The Verge Awards at CES 2015: the year in tech starts here

Adventures in beating the hype

by Verge Staff

Jan 9, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

Here’s the thing about CES: it is exactly what you want it to be. There are hundreds of companies and thousands of people here, all trying to stake a claim to parts of the future big and small. You can mix and remix these elements into any story you want, and most people choose the most cynical reading: the tech industry, endlessly spiralling down into a desperate acronym soup that has nothing to do with reality.

We see things a little differently at The Verge. What happens this week in Vegas is worth celebrating. There’s a lot of junk at CES, and a lot of good reasons to push back against an industry that seems addicted to hype over substance. But to do that without also recognizing the incredible amount of energy and invention and excitement that’s waiting for us just beyond the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Center is ridiculously short-sighted. We bring almost the full Verge team to CES every year; we go on adventures all week long.

Here’s the best stuff we saw on those adventures.

— Nilay Patel

Best auto tech: BMW anti-collision

Can you make car crashes obsolete? It sounds like a ridiculous notion, but BMW demonstrated a system that almost gets us there: an array of sensors around the car keeps a close eye on the surroundings, making sure you can’t hit them no matter how hard you try. Once these systems are streamlined enough to go into production in the next few years, fender benders could be a thing of the past.

Best VR: Sixense lightsabers

It's rare that you find a healthy marriage between immersive virtual reality video, decent motion controls, and a great game idea. Sixense's lightsaber simulation is one such marriage. It's probably never going to make it outside the company's labs — copyright! — but in a year when nobody quite knows what to do with VR, it's a real step in the right direction.

Best car: Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion

This much we know for sure: at some point in the near future you will not need to drive you car. It will handle that part for you. Hopefully it won’t have a name as unwieldy as the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion, but basically everything else about this futuristic cocoon of a vehicle is worth copying. Its four seats face each other, fancy-train-car-style, and it’s powered by hydrogen. It even changes its lights based on whether you’re driving the car or it’s on its own — this car is the future, in many more ways than one.

Best buffet: Spotify Supper

Deep within the caverns of the Bellagio, in a gold-trimmed nightclub called The Bank, Spotify guests were served a mix of good food, good music, and brief business pitches. The menu came from Marcus Samuelsson, the comfort-food master-chef behind Red Rooster Harlem and Ginny's Supper Club in New York. The meal featured fried chicken bites, shrimp and grits, and a smattering of other nibble-ables. Along with it? A smooth concert from De La Soul, made especially for the older crowd in attendance. The only thing better than the food was the early bedtime.

Best drone: Asctec Firefly with RealSense

Last year at CES, many drone companies talked wistfully of a world in which they have access to powerful technology that would let them fly autonomously and avoid obstacles. That goal seemed far off, with a lot of expensive and difficult research needed first. But this year an amazing thing happened: RealSense, an Intel project originally developed as a new interface for computing, got ported over to drones. And thanks to a partnership with Ascending Technologies and its Asctec Firefly, we watched a drone fly itself through a forest and dodge clumsy humans in its way. Intel plans to make its technology widely available soon, ensuring the entire industry will have access to this breakthrough.

Best rideable: ZBoard 2

What makes a good rideable? It's gotta be fast, and it has to go at least 10 miles on a single charge. It also needs to have a lightweight body, and oh yeah: it better be fun to ride. This year at CES, ZBoard announced its second model, which hit the mark in every single way. The ZBoard 2 was successfully funded on Indiegogo in less that 24 hours — riders are eager to get their hands on the improved weight-sensing electric skateboard. Having ridden one ourselves, we get it.

Best wearable: Withings Activité Pop

All eyes may be on the Apple Watch, but for a lot of people wearable needs are simple: they want something that can track steps and sleep, all while looking really cool. The Activité Pop watch nails it, bringing the simplicity and ease of use as its more pricey sibling, in a package that looks like that old Swatch you lost a million years ago. If it wasn’t sold out at Best Buy, we’d have bought five already.

Best press event: Intel

It’s not easy to integrate live music, dancing, and autonomous drone demos into a cohesive and truly entertaining presentation, but Intel pulled it off in style. Even when the "smart" door failed to demonstrate the cleverness that Intel wanted to show off, CEO Brian Krzanich capitalized with some self-deprecating humor. Press events are primarily intended to stir up goodwill for a company, and Intel accomplished that goal with an appealing presentation of a near future that we can all look forward to.

Best Samsung: Ladies in pools

Nothing sums up Samsung’s pervasive culture of awkward opulence more than their annual CES TV events. This year saw the company float women in swimming pools at the SLS hotel, their swan-like dresses covered in blue LEDs that shimmered in the water. Check back in 12 months to see what creepy, incongruous use for models Samsung will dream up next — at this point, I’d be far more shocked to see an event where straight-laced engineers explain the latest TV tech.

Best phone: LG G Flex 2

This was very much the year of things that work with your phone, but one handset made enough noise to stand out from the Internet of Things — the LG G Flex 2. Even though the idea of a curved phone still sounds like a gimmick, this is one worth a second look from even the most hesitant parties. It's durable enough to drop or step on, the screen is beautiful, and LG has built some clever gestures into the UI. LG didn’t have much competition this year and it didn’t even matter — this phone looks great.

Best prototype: LG’s webOS smartwatch

Chalk this up as the weirdest smartwatch unveiling ever. It was first shown at an Audi event, initially assumed to be yet another Android watch, and then finally revealed to be running the next version of open webOS with a full cellular radio. It’s obviously very early, but the interface shows some new ideas and by all indications it’s going to to be a fast, full-featured watch.

Biggest story: The Internet of Things

The difference between how boring the phrase "the Internet of Things" is and how important it is to our future is massive. Now that we’ve figured out smartphones, putting that same miniaturized, hyper-connected, cloud-enabled technology in *everything* is the obvious next step, and we’re already there. What’s more, you don’t have to be an engineer to figure out how to turn your house into a smart home. Get ready, the Rise of the IoT is upon us.

Biggest surprise: Intel’s $300m commitment to diversity

The lack of diversity in Silicon Valley has been a huge story over the past year, particularly because of loud-mouthed critics' harassment of those who want to see better representation of women and minorities in the workforce. This week, Intel decided to stand up against them and in favor of diversity. It announced plans to spend $300 million over the next five years to help it achieve a fully representative workforce. Now, let's see what the rest of Silicon Valley can do.

Best tablet: Dell Venue 8 7000

Dell isn’t known for making great tablets, so when it first showed off the Venue 8 7000 back in September, many were rightfully skeptical. But when Dell brought its tablet to CES, the edge-to-edge display and 3D camera wowed just about everyone. It looks like the best alternative to an iPad, and may just be the only choice if you want an Android tablet.

Best TV: Samsung S9W S'UHD

Samsung unveiled its stunning S’UHD technology at its keynote this year, but it took legendary designer Yves Behar to help make it an 82-inch reality. With a 21:9 aspect ratio, the S9W is wider than most every TV on the market today, and the difference shows immediately. It rests on an illuminated cube that provides audio and lets you swivel the entire TV. Sadly, Samsung didn't let Behar design the name as well, but this is still the closest a TV has gotten to being a work of art.

Best laptop: Dell XPS 13

This is the year you should buy a new laptop, and a lot of people would do well to consider Dell’s new XPS 13. It’s all screen, a gorgeous 13-inch display with a resolution up to 3200 x 1800, and there’s essentially no bezel to speak of. The rest of the construction is just as nice. It’s a beautiful aluminum and carbon fiber that weighs less than three pounds. Add in a potentially ridiculous battery life rating of 15 hours, and any Windows laptop shopper will be happy with Dell’s latest.

Best comeback: Sony Walkman

I’ll tell you this straight up — I listened to Daft Punk, The Who, and a bunch of other stuff on Sony’s new $1,119 Walkman, and I can’t say I was blown away by the sound quality. I wasn’t blown away by the laggy, aging Android software, either, But I’m not the target for the new Walkman, and I can at least appreciate why a wild resurrection of one of Sony’s greatest ever brands has been one of the most popular stories on The Verge all week. The Walkman ZX2 is a chunky tank of pure gadgetry, and I am very glad it exists.

Best celebrity appearance: Kanye West

It started with a tweet, like all breaking news. "Kanye’s at CES!" someone yelled looking at an embedded photo. "That looks like the Sony booth." And with that, Sam and Jimmy raced to the floor in search of Ye. Why was he here? Where’s Kim? Were they scouring Las Vegas for fishsticks? It didn’t matter. It was Yeezus at the altar of technology and it needed to be documented. Arriving at Sony, breathless, doubled-over with hands on knees, all we found was a pile of glitter and a glorious white pony — we’ll get you next year, West.

Most terrifying: TrackingPoint ShotView

If the Internet of Things basically means "put a chip in everything," then the key word is everything. Your gun can now be connected to the internet — and while right now it’s just being used to broadcast video of your hunt, tomorrow it could be used for much more. Let’s not think too hard about the security and privacy implications inherent in all IoT devices, because the idea of a hacked firearm is just too much right now.

Best chair: Game of Guitars

Gibson must really love Game of Thrones, because it came to CES with an Iron Throne made entirely out of its signature guitars. And it looks amazing. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Iron Throne was created for Aegon the Conqueror, forged in dragonfire out of the swords of the conquered. This seat can’t claim that kind of heritage, but it still feels awesome sitting on it.

Best host: Cambot

It’s not easy to steal the spotlight from a German man with a truly remarkable mustache who keeps making jokes about how he is not a robot. But at Mercedes’ keynote, Cambot stole the show. The one-eyed robot on wheels followed CEO Dieter Zetsche around the stage — he's a little shy, we learned, but he’s fascinated by cars, and he likes showing the audience what he's checking out. He's just adorable. Come on. People might have been looking at the concept car Mercedes showed (or at that mustache), but we couldn’t take our eyes off Cambot.

Best design: Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Moment

Bang & Olufsen's BeoSound Moment is a stylish, angular, and modern stereo receiver for the era of digital downloads and streaming music. When you aren't using it, Moment looks like a piece of wooden furniture. When you are using it, the wooden face flips over to reveal a metal tablet and a color wheel that intelligently queues up your music. It's thoughtful in all the right places and eye-catching in all the right ways.

Best disruptor: the belfie stick

The halls of CES are rife with superfluous products solving problems you never had, but the most unnecessary invention of them all — the belfie stick — inadvertently changed the selfie industry. Forever. The belfie stick is a bendable stick that connects to your phone and makes it easier for consumers to capture an image of their own butt. The revolutionary aspect is that the belfie stick is honest. The belfie stick has no pretense about our social network-enabled narcissism and hunger for approval. When you really think about it, the belfie stick didn’t just shake up the selfie market, it created a whole new category: realness products. The belfie stick costs $79.99 and is already sold out.

Best service: Sling TV

Two years ago, Dish was the story of CES thanks to some unfortunate editorial censorship around its Hopper DVR. Now, the company is back with a new service that’s one of the show’s biggest standouts. Sling TV represents a crucial experiment in over-the-top, internet TV. Dish is making a hard press for cord cutters and people who’ve never bothered paying for cable, and it’s recruited ESPN to help with the cause. $20 a month gets you SportsCenter plus TBS, TNT, and a smattering of other channels — no cable subscription required. Are you fed up with paying Comcast so much money every month? This might be the out you’ve been waiting for.

Best in show: Gogoro

After $150 million in funding and four years operating under the radar, Gogoro has built up a lot of hype — and it just might live up to it. The Taiwanese company has designed a clever-looking electric scooter with a host of crazy features, pairing it with a network of battery-swapping kiosks that could be deployed around some of the world’s most congested cities. The goal? Smog-free commuters who don’t need to wait for their bikes to recharge — and a new battery standard that could find use in a variety of products, large and small. Gogoro might soon be about much more than scooters — but the scooter’s plenty awesome all on its own.