CES 2014 felt more revolutionary than evolutionary this year. The new innovative tech seems to come out every other year. For example last years TV news was about 3D, OLED and how thin they could make a TV. MakerBot and their 3D printer was the same even running the same demos, same goes with Parrot’s AR Drone.
TV’s
This year however there was more than enough new tech to keep the tech savvy from getting board of seeing rows and rows of headphones and phone cases. It seemed like every TV manufacturer had a new 4K TV to display. My guess is that in two years we will be seeing those for the same price as the decent TVs today.
Samsung of course had the some of the best 4k TV’s and display area. The curved Samsung TV’s were amazing or should I say “Bendable”. Imagine sitting in your Home Theater off to the side and being able to bend the screen in your direction.
Toshiba and Vizio had 4K 3D without glasses. Still a little bit blurry without glasses, but it is a step in the right direction.
Also in the news about TV’s: Showbox and Netflix says it will be streaming 4K when the 4K TV’s are released. Sony’s new UHD TV’s are all ready for Netflix when they start streaming 4K.
Gadgets:Oculous Rift’s new prototype “Crystal Cove” is headed in the right direction with new motion sensors and higher def screens. No doubt these will be better than the VR headsets from the 90’s we playe Doom and Wolfenstein on (we got very motion sick).
Steam Machines:I for one did not expect to see as many Steam Machines at CES. They ranged from all shapes, sizes and makes, plus you can build your own. Most of them felt like a small PC running linux. Watch for these in the near future, keep yourself informed on the best gaming monitor ratings if you want to maximize the steam machines potential, at this point a lot of graphic cards can produce superior images, images that cant be displayed my just “HD”.
Razer’s Nabu and Project Christine.
Razer never dissapoints. Razer’s Christine is a modular PC tower. Everything on the PC is replaceable and each module is self contained. Nothing on the machine is internal. All the hardware are in oval cases, which you just plug in. This differs from the smaller modular computers like the Xi3.
Playstation with Sony are becoming more interesting with their talks about a unified Sony. You will be able to play your games from the cloud on any Sony device. Sounds cool, but I will have to be wowed by the hardware.
Airtame Wireless HDMI DongleThe Airtame wireless dongle was one of the coolest hidden gems we found. The Airtame dongle links your PC, MAC or Linux to whichever display the other end is plugged into, even across multiple displays.
Auto’s made a good showing this year, from BMW autonomous drifting and parking to Audi’s Laser beam headlights.
CES 2014 didn’t disappoint. As usual there were miles of tech geek and we are sure we didn’t see everything. We say that every year.