 10 of the best gadgets from the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
IT’S like Christmas all over again – the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas comes around every January as a forum for techmakers to show off their latest gifts. And this year was another smasher, with some great surprises.
Literally thousands of gadgets are previewed by makers both big and small... so I’ve picked out 10 of the most interesting. Bear in mind, though, a lot of these are concepts and may never even make it to market. Think of it more as a guide to future possibilities, although some will certainly make it, others likely will not...
1 NREAL GLASSES LOTS of people have tried and failed over the years to make augmented reality glasses that both looked OK and, well, worked as advertised. Even the mighty Google came up short.
But those who have tried Nreal’s efforts at this year’s CES say we might at last have a winner. The glasses might look a bit clunky, but they’re a lot lighter and a lot cheaper than rivals like Microsoft’s HoloLens. And they will be a lot cheaper – they’re listed for sale on Nreal’s website at $499 (£385).
Its lightness likely comes from the fact that it’s powered by a mobile phone – it plugs into an Android handset. A demo zombie game, a video call, and YouTube video watching were all shown off and video was said to be crisp and sharp.
2 MATRIX JUNO
THINK of this device as an anti-microwave. It doesn’t heat things up quickly, it cools them down quickly. It’s amazing to me that nobody has ever done this before.
Available for backing on Indigogo, the Matrix Juno will reportedly ship to customers later this year. It can, apparently, chill a bottle of wine in about five minutes – so no more sticking that room temp white in the freezer and forgetting about it until it’s too late. The device can also chill freshly made hot coffee, and cans of beer. It’s going to cost $299 (£230) when it ships, but you can get an early bird discount of $100 if you back the project now.
3 SEGWAY S-POD
THERE’S always an unfortunate yet amusing incident during CES that sees some kind of demo go awry. This year it was Segway’s remarkable S-Pod, which I can only describe as a chair on wheels (two wheels, mind). Apparently a journalist crashed it while taking out for a spin, rendering it unusable for the rest of the show.
Anyway, it looks like those flying chairs that everyone’s zipping around in in Pixar’s Wall-E film, and is designed for a future in which we rely less on cars, but still need to get around.
The S-Pod can do almost 25-miles-an-hour and has a range of 43 miles... so if you don’t mind sacrificing dignity for the sake of progress, it could answer a lot of questions in the age of not burning fossil fuels...
4 LENOVO THINKPAD X1 FOLD
IF the last couple of years have shown us anything, it’s that tech companies will simply not give up on the idea of folding screens, even though it seems like they might be impossible, and they don’t really provide a whole lot of extra functionality anyway.
Lenovo is the latest company to try with its ThinkPad X1 folding screen laptop... and by all accounts, it works pretty well. It’s small, yet folds out into a 13.3in screen – you can use it partially folded with an on-screen keyboard, or fold it out fully and use the supplied Bluetooth keyboard.
It won’t be available until the summer when it will cost around $2,500 (£1,925)... and by that time Microsoft may have perfected its new version of Windows 10, which is designed for devices like this one.
5 ALIENWARE UFO ALIENWARE’S hand-held gaming platform takes its cue from the Nintendo Switch. It has detachable controllers, and can be attached to a bigger screen for console-like gaming. Where it differs from the Switch, though, is that it incorporates a fully-functioning Windows 10 computer within, so should satisfy the more serious gamers.
We don’t know anything about the internals, or if it will ever make it to market, but there are many out there who hope it will.
6 PS5 ONE of the biggest let-downs of CES this year was Sony’s muchhyped presentation about its nextgeneration gaming console, the PlayStation 5.
Sony did not actually show the console off, but instead revealed the new logo it will sport... which looks exactly like the PS4 logo, expect with a 5. Sony did say the console will be shipping for “holidays 2020”, and also confirmed what has long-since been known – it will support 3D audio and have an SSD for storage instead of a spinning disk drive for faster load times, which is at least something.
7 SONY VISION-S SONY surprised almost everyone at the show, however, by showing off a concept car. Yes, a car – an electric car crammed full of Sony technology.
It’s the only one of its kind in the world and Sony has not said whether it intends to put it into production. It’s more of a showcase for the Sony technology that is used in lots of other new electric cars – like cameras, sensors, and audio equipment. Some of the new stuff will make it into production cars, maybe just not this one.
8 QUIBI QUIBI is the new short form video platform, aimed at the youngsters and due to launch later this year.
It was perhaps a bit of a let-down at CES because the actual app (it runs only on smartphones) was not shown off. Nevertheless, some big promises are already being made. Aside from only running on a phone, what’s new about Quibi is that its shows can be viewed in either landscape or portrait mode, and will be released in bite-sized episodes of 10 minutes or less. Some exciting talent is on board to make the shows – including Kristen Bell, Zac Efron, and Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo.
9 SAMSUNG BALLIE IN true Star Wars BB-8 style, the Samsung Ballie is a little robot ball that follows you around, and keeps an eye on your home to help you in all manner of different ways. What ways exactly is not quite clear. It can capture video, play with your pets, and let you know if something’s awry (like calling your robot vacuum to clean up a mess it’s spotted). There’s no word on whether Samsung will ever make it available, or what it will cost.
10 IMPOSSIBLE PORK WHY would a food company show off at a tech event? Well, Impossible is a food company like no other and can claim to be as much a technology-driven entity as any of the other gadget-makers at the show.
It is already known for its Impossible Burger – a plant-based product that Impossible says is man-made meat, built using technology from the very same building blocks beef is made from, just from plant-based sources.
It has proved very popular in the US, where it has even found its way into Burger King Whoppers, Impossible Whoppers, of course. The company used CES to show off its latest creation – Impossible Pork, which claims to do for pigs what the burgers have done for cows.