Sony apparently wants to let you add themes to the screens inside its Afeela EV prototype, as shown at CES 2024. Its examples? Themes of Across the Spider-Verse, a Sony movie, and Fortnite, made by Epic Games, which Sony has invested in.
That was the setup, anyway, during this CES presentation. But I was watching Izumi Kawanishi, Afeela’s president and COO, as he was steering the latest prototype onto the stage, and I would swear he didn’t move his thumbs at all. Plus, he then made a comment about how this was just for tech demo purposes. So color me skeptical. But either way, at least someone is trying to make my dream of car controllers come true.
While kicking off Sony’s CES 2024 press conference, CEO Kenichiro Yoshida mentioned some of the Sony Pictures highlights on the way, including a particularly interesting partnership with Nintendo. All we got was that “This live action film will deliver an amazing tale of adventure and discovery,” whenever it’s eventually released.
It looks like the app might be adding a list of topics “based on what people are engaging with right now,” according to app developer Alessandro Paluzzi. You can see how the feature might look in the screenshot below, which has a “Today’s topic” heading positioned beneath the search bar.
Meanwhile, a separate post from Paluzzi also suggests Threads might add a feature that shows live updates for “upcoming, ongoing and past sports events.”
“Refer to your app as a spatial computing app,” Apple says in visionOS developer guidelines reported on by 9to5Mac. “Don’t describe your app experience as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), or mixed reality (MR).”
Yes, visionOS may be used to power not-VR apps in the future, and I get why Apple may want to distance itself from terms like VR or MR. But the Vision Pro device that comes out on February 2nd is a VR headset, even if Apple won’t admit it.
At CES, Acer announced the 57-inch Predator Z57, which as you might guess is a gigantic curved Mini LED display. Well, I’ve seen it in person and it’s as ridiculous as you’d think.
An Acer rep told me that it’s mostly meant for console gaming, given its 120Hz refresh rate but I was too busy staring at how wide this big boy was. It’s honestly hard to capture the curvy essence in photos — it’s truly overwhelming. But I’ve also included a picture with my head for scale.
It’s also getting rid of the subwoofer.
The EV-maker’s website now says that the cheapest version of the Model Y comes with seven speakers and one amp, as spotted by Drive Tesla Canada.
That’s a downgrade from the 13 speakers, one subwoofer, and two amps that the base Model Y used to come with (as shown on this archived page). The upgraded audio is now only available with the Dual Motor and Performance models.
Sony may again not be showing any TVs at CES this year, but it’s still going to take the stage to talk about “technologies and initiatives that support creators.” Last year, the company showed off an electric car called the Afeela, which had a built-in PS5 and a screen on the front.
The company has been tight-lipped about what it might show tonight. My money’s on a PS5 with a built-in car.
