From internet-connected toasters to virtual reality suits — the life changing tech coming in 2017
FROM internet-connected toasters to virtual reality suits. The world’s biggest tech show gives a sneak peak into what your life could look like in 2017.
Gadgets
Don't miss out on the headlines from Gadgets. Followed categories will be added to My News.
FROM televisions that mimic paintings to virtual reality suits, robot maids, and internet-connected toasters, the world’s biggest technology show paints a curious picture of our what our lives might look like in 2017.
More than 20,000 gadgets were unveiled at the fiftieth Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, spanning the gamut from life-changing technology to laugh-out-loud novelty.
But among the devices launched by top firms including Samsung, LG, Intel, Sony, and Microsoft, strong technology trends emerged that are bound to guide our purchases, or at least steal our attention this year.
Television technology looks set for an overhaul, with an increasingly fierce battle over screen superiority dominating this year’s event. Internet connections and autonomy are also being added to more appliances and everyday items, and virtual reality is taking greater steps forward, promising full-body sensations and compelling travel experiences without leaving home.
The annual technology event attracted more than 170,000 attendees from around the world this week, virtually taking over Las Vegas, dominating its convention centre and nine of its top hotels.
TV BATTLE HEATS UP
Television technology drew the most attention, with new screen technology promising better pictures, brighter colours, and better viewing angles, and eye-catching flagship televisions the likes of which we have not seen before.
Long-time TV rivals Samsung and LG both revealed groundbreaking TVs at the event: LG showed off a screen hung from a wall with magnets, as if attached to a fridge, while Samsung unveiled a slender TV capable of masquerading as a painting.
Samsung’s Lifestyle TV, due to arrive in Australia later this year, is bordered by a wooden picture frame, and can be customised with artwork or a photo.
The art appears on screen when it senses that you have left the room, or when you turn the TV off.
Samsung Australia consumer electronics vice-president Carl Rose said the artwork-style television should appeal to interior designers and those who don’t want their rooms dominated by a big-screen TV.
“We think there are some customers who see a black rectangle as not something they want in their decor,” he says.
“We picked up on these pain points, and we’re making something that will fit to a design and a colour scheme.”
LG showed off a similarly eye-catching television, with its 65-inch Signature OLED TV W Series televisions just 2.57mm thin, and able to be hung from the wall with magnetic brackets.
LG Electronics US spokesman David VanderWaal says the television is known as the “wallpaper TV” inside the company.
“We call this new design picture-on-wall TV,” he says. “The W7’s sleek, razor-thin profile gives it a unified look with the wall which causes it to appear as though it’s levitating.”
But while the thin, designer-friendly TVs stole attention, an even more bitter battle raged over the best screen technology.
Samsung improved and rebranded its Quantum Dot TV range from last year. Its QLED TVs add a metal shell and core to nanocrystals to deliver a substantial brightness boost, greater range of colours, and better viewing angles. The TVs are due in Australia in the first half of the year.
LG, however, backed its well regarded OLED TV range, and produced its own version of Quantum Dot technology, called Super UHD TV, that it claimed produced more realistic colours.
And, to either confuse or give TV buyers another option, Sony backed OLED television technology for the first time in years, revealing two OLED screens with unique sound technology.
The Acoustic Surface feature shakes the TV’s display to emit sound from the screen.
But televisions weren’t the only technology to be revamped at CES this year.
HOUSEHOLD ITEMS GET TECH BOOST
Smart features and internet connectivity were added to a host of devices, from toasters and fridges, to robot maids and cat collars.
Many home appliances are becoming smarter, and even somewhat autonomous this year. LG, for example, added internet connections across its whitegoods range and introduced a humanoid assistant, named Hub Robot, to control them as per your instructions. On your command, it could trigger a connected robot vacuum to clean up when you leave the house, for example.
Samsung also revealed new Family Hub internet fridges which could follow voice commands, read recipes step by step, and play songs from Spotify.
On the stranger side of smart technology, Griffin issued its Connected Toaster that lets users set their perfect bread browning level in a smartphone app, a start-up named Scollar revealed a smart cat collar with GPS-tracking and a display noting whether kitty has been fed, and Withings produced a smart hair brush that uses sensors to determine whether you’re grooming too hard.
Naturally, virtual reality also emerged as a top trend in Las Vegas this year, with computer chip maker Intel one of its top proponents.
The company not only hosted a press conference in which all attendees wore Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets, but it showed off a new style of VR in which users can walk around a scene to inspect objects and look all around them.
Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich says more interactive virtual reality experience, called volumetric video technology, required a lot more computing power but could deliver more realistic virtual tourism.
“We want you to be able to walk around while the video is actually playing,” he says. “The video moves with you and allows you to travel through the space.”
Intel also showed off a prototype VR headset, called Project Alloy, that combines images from the real world with gaming elements, and did so without connecting to a computer.
The Alloy headset could, for example, appear to turn your couch into a virtual cockpit.
Other notable virtual reality additions at CES include Cerevo’s Taclim shoes that let your feet feel when you jump or walk about in a game, and a metal exoskeleton from Theory dubbed The Hypersuit that lets users virtual fly through the air, guiding games with their two metal wings.
* Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson travelled to CES as a guest of Samsung.
Urgent update over smartphone ‘fire risk’
Consumers with this phone should check their devices to make sure a critical update has been applied to stop potentially dangerous overheating.
Feature on iPhone killer has world talking
There are some flashy new gadgets on the market, with a flashy smartphone emerging as a major player.