The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the biggest annual technology show globally, where companies give an outline of the products and technologies they plan to release throughout the year. As in the past, the CES 2018 has also been the platform for various path-breaking technologies by some of the biggest companies, and some of the major ones are discussed below.
Consumer products that shined at CES 2018
Bang & Olufsen unveiled BeoSound Shape, a modular wireless speaker system equipped with two-tone tiles available in an array of colors. Standing up to its image of creating audio products with best-in-class sound, Bang & Olufsen have designed every tile in a Hexagonal shape to fit perfectly with other BeoSound Shape tiles.
Different tiles represent different things, such as amplifiers, speakers, sound absorbing acoustic dampeners and a “Core” for connectivity. BeoSound is compatible with AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Chromecast, Bluetooth 4.1 and wired audio inputs.
Another attraction at the CES 2018 was Sony’s robot dog – Aibo – which has been brought back from the dead. It was first introduced in 1999. At the time, the technology was considered as groundbreaking. However, the production was shelved owing to reluctance around the product.
Aibo, which means companion in Japanese, has been redesigned with plenty of new features to justify its name. According to Sony, Aibo is capable of forming emotional connections with individual family members and teaching nurturing skills. With Artificial Intelligence being the core of the robot, Aibo can react to voice commands and touch. The robot dog can communicate through body language such as ear, eye and tail movements along with the voice sounds.
TVs that impressed all
Samsung too hogged the limelight at CES 2018 with a giant television. Dubbed as “The Wall,” the machine is a collection of multiple MicroLED TVs into a single big screen measuring 146-inches diagonally. The Wall, which can spread across the entire wall, is equipped with 8K resolution, and the company is yet to announce its price and availability. This massive TV would surely help the Korean firm to maintain its position as the number one TV maker in the world.
A TV offering from another Korean firm also impressed the audience at CES 2018. LG unveiled its W8 with a bezel-less screen, and no plastic lump on the back except for a thin ribbon that drops down the soundbar. The LG W8 is fitted with the Dolby Atmos soundbar, which is also the source of all the connections.
Chipset for autonomous vehicles
Talking of the tech products that work from inside, Nvidia announced a new system-on-chip solution called Nvidia Drive Xavier, the most complex chipset ever created, notes BGR. Every Xavier chip is equipped with more than 9 billion transistors, designed specifically to offer a wide range of AI features to autonomous vehicles. The company revealed that samples would begin shipping to Nvidia’s automotive partners sometime this quarter.
In addition, there were some really interesting technologies unveiled during the CES 2018 by relatively lesser known companies. One of them was the OrCan MyEye 2.0 device made for blind people or those with limited eyesight. The device is capable of reading out writing or print from any source. Further, the camera comes with AI tools to recognize faces, money and products in real-time.
