CES 2018 Day 0: the year’s biggest tech trade show begins – The Verge

Send your vacation greetings from a solar-powered tricycle that prints and sends postcards

2018-01-08T11:48:15-05:00

Postcards, delightful as they are to receive, take a lot of time and effort for the sender. If I go on vacation and want to send one to my friends, I have to find the perfect card, figure out the local postage fees, and search for a post office to send it from. (That, or I bring the cards back home and forget they exist!) French startup Postmii is offering an ingenious solution to this overwhelming obstacle for lazy people, by printing and sending your postcards for you from a solar-powered tricycle. Targeting tourist attractions as vendor spots, it's a one-stop shop for visitors to send their "Wish you were here" thoughts.

Solar panels on …

Read the full story at The Verge.

House of Marley and Sol Republic launch new wireless headphones

2018-01-08T09:00:07-05:00

Sol Republic’s Shadow Fushion headphones in blue.

As we enter into the first day of CES, headphone brands like House of Marley and Sol Republic are releasing a whole bunch of wireless headphones and portable wireless speakers.

House of Marley is coming out with the No Bounds speaker that it claims are dust and water-proof speakers with an IP67 rating. It also claims the headphone batteries can last for ten hours on a single charge. It's made with recyclable cork and it can pair with a dual speaker. It's available in April for $69.99.

There's also a sports version of the No Bounds speaker that House of Marley claims has a 12 hour battery life and water-proof 360-degree sound. It has stor …

Read the full story at The Verge.

You can now apply photo filters to your games with this tool from Nvidia

2018-01-08T08:16:03-05:00

Applying filters is ubiquitous on Instagram and other social media platforms. Now a new feature from Nvidia lets you apply filters over the top of games, rather than on your holiday snaps.

The feature is called Nvidia Freestyle, and is part of its GeForce Experience software. Freestyle has 15 different filters to choose from, with 38 different settings that paint over your game with different hues and effects. The filters include black and white, sepia, vignette, a night mode, retro, and half-tone options. The feature is in beta mode at the moment. Nvidia says there is support for one hundred games including Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Bla …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Sennheiser’s new lightweight Bluetooth earbuds are just $99

2018-01-08T06:42:37-05:00

Sennheiser is known for doing affordable earbuds consistently well. Now, with plenty of consumer headphones going wireless, the company has revealed the CX 6.00BT, a new set of budget Bluetooth in-ear headphones.

Priced at just $99.95 (€99), the company says the earphones deliver "clear, detailed sound with an enhanced bass response." They're extremely light, weighing 14g, and the two earbuds are connected by a cable you can toss around your neck. The earphones have the ability to pair with up to two devices simultaneously - so you can switch between your computer and your phone for example.

There's an integrated microphone with noise canc …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Nvidia adds Uber and VW to its roster of self-driving tech customers

2018-01-08T00:48:22-05:00

Nvidia's big push into the world of autonomous vehicles has attracted a vast amount of customers for what is still early stage technology - over 320, by the company's count. This week at CES the company announced that it's finally making Xavier, an AI chip made for self-driving vehicles that Nvidia announced in 2016, available to customers. And the company's also adding a few marquee names to its list of self-driving technology customers, including Uber and VW.

Volkswagen announced that it will use Nvidia's Drive IX platform in some of its upcoming vehicles, including the I.D. Buzz electric bus. Drive IX is a software developer kit that Nvi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Nvidia is creating 65-inch 4K HDR gaming displays with 120Hz G-Sync

2018-01-07T23:57:49-05:00

Nvidia is unveiling what it calls Big Format Gaming Displays (BFGDs) at CES today. The displays are 65 inches, and PC makers like Acer, Asus, and HP will be manufacturing them as 4K HDR displays. Essentially they're giant gaming monitors with G-Sync, perfect for a high-end gaming PC. The displays will also have Nvidia's Shield integrated into them, so there will be plenty of streaming apps and support for the Google Assistant.

The addition of G-Sync in such a big display is a surprise, alongside support for 120Hz refresh rates with a 4K resolution. Acer announced a 27-inch 4K HDR monitor with G-Sync at 144Hz last year, but the monitor still …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This short story dispenser helps you pass the time with literature

2018-01-07T22:53:55-05:00

Imagine being at the DMV, but instead of waiting in line with other grumpy people while idly scrolling through your phone, you can read a short story - a nice poem, perhaps. French publisher Short Edition created the Short Story Dispenser as a way for customers waiting in lines at places like airports and train stations to fill their time with something a little more meaningful. All users have to do is push a button labeled 1, 3, or 5 (corresponding to the number of minutes of reading) to get a short story printed for free. Doesn't that sound lovely?

The machine dispenses readings from Short Edition's website, which offers more than 13 mill …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Merge VR has made a Nerf-like gun that supports smartphone games

2018-01-07T22:53:32-05:00

Merge Labs, a San Antonio-based company known for its inexpensive, toy-like AR/VR products, is making a Nerf-like toy gun that supports mixed reality games from a smartphone.

Called the "6DoF Blaster," the plastic toy gun has a shoe for your smartphone, so you can prop a smartphone up where your gun sight would normally be. In the demo we saw at CES today, the iPhone X inside the gun was running a Merge VR first-person shooter game, one the company said was built on Apple's ARKit platform. The gun has four buttons: a trigger, a reload button, a zoom button, and one that slows down enemy fire.

But the more interesting (and slightly confusin …

Read the full story at The Verge.

MyKronoz releases the ZeTime Petite, a smaller size of its hybrid mechanical smartwatch

2018-01-07T22:23:41-05:00

MyKronoz ZeTime Petite

Swiss watch company MyKronoz has a new version of its ZeTime hybrid smartwatch, the ZeTime Petite, which solves one of the biggest problems with the original ZeTime - it makes it smaller, with 39mm case size.

The MyKronoz ZeTime was a crowdfunding project that looked to offer the best of both worlds when it came to smartwatches, combining a full color touchscreen overlaid with a pair of mechanical analog watch hands when it launched late last year.

Size aside, the rest of the ZeTime Petite is pretty much identical to the original, with a stainless steel case, sapphire glass, and a variety of watchbands in different materials and styles. Th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This automatic feeder can tell the difference between your pets

2018-01-07T22:09:29-05:00

There are plenty of automatic cat feeders out there, but Catspad is the first connected food and water dispenser for cats and small dogs. Not only can it automatically deliver both to your pet, it can differentiate between pets to dispense different amounts to each.

The Catspad works with an app and an identifier for your pet, which can either be a microchip (if your pet has one), or a Catspad collar tag. When the pet then approaches the Catspad unit, it recognizes the individual animal, dispensing the amount of dry food designated for them and temporarily activating the fountain (the fountain can also be set to run continuously).

Any numb …

Read the full story at The Verge.