LAS VEGAS – Nobody saw this coming. Sony, the company that used to define the old Consumer Electronics Show, this year at CES rolled out affordable 8K TVs, immersive audio, PS5 (logo only, gaming console to follow) … and an electric concept car. This is the Sony Vision-S. Vision-S was created, quietly and with zero publicity, as a testbed for the various sensors and infotainment systems from Sony that can be used in passenger cars. Sony is looking for more sales, and more respect, for the automotive technology it has. Sony (and Bose and the rest of the car audio industry) has been brushed aside by the Samsung-Harman juggernaut that sells multiple suites of safety and advanced driver-assistance systems, infotainment systems, and flat panel displays.
LAS VEGAS – For decades, the flying car has stood out as a vision for the ultimate in consumer technology among geeks (well, along with the Iron Man-style jet pack). Early versions never got very far, as they relied on large, finicky, expensive, hybrid car-plus-plane designs — inevitably inviting the problem of needing folding wings. With the advent of mass-market drone technology, and the decreasing cost and increasing capacity of batteries and electric motors, it was just a matter of time before a personal flying car — or at least a personal flying drone — would be possible. Japanese drone startup Aeronext is the latest to take aim at that vision, with its announcement of the Flying Gondola here at CES 2020.
The typing experience on smartphones has gotten vastly better over the years, but typing with your thumbs will never be as fast as using a real keyboard. Samsung thinks it’s onto something with its latest Android feature, which it calls SelfieType. At CES, the company is demoing this AI-powered system that lets you . SelfieType comes from Samsung’s C-Lab program, a sort of internal incubator that develops quirky technologies that may eventually find their way into real products. Samsung’s decision to announce SelfieType suggests that it’s relatively confident in its capabilities. I say “relatively” because does have a history of rolling out products and features before they’re ready.
Mobile technology has been edging closer and closer to foldable displays for years, but 2019 was the first time foldables became a reality with the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the upcoming Moto Razr. Lenovo isn’t wasting any time joining the folding revolution. The company has — it’s a foldable Windows 10 tablet that will launch in the coming months for $2,500. This is not the first time Lenovo has demoed a foldable tablet. However, the previous prototypes felt like that — unfinished. The X1 Fold, as demoed at CES, is very close to the final piece of hardware that will ship later this year.
Origin PC has a new method of solving the PC-versus-console question — it’ll sell you both in the same chassis. When the company debuted the “” last year, it was a proof-of-concept system that had an Xbox One, PS4, Switch dock, and PC all in the same chassis. The version the company has actually commercialized is a bit more practical, in that you have to choose which platform you want to incorporate — either a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One S “All Digital” Edition. Streamer’s Paradise The Big O can be used in console mode, PC mode, or both simultaneously, with separate HDMI ports for the GPU versus the disassembled console.
Headed into CES 2020, AMD was in an interesting position. The company is coming off what’s arguably its best year in the past two decades, with strong CPU launches in desktop, server, and workstation, the announcement of new Ryzen-based consoles (the PS5 and Xbox Series X), a new GPU architecture that competes much more effectively with Nvidia’s Turing cards, and new partnerships with data center and server companies. AMD’s Lisa Su has pledged to make 2020 an even bigger year for the company than 2019, before announcing the long-awaited Ryzen 4000 Mobile APU family. Up until now, AMD’s mobile CPUs have been quad-core and dual-core parts.
At CES, two new high-end 4K gaming displays that will join its ROG Swift product line later this year. The more impressive of these new specimens is the ROG Swift PG32UQX, which features a mini LED backlight to minimize light bleeding and produce high contrast images. The ROG Swift PG32UQX’s 4K panel measures 32 inches diagonally. Thanks to the mini LED backlight, Asus was able to create 1,152 local dimming zones spread across the panel. This enables the monitor to control the panel’s lighting with exceptional accuracy. In addition to reducing light bleeding, this also improves contrast between colors on-screen.
LAS VEGAS – The Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR, as in Avatar the movie (and director James Cameron showed up on stage), made an earth-friendly debut Monday night at CES 2020. It is the automaker’s view of a battery electric vehicle / autonomous vehicle ready for a sustainable future. AVTR stands for Advanced Vehicle Transformation. There is a lot of way-out stuff in the car, such as 33 moving scales on the back. (What’s not in the car are side doors.) The AVTR recognizes the driver from his or her heartbeat and breathing, and gives an affirmational pulse on the seatback, as passenger and vehicle become a single “symbiotic organism.
While exploring the solar system, we’ve found evidence of volcanic activity on numerous planets and moons. However, Earth remains the only place in the solar system we know for certain is geologically active. Scientists have wondered if Venus might be active as well, but it’s hard to know with its soupy, acidic atmosphere. A new simulation of Venus suggests that the planet . Venus is generally considered Earth’s “sister planet,” but that association is based only on its size and density. Both planets are inside the potentially habitable zone of the sun, but the surfaces couldn’t be more different.
