CES 2018 Day 3: hyperloop, electric skateboards, and the future of transportation – The Verge

Baidu and Teenage Engineering’s smart speaker is a stylish Chinese Echo

2018-01-16T06:00:02-05:00

The prevailing design trend with smart speakers like the Amazon Echo has been to make them look as minimalist and unassuming as possible, presumably so they can be placed anywhere around the house. The Raven H, however, looks like it spilled out of a kid's toy closet. I love it.

It's the result of a collaboration by Chinese internet giant Baidu and Swedish tech design house Teenage Engineering. The Raven H has a colorful stacked design that culminates in a posable, detachable, touch-sensitive top panel that displays simple status information through a cute LED array.

The speaker runs DuerOS, Baidu's conversational AI system, and hooks int …

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Aflac’s toy robot for kids facing cancer is the smartest toy of all

2018-01-11T08:00:03-05:00

It's easy to feel jaded at an event like CES where there are countless of tech companies claiming to have the smartest and most innovative products that are, in reality, just expensive and useless eye candy. So it was heartwarming when we came across a robotic toy duck designed to help children diagnosed with cancer cope through their treatments.

The toy is a partnership between Aflac and robotics toy company Sproutel. It's called My Special Aflac Duck, and it has five touch sensors along its cheeks, under the wings, and back. Kids can pet and snuggle with it, and the duck will cuddle back or cheerfully quack in response. It also comes with …

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Taking a ride on Segway’s Loomo robot

2018-01-11T08:00:02-05:00

My favorite robot at CES this year has legs, but my second favorite robot is designed to minimize my own leg usage. Segway's Loomo bot has a straightforward value proposition: you ride it like a hoverboard to the store, and then you hop off, load it up with cargo, and have it follow you home.

After watching 90Fun's new Segway-inspired robotic suitcase fall repeatedly, I was a little worried about stepping onto Loomo, but I shouldn't have been. Rideables are Segway's bread and butter, and while I've never actually been on a mall cop-style Segway, I found Loomo vastly easier than any hoverboard I've attempted. Like a hoverboard, you lean forw …

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Vestaboard brings the internet to old-school mechanical split-flap displays

2018-01-11T07:20:01-05:00

Split-flap mechanical signs are sadly a relic of a bygone era. The famous, clacking boards were once used in train stations all over the world, but advances in technology have retired most of them in favor of boring digital displays.

At CES 2018, split-flap displays are getting a second life with the Vestaboard, an internet-connected mechanical display that merges the classic clattering flaps of a retro train board with modern internet technology.

The display can show up to 161 characters at a time in a 23 x 7 grid, with each character offering 70 different options to display (the 26 letters of the alphabet, the 10 roman numerals, 8 solid …

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Ford connects Waze through its infotainment system

2018-01-10T17:23:46-05:00

Waze on Ford SYNC 3 | Ford

Ford made a slew of announcements this week at CES for connected cities and cloud-based transportation services, but their partnership with Waze may have the most impact on drivers right now.

The automaker said Wednesday that the traffic app will work with 2018 Ford and Lincoln models equipped with the SYNC 3 infotainment system and a smartphone. Crucially for most Waze users, Ford's system retains the app's key features such as navigation, traffic updates and warnings, HOV lane support, and the new Talk to Waze feature.

Ford naturally found a fit with Waze, though. The traffic app is best known for crowdsourcing in order to navigate peopl …

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Pimax’s massive 8K VR headset shows why comfort takes precedence over pixel count

2018-01-10T16:50:57-05:00

Pimax, a Chinese startup developing an 8K virtual reality headset, came to CES this year to show off its latest prototype, the fifth in just a year since the first version was unveiled at last year's show. After a successful Kickstarter campaign last year, one in which Pimax raised more than $4.2 million and beat out even Oculus VR's initial crowdfunding campaign, it's working toward mass production of the consumer version that is slated to come out later this year after an initial shipment to backers.

In my very brief time with the device, I can say that it is does achieve stunning high-resolution visuals, 3840 x 2160 dual displays to be e …

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Dish announces voice control integration with Google Home and Google Assistant

2018-01-10T16:42:30-05:00

Dish announced today that it has been working on integrating Google Home and Google Assistant into its TV service, fleshing out the options for controlling a TV with your voice.

A press release says the integration will work in "multiple languages, including English and Spanish," and that Dish customers can expect it to be available "starting in the first half of this year." It will work with all generations of Dish's Hopper DVR, all models of its Joey client, and its Wally single-tuner HD receiver. Eventually!

Incidentally, Dish already offers its own voice control remote.

This is the latest in a litany of Google Assistant-related announ …

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This home security camera looks away when you come home

2018-01-10T16:27:34-05:00

I find it hard to get on board with the idea of filling my home with smart security cameras for a number of reasons, not the least of which is privacy. But there's one smart camera at CES this year that has a clever solution to the whole spying-on-you problem: just have the camera look away.

The smart camera Angee - which was crowdfunded in 2015 and is now shipping to backers - is able to rotate a full 360-degrees. That allows the camera to spin around to face a wall when it realizes that you're home, which is a smart solution to the uncomfortable feeling of always having a camera pointed in your direction.

Angee joins a busy field of smart …

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Mercedes uses its new car to launch yet another voice assistant

2018-01-10T15:20:59-05:00

Mercedes-Benz may have been one of the numerous automakers that showed up to CES to talk about voice assistants. A swath of companies came to say they've partnered with Amazon Alexa or added Google Assistant to their infotainment systems. But the German automaker came to Las Vegas this year to say it built its own voice assistant, along with a new user experience for drivers.

Overdoing it? Probably. But the new Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX, which is less of a mouthful) is a significant leap forward for the company's interiors and a glimpse into the very near future for what drivers will interact with when they want to adjust the air …

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Netflix is goofing off with lab-grown bodies at CES

2018-01-10T15:09:02-05:00

Among the deluge of CES news releases this week, one stood out to me because it made little sense: Netflix was bringing its upcoming Altered Carbon series to the big Las Vegas exhibition. How do you bring a drama series to a hardware show?

It turns out, Netflix's idea was to construct an elaborate faux-serious campaign, including a partnership with the drama's fictional company Psychasec, and the collaborative booth they're presenting at CES is a pretend exhibition area for Psychasec's "sleeve" products. A sleeve, in the Altered Carbon universe, is a spare body you can transfer your consciousness into - because, as the tagline smugly procla …

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