The Dell XPS 13 just became the most anticipated laptop of CES 2018

The Dell XPS 13 has been the best laptop on the market for a while now. Its bezel-game was ahead of the curve, and it even offered low-end configurations for buyers on a budget. But however great its design was, it’s been more or less unchanged since its redesign in 2015.

But now, Dell just dropped the details of its 2018 XPS 13 — and from the looks of it, it’s the breath of fresh air I’ve been waiting for.

Yes, it has some big upgrades that we could have predicted, including 8th-generation Core CPUs, plenty of port options, andsome impressive battery life claims. On the 4K model you get 11 hours and 12 minutes, while on the HD display you get 19 hours and 46 minutes. That’s a big upgrade from the 2017 model.

Dell still offers the HD version, but the 4K display sounds out of this world, claiming a 1,500:1 contrast ratio and 400 nit brightness. More importantly, Dell has made the display even more impressive by wrapping it around already-tiny bezels. They’ve somehow been trimmed by another 23 percent, while the overall size of the laptop has been cut down by 24 percent. In this department, the competition is just not even close.

The cherry on top is the fresh design. In a world where laptops can often be categorized as either MacBook-clones or generic black slabs, I’m always looking for something that feels legitimately new. Dell did that with the XPS 13 in 2015 — and now it’s doing it again.

Dell is hyping its “runway”-inspired rose gold version, and I love it. Am I the only one who’s been waiting for white laptops to come back in vogue? From a pure, aesthetic level, I just can’t wait to see this laptop in person. It seems clean, new, and modern, yet it doesn’t look like any of its competitors. That’s a hard trick to pull off with a product that, no matter its design, will inevitably be rectangle. The black carbon-fiber version is not quite as striking, but it too is unique, as Dell’s competitors haven’t copied its style.

Oh, and it uses Gore fabric to help dissipate heat. Yes, that’s the same kind of fabric you’ll find in expensive athletic jackets. How cool is that?

We’re going to CES just next week, and the new XPS 13 is now one of the first things I want to get my hands on.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Dell XPS 13 Review
• Apple MacBook 12-inch review
• Asus Zenbook UX330UA review
• Dell’s new XPS 13 is made from the same material as your running jacket
• HTC U11 Plus vs. HTC U11: Is bigger always better?

Android malware mimics Uber’s UI to steal your log-in

The Android.Fakeapp Trojan has been infecting Google’s mobile platform for ages in different forms, and one of its latest variants mimics Uber’s interface. According to Symantec, which discovered the new variant after looking at several, the Trojan pops up on screen in regular intervals in an effort to fool you into typing your phone number and password. When you press enter, it sends your log-in credentials to a remote server: the Trojan’s creators could then use your log-in to compromise your other accounts or to sell them to fellow hackers on the black market.

This Fakeapp variant doesn’t stop at presenting a copy of Uber’s log-in screen. To give you a false sense of security and to prevent you from becoming suspicious and changing your password too soon, it even loads a screen from the legitimate app that shows your location after you press enter. It apparently does that by deep linking to a URL in the real application that starts up Ride Request activity using your location as the pick-up point.

Symantec says this case “demonstrates malware authors’ neverending quest” to find new social engineering techniques to trick users. Its advice? The usual: make sure your software is updated, install reputable anti-malware apps and don’t download from unfamiliar websites.

Update: An Uber spokesperson told Engadget:

“Because this phishing technique requires consumers to first download a malicious app from outside the official Play store, we recommend only downloading apps from trusted sources. However, we want to protect our users even if they make an honest mistake and that’s why we put a collection of security controls and systems in place to help detect and block unauthorized logins even if you accidentally give away your password.

Source: Symantec

AT&T will launch real mobile 5G in 12 cities this year

Now that the industry has settled on a spec for 5G, carriers are racing to use it — and AT&T hopes to be one of the first. It just unveiled plans to launch spec-based mobile 5G (not the fixed-in-place kind) to everyday consumers in 12 cities by late 2018. It’s not specific about where those markets are or which devices will be the first to adopt the faster speeds, but the arrival of the 5G spec has kicked off the start of hardware development.

No, AT&T isn’t giving up on its not-really-5G wireless service. The provider currently has “5G Evolution” in 23 urban areas, and expects to bring it to “hundreds” of additional markets (not to mention additional devices) throughout 2018. Like it or not, there will probably a repeat of the confusion you saw when networks tried to market fast 3G as 4G, with the real 5G coexisting alongside souped up 4G for a while.

The carrier isn’t going to have a lot of lead time over its rivals. Sprint has committed to a 5G network in 2019, while T-Mobile’s is due in 2020. As for Verizon? It’s been testing 5G home broadband ahead of a 2018 debut, so we’d expect mobile 5G not too long after that. Still, it’s an important step toward an honest-to-goodness wireless upgrade, and it could make all the difference for streaming 4K video, online VR and other technologies that absolutely depend on 5G’s massive bandwidth and low lag.

Source: AT&T

Dell XPS 13 hands-on: A makeover inside and out

Dell’s XPS 13 has been one of our favorite laptops for years, and with good reason. Its compact design, brilliant display, comfortable keyboard and long battery life make it a well-rounded device. Dell wasn’t content to simply offer an incremental upgrade this year, though. It has given the XPS 13 a makeover, with narrower bezels, a new cooling system and a white option with a stain-resistant coating.

That sounds like a lot, but on the outside the XPS 13 doesn’t appear to have changed much. At least, not when you’re looking at the silver/grey version anyway. The rose gold/white edition, though, will catch your eye (for better or worse). While I’m not a fan of the new color, I appreciate that Dell found a way to keep it from yellowing or getting stained.

The white XPS 13 uses a glass fiber weave with coating to prevent discoloration, especially the areas where your palms rest. During a recent briefing, a Dell rep showed me how marks from a Sharpie were easily cleaned off a sample swatch. According to the company, this effectively repels most substances, but its kryptonite is mustard and sunscreen. So don’t bring your laptop to the beach or a hotdog eating contest.

In addition to the new color, the XPS 13 also sports a thinner, lighter design, now weighing in at 2.67 pounds. That’s practically featherweight, but then again the XPS 13 has always been easy to carry around. Still, we always appreciate carrying a lighter load.

While the new XPS 13 still has the same awkward webcam placement as its predecessor (at the bottom of the screen), it’s been upgraded to an infrared sensor for Windows Hello support. With that, you can log into your computer with your face, or by using the fingerprint sensor embedded into the power button. I didn’t get to test either of these authentication methods during my demo, though.

Inside, the XPS 13 packs a quad-core eighth-generation Intel processor that Dell says helps the new laptop render and encode videos in Adobe Premiere Pro twice as fast as the 2015 model. That’s just one specific test to show how well the system should perform, of course — your experience may vary. There’s also a new dual heat pipe and fan cooling system, as well as Gore Thermal insulation covering certain parts of the system like the processor and GPU to keep temperatures low.

I didn’t get to push the XPS 13 enough to really test these performance and cooling claims during my briefing, so we’ll have to wait till we get a review unit. I did like the XPS 13’s screen, though. It’s surrounded by the latest version of Dell’s “InfinityEdge” bezel, which is now 23 percent narrower than the previous generation. The border, which was barely there before, now looks like it’s almost gone — and the effect is a display that blends into what’s behind it while still managing to look inviting and vibrant.

The screen is now available up to 4K and supports a new suite of technologies called Dell Cinema. This enables HDR playback, Waves Maxx audio enhancements for “studio-quality” sound, as well as streaming prioritization to minimize buffer lag. At my hands-on, videos that Dell showed did appear to have deeper blacks and higher contrast ratios with the Cinema enhancements applied. It was difficult to deduce the effect on the laptop’s speaker sound quality and streaming speed in the demo environment, though.

All told, the new XPS 13 feels like a timely refresh, given the industry’s pivot to 4K HDR in recent years. It’s challenging to keep refining and improving an already successful product, but so far it appears Dell’s latest has what it takes to live up to the excellent reputation it has established with the XPS series. It’ll be available today starting at $1,000, like its convertible brother.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Lenovo’s new ThinkPads pack 8th-gen Cores and slimmer designs

Lenovo just revamped the lion’s share of its ThinkPad lineup, and it’s good news if you want a speedy portable that won’t weigh down your laptop bag… or if you’re privacy-conscious, for that matter. Its new ThinkPad X, T and L models have all made the switch to faster 8th-generation Intel Core processors while sporting slimmer, lighter bodies. The 12.5-inch X280, for example, is 15 percent thinner (0.69in) and 20 percent lighter (2.6lbs) than its predecessor. There’s also a new 13-inch L-series (the L380) for people who want a no-frills pro laptop in a more portable design than the 14- and 15-inch versions.

Logically, there are specific upgrade perks depending on the machine in question. The ThinkPad Yoga X360 has Active Pen and an infrared camera for Windows Hello, while the X280 has rapid charging that gives it 80 percent within an hour. And if you’re using the 14-inch L480 or 15-inch L580, you now have new choices for dedicated AMD graphics.

Not that it’s a simple speed bump. There’s now a ThinkShutter webcam cover on the T series for those worried they’ll be targeted by creeps and spies. A new mechanical side docking option gives you ubiquitous compatibility, and there are universal USB-C power adapters that make it easy to borrow someone else’s charging gear.

Lenovo is promising a quick launch for the new systems. All the updated ThinkPads start arriving later in January. Prices start at $609 for the L380, while you’re looking at $989 for a base T480, $999 for an X280 and $1,459 for the Yoga X380. Need a monitor? There’s an extra-thin 24-inch 1080p display, the ThinkVision X24 ($249), as well as the 32-inch, 4K-capable ThinkVision P32u ($1,349) with Thunderbolt 3. The X24 arrives in January, although you’ll have to wait until March for the P32u.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

Source: Lenovo

Google is reportedly looking to sell Zagat

Google is planning to offload Zagat, the restaurant reviews service it snagged for $151 million in 2011, amidst plans to reign in its mammoth portfolio, according to sources who spoke to Reuters. The company has reportedly held “informal talks” with interested parties for a deal that would encompass the Zagat brand name and website. There’s no word on how much Google is after for the service, with the big G keeping mum on the matter. We’ve reached out just in case it gives up on the silent treatment.

Former Google CEO Marissa Mayer championed the Zagat acquisition, and its listings were quickly added to Maps and Google+ Local pages, with Zagat.com becoming a free service. A redesigned app and website followed in 2013. Then everything went quiet. Years passed without an app update in sight (aside from the odd bug fix). Finally, in 2016, Google gave iPhone users a cleaner app design and some location-based recommendation features. On the flip side, the tech titan recently expanded its search snippets for restaurants with the addition of waiting times.

Zagat’s small team is a blip in Alphabet’s infrastructure, dwarfed by its other units, which encompass everything from consumer hardware (think Pixel and Google Home) to its “other bets” (high-risk ventures like Waymo, X, and Verily). Although Google remains its kingpin, these gambits are also showing signs of growth.

Established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, Zagat began life as a burgundy-coloured pocket-guide to restaurants and cities. In its current guise, the site features a mix of crowdsourced reviews and editorials.

Source: Reuters

How to install fonts on a Mac

Finding a font you like can be tough — especially if you work in marketing or graphic design and regularly need to locate the perfect font for your project.

Fortunately, MacOS (or on iOS, if you need help with that) has greatly improved the way you can quickly download, preview, and enable new fonts for popular Mac design apps.

Here’s how to install fonts on a Mac, and quickly organize them.

Downloading the right fonts

Step 1: Look for the font that you need. There are many, many sources of fonts online, from casual lists to fonts specifically for designers (or you could just decide to design your own font). Most of the lists are free, although some designer fonts come with a charge.

Step 2: Make sure the font you choose is compatible with MacOS. You can tell by looking at the file name. Mac supports TrueType, or “.ttf” files and well as OpenType or “.otf” files. Fortunately this covers the majority of downloaded fonts. However, you will not be able to use PC bitmap or “.fon” fonts, which are not compatible. Presumably, future open source formats will work just fine.

Step 3: You may want to double-check the website reviews to make sure downloads can be trusted — always use a trusted website before you choose to download anything! If everything looks good, download the font file that you want. This will add a new file (potentially compressed) to your Mac download section.

Previewing and installing the font on MacOS

Step 1: Head to your Finder. You can open Finder at any time by clicking on the square smiley face on your dock. Once it’s open, use the search bar to search for your new font file by name. You can open the search function by selection the two arrows pointing right at the top of the Finder screen — or you can try going to All My Files and using the search bar that automatically appears here.

Step 2: Once you have found your font file, open it up (expand zip files as needed first)! This should immediately open up a feature of Font Book. The Font Book is an app that MacOS included several updates ago to help make managing fonts easier, and it has a number of useful functions. When you click on a brand new font, Font Book will pop it up and show you a preview of that font.

Step 3: Take a look at Font Book’s preview. You can change the typeface with the dropdown menu at the top of the window to get a better look at the font in different scenarios. If it’s not what you expected or there’s something wrong with the appearance, you will probably want to download a new version of the font from a different site or try a new type of font.

You can generally trust Font Book to show you the most accurate portrayal of what the font will look like when you start using it in other applications. If the font is satisfactory, move on to the next step!

Step 4: At the bottom of the Font Book preview window you will see the option to Install the font. Click on the button, and the font will be automatically downloaded into the Font Book and made available for use. In theory, Font Book makes a font available for all apps on MacOS. In practice, however, you may encounter some troubles with things like older Microsoft Word apps, which may not be properly set up to accept new fonts.

Installing directly from the Font Book

There’s another option for installing fonts on MacOS, once that is particularly handy if you have a number of different new fonts to install all at once or if you want to customize how your fonts are organized. It’s useful for designers, web engineers, and others that manage a lot of fonts on a regular basis.

Step 1: Open Applications from the dock and select Font Book, which is a book with a big F on it.

Step 2: Once the Font Book window opens, you can explore all your current fonts, either by looking at the alphabetical order, the “Smart Collection,” or the few general categories that Font Book comes with. If you are carefully searching for a font, it may be a good idea to check your current fonts to see what your options are before downloading new files online.

Step 3: When you’re ready to import a new font, select the plus sign at the top of the window. This will open up your downloads, where you can quickly choose recent font files and import them. It helps save time when downloading multiple files.

Step 4: If you are downloading a lot of different fonts and want to clean up your font lists to save even more time, Font Book can help out. The plus sign at the bottom of the window will let you add new categories, which you can organize by project or preference to sort out your most used fonts.

The File and Edit tabs at the top of the screen also include options to remove font families or disable them if you want to clear up your fonts a bit. If a font is having problems on your Mac, you can also use Font Book to validate them with the File menu.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Want a Star Wars font for your Powerpoint presentation? Here’s how to install one
• How to change the background on a Mac
• How to convert MOV files to MP4
• Looking to wipe your laptop? Here’s how to restore a Mac to its factory settings
• How to change your username on a Mac

Powermat’s Charging Spot 4.0 is compatible with more devices, easier to install

Powermat — the company behind providing consumers with wireless charging pads within retail locations — is introducing a new way to charge your device. Known as Charging Spot 4.0, the new platform is less of a hassle to install and is compatible with more devices.

You might have already seen one of Powermat’s wireless charging spots at a Starbucks location but it is also available at airports, malls, arenas, and other coffee shops. By downloading the app, it will be able to tell you where the closest one is based on your location.

When customers walk into a public space that offers the charging stations, they are able to set their phones down on the table to begin to charge wirelessly. But for those whose smartphones aren’t compatible, the company offers a Powermat Ring to plug into your phone which then transfers the power wirelessly.

But in its latest venture, Powermat could make its charging spots more accessible for both retailers and consumers. Rather than requiring expensive installation, Charging Spot 4.0 can be easily placed under the table without having to drill into furniture. It’s also capable of transferring power through surfaces that range from 0.5 to 1.5 inches thick.

All that is required is installing what looks like a small black plate underneath the table with two screws. On top of the table, you place a circular sticker which will act as the charging spot to place your phone. With cables remaining under the table, the surface can stay neat and clean from clutter.

Regardless of the device you’re planning on charging, you only need one sticker. While it can only charge one device at a time, the sticker is compatible with smartphones, laptops, wearables, and tablets. But there can also be eight charging spots installed on one power supply.

With its SmartInductive Technology, Charging Spot 4.0 can support zero to 40 watts of charging power on a single platform. It also has universal support and is compatible with Qi, AFA inductive, Apple’s 7.5-watt wireless charging, and fast-charging capabilities for Android.

In addition to unveiling its latest platform, Powermat also announced it has joined the Wireless Power Consortium in an effort to add to the Qi ecosystem. It’s now one of more than 360 companies supporting the Qi standard alongside Samsung, LG, Apple, and more.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Grovemade unveils a beautiful new Wireless Charging Pad
• Mophie vs. Belkin vs. RavPower: Who has the best wireless charging pad?
• Charge up your iPhone or Android with the best wireless phone chargers
• Wirelessly charge your iPhone and Apple Watch simultaneously with Funxim
• How does wireless charging work? Here’s what to know before you cut the cable

Touchless computing, wireless power, and more trends that will define CES 2018

Once a year, I take a deep breath, open the overflowing CES folder in my inbox, and sort through hundreds of emails to see what’s cooking at the largest gadget show in the world. Sure, I spend all year studying the tech world and looking for Digital Trends (see what I did there?), but it’s the hundreds of products unveiled or announced at the show that really set the agenda for the year ahead in tech.

I don’t always get it right.

“Touchless” interfaces should make voice assistants far more versatile in the year ahead.

In 2016, I said we’d see driving gadgets galore, which promised to refresh that old hoopty. Did you buy one? I doubt it. In 2017, I predicted “4,000 4K announcements,” and declared that content providers were finally catching up. While there were tons of new players offering internet TV streaming packages, some key names were absent. Indeed, you could argue that exactly the opposite has happened. I will, below. Hey, you can’t get ‘em all right.

Of course, I also predicted the boom in truly wireless headphones and last year’s security frenzy, so I’m not totally off my rocker here.

There’s always interesting stuff to watch and envelopes to be on the edge of at CES, from the Halo “5D printer” by Ethereal Machines to Sniffy, a French company selling a screen that somehow conveys smell and taste. Here’s a few trends that you’ll see emerge in Las Vegas and in the year ahead – we’ll see how accurate my predictions are soon.

Alexa (and “touchless computing”) explode

The big story in 2017 was the rise of the smart assistant, with Alexa embedded in everything  from speakers and lights to cars and even furniture. This year promises even more pervasive adoption of voice computing, but the ubiquity of “touchless” interfaces should make voice assistants far more versatile in the year ahead.

Ed Oswald envisioned the near future for us recently: “Imagine picking up your empty bottle of juice and saying ‘Alexa, order this’ and it being ordered for you, without you, since Alexa understands what you’re looking at or holding.” This will require cameras and detailed geolocation abilities like that being shown off at CES by Crea.vision, which uses computer vision sensors to recognize who’s where in your house. And that sounds far more useful than mere weather reports.

Voice assistants will sell you on smart homes

The widespread acceptance of voice assistants will be a huge driver for the smart home in the year ahead, and I expect will be the primary driver of smart home products. You bought a speaker, so why not get lights and locks and thermostats to work with it?

So sure, expect to hear about dozens of new smart speakers, including LG’s newly unveiled ThinQ, but look beyond that and you’ll see the real promise of the Internet of Things taking shape: a smart button for pervasive connectivity. A smart fertility monitor from a new company called Mira. A smart deadbolt you can unlock from your phone. And technology like Qualcomm’s Smart Audio Platform to bring voice control and connectivity to everything that isn’t yet connected.

Chinese companies you’ve never heard of take over

A funny thing happened at CES last year: China quietly took over. From car companies like Faraday Future and LeEco to TV makers like TCL and Hi-Sense, Chinese companies exploded at the 2017 show. Expect even more of a presence from China, as the country moves to rival Asian powerhouses like South Korea and Japan for U.S. dollars.

We expect an enormous showing from Huawei, which plans a keynote address and a massive push into U.S. markets in 2018. The company recently ran a series of ads describing itself as “the biggest phone company you’ve never heard of” – and plans to make sure that in 2018, you hear of them. We picked the new Mate 10 Pro as one of the best smartphones of 2017, after all. Look for big news from Xiaomi, TCL – which says it as “among America’s fast-growing television brand for the past four years” – and others.

Wireless power is here at last

Two years ago I said we’d see wireless power from Cota and others. We haven’t. But they swear up and down that it’s going arrive in 2018, and from the buzz I’m hearing I believe it. Cota is still trying – and at CES Unveiled this past November, it unveiled a product that realizes the hype. The Forever Battery is a wirelessly charged alternative to AA batteries, and it won a CES 2017 Innovation Award. Meanwhile, a company called WiBa will show off a power bank that charges itself wirelessly while simultaneously charging your phones and other gadgets wirelessly. The death of wires is imminent!

The death of cable TV

Any consumer worth their salt knows 4K is the big buzzword in TVs. Shopping for a new flatscreen? You obviously want a 4K TV. And this year at CES, LG plans to show off an 8K TV, which is sure to make you the envy of the neighbors and set off a new round of keeping up with the Jonses. LG’s latest is a huge 88-inch 8K OLED TV that will be the largest OLED display on the planet. The TV’s resolution will be 7,680 x 4,320, which is 16 times more pixels than 1080p and four times that of today’s 4K TVs.

But here’s the thing: TV simply hasn’t kept pace. And consumers know this. Buy a new TV and they don’t turn on CBS, they head straight to Netflix, both for the superior quality of content and for the higher resolutions. As more 4K and ultimately 8K sets are released, and visual quality from Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, Cox, and even FiOS and AT&T continue to lag, the pace of cord cutting is sure to improve. Just watch out.

A use for AR/VR?

I’m not a believer in virtual reality’s power to transform the world. I don’t want to sit on the couch next to my friends and family encased in a headset and in my own world, I want to watch a movie and laugh and cry along with everyone else. But it’s hard to discount the slew of AR announcements we’re seeing around CES.

For example, Lumus makes transparent displays that enable AR headsets, and in December, the company announced a major deal with Quanta, a giant manufacturer with designs on the space. Will we see dozens of new iterations on Google Glass? Meanwhile, Epson is unveiling a new version of its Moverio AR glasses, a company called ThirdEye will show off the X1 glasses … heck, there’s a whole Augmented Reality marketplace in the South Hall of CES.

Autonomous is cool, but electric cars rule

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of self-driving cars, which remain the most eye-catching and buzzy showpieces of CES. But it’s not only the vehicle manufacturer’s booths you’ll want to check out: Most big tech companies have their eyes on autos. Intel’s many initiatives at CES include the technology featured “under the hood,” graphics giant Nvidia has transformed itself into a leader in the machine-vision that lets cars pilot themselves, speech-recognition pioneer Dragon aims to help you and your car chat, and so on.

Nvidia has transformed itself into a leader in the machine-vision that lets cars pilot themselves.

Meanwhile, the real trend to watch is the explosion of the electric car market. All of the neat new car startups? Electric car makers, including a brand new entry to the space. Called Byton, it promises to be not just  an electric car but “a smart intuitive vehicle,” whatever that nonsense means. Then there’s the Solo, the world’s only one-person, all electric vehicle (made by Electra Meccanica). And Nissan will be showing off the 2018 Leaf, which impressed us by how ordinary it is.

Electric cars are the new internal combustion cars, which spells a huge revolution in U.S. infrastructure, something the U.S. government would be wise to prepare for as we look forward to the billion dollar infrastructure bill. Do we need more gas stations and gas pipelines? Or do we need electric charging stations at every shopping mall from Bangor to Berkeley?

Better laptops than ever before

New Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm enable a new generation of laptops that for the first time ever, really provide a viable alternative to traditional Intel and AMD chips. Snapdragon-powered laptops were unveiled at a splashy event in Hawaii last month; they boast battery life of up to 25 hours if you can believe that. Expect to hear about a dozen or so models from CES 2018. Meanwhile, chips based on Intel’s eighth-generation Core i7 will abound as well, such as the very attractive Samsung Notebook 9.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Amazon’s Alexa assistant looks to smarten up select 2018 Hisense TVs
• What kind of crazy TVs will we see at CES 2018? It starts with LG’s 8K OLED
• 5 tech trends you’ll be talking about in 2018
• LG’s 2018 TV lineup gets smarter and faster, adds Google Assistant
• LG products powered by A.I. will be tied together under the new ThinQ brand

Touchless computing, wireless power, and more trends that will define CES 2018

Once a year, I take a deep breath, open the overflowing CES folder in my inbox, and sort through hundreds of emails to see what’s cooking at the largest gadget show in the world. Sure, I spend all year studying the tech world and looking for Digital Trends (see what I did there?), but it’s the hundreds of products unveiled or announced at the show that really set the agenda for the year ahead in tech.

I don’t always get it right.

“Touchless” interfaces should make voice assistants far more versatile in the year ahead.

In 2016, I said we’d see driving gadgets galore, which promised to refresh that old hoopty. Did you buy one? I doubt it. In 2017, I predicted “4,000 4K announcements,” and declared that content providers were finally catching up. While there were tons of new players offering internet TV streaming packages, some key names were absent. Indeed, you could argue that exactly the opposite has happened. I will, below. Hey, you can’t get ‘em all right.

Of course, I also predicted the boom in truly wireless headphones and last year’s security frenzy, so I’m not totally off my rocker here.

There’s always interesting stuff to watch and envelopes to be on the edge of at CES, from the Halo “5D printer” by Ethereal Machines to Sniffy, a French company selling a screen that somehow conveys smell and taste. Here’s a few trends that you’ll see emerge in Las Vegas and in the year ahead – we’ll see how accurate my predictions are soon.

Alexa (and “touchless computing”) explode

The big story in 2017 was the rise of the smart assistant, with Alexa embedded in everything  from speakers and lights to cars and even furniture. This year promises even more pervasive adoption of voice computing, but the ubiquity of “touchless” interfaces should make voice assistants far more versatile in the year ahead.

Ed Oswald envisioned the near future for us recently: “Imagine picking up your empty bottle of juice and saying ‘Alexa, order this’ and it being ordered for you, without you, since Alexa understands what you’re looking at or holding.” This will require cameras and detailed geolocation abilities like that being shown off at CES by Crea.vision, which uses computer vision sensors to recognize who’s where in your house. And that sounds far more useful than mere weather reports.

Voice assistants will sell you on smart homes

The widespread acceptance of voice assistants will be a huge driver for the smart home in the year ahead, and I expect will be the primary driver of smart home products. You bought a speaker, so why not get lights and locks and thermostats to work with it?

So sure, expect to hear about dozens of new smart speakers, including LG’s newly unveiled ThinQ, but look beyond that and you’ll see the real promise of the Internet of Things taking shape: a smart button for pervasive connectivity. A smart fertility monitor from a new company called Mira. A smart deadbolt you can unlock from your phone. And technology like Qualcomm’s Smart Audio Platform to bring voice control and connectivity to everything that isn’t yet connected.

Chinese companies you’ve never heard of take over

A funny thing happened at CES last year: China quietly took over. From car companies like Faraday Future and LeEco to TV makers like TCL and Hi-Sense, Chinese companies exploded at the 2017 show. Expect even more of a presence from China, as the country moves to rival Asian powerhouses like South Korea and Japan for U.S. dollars.

We expect an enormous showing from Huawei, which plans a keynote address and a massive push into U.S. markets in 2018. The company recently ran a series of ads describing itself as “the biggest phone company you’ve never heard of” – and plans to make sure that in 2018, you hear of them. We picked the new Mate 10 Pro as one of the best smartphones of 2017, after all. Look for big news from Xiaomi, TCL – which says it as “among America’s fast-growing television brand for the past four years” – and others.

Wireless power is here at last

Two years ago I said we’d see wireless power from Cota and others. We haven’t. But they swear up and down that it’s going arrive in 2018, and from the buzz I’m hearing I believe it. Cota is still trying – and at CES Unveiled this past November, it unveiled a product that realizes the hype. The Forever Battery is a wirelessly charged alternative to AA batteries, and it won a CES 2017 Innovation Award. Meanwhile, a company called WiBa will show off a power bank that charges itself wirelessly while simultaneously charging your phones and other gadgets wirelessly. The death of wires is imminent!

The death of cable TV

Any consumer worth their salt knows 4K is the big buzzword in TVs. Shopping for a new flatscreen? You obviously want a 4K TV. And this year at CES, LG plans to show off an 8K TV, which is sure to make you the envy of the neighbors and set off a new round of keeping up with the Jonses. LG’s latest is a huge 88-inch 8K OLED TV that will be the largest OLED display on the planet. The TV’s resolution will be 7,680 x 4,320, which is 16 times more pixels than 1080p and four times that of today’s 4K TVs.

But here’s the thing: TV simply hasn’t kept pace. And consumers know this. Buy a new TV and they don’t turn on CBS, they head straight to Netflix, both for the superior quality of content and for the higher resolutions. As more 4K and ultimately 8K sets are released, and visual quality from Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, Cox, and even FiOS and AT&T continue to lag, the pace of cord cutting is sure to improve. Just watch out.

A use for AR/VR?

I’m not a believer in virtual reality’s power to transform the world. I don’t want to sit on the couch next to my friends and family encased in a headset and in my own world, I want to watch a movie and laugh and cry along with everyone else. But it’s hard to discount the slew of AR announcements we’re seeing around CES.

For example, Lumus makes transparent displays that enable AR headsets, and in December, the company announced a major deal with Quanta, a giant manufacturer with designs on the space. Will we see dozens of new iterations on Google Glass? Meanwhile, Epson is unveiling a new version of its Moverio AR glasses, a company called ThirdEye will show off the X1 glasses … heck, there’s a whole Augmented Reality marketplace in the South Hall of CES.

Autonomous is cool, but electric cars rule

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of self-driving cars, which remain the most eye-catching and buzzy showpieces of CES. But it’s not only the vehicle manufacturer’s booths you’ll want to check out: Most big tech companies have their eyes on autos. Intel’s many initiatives at CES include the technology featured “under the hood,” graphics giant Nvidia has transformed itself into a leader in the machine-vision that lets cars pilot themselves, speech-recognition pioneer Dragon aims to help you and your car chat, and so on.

Nvidia has transformed itself into a leader in the machine-vision that lets cars pilot themselves.

Meanwhile, the real trend to watch is the explosion of the electric car market. All of the neat new car startups? Electric car makers, including a brand new entry to the space. Called Byton, it promises to be not just  an electric car but “a smart intuitive vehicle,” whatever that nonsense means. Then there’s the Solo, the world’s only one-person, all electric vehicle (made by Electra Meccanica). And Nissan will be showing off the 2018 Leaf, which impressed us by how ordinary it is.

Electric cars are the new internal combustion cars, which spells a huge revolution in U.S. infrastructure, something the U.S. government would be wise to prepare for as we look forward to the billion dollar infrastructure bill. Do we need more gas stations and gas pipelines? Or do we need electric charging stations at every shopping mall from Bangor to Berkeley?

Better laptops than ever before

New Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm enable a new generation of laptops that for the first time ever, really provide a viable alternative to traditional Intel and AMD chips. Snapdragon-powered laptops were unveiled at a splashy event in Hawaii last month; they boast battery life of up to 25 hours if you can believe that. Expect to hear about a dozen or so models from CES 2018. Meanwhile, chips based on Intel’s eighth-generation Core i7 will abound as well, such as the very attractive Samsung Notebook 9.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Amazon’s Alexa assistant looks to smarten up select 2018 Hisense TVs
• What kind of crazy TVs will we see at CES 2018? It starts with LG’s 8K OLED
• 5 tech trends you’ll be talking about in 2018
• LG’s 2018 TV lineup gets smarter and faster, adds Google Assistant
• LG products powered by A.I. will be tied together under the new ThinQ brand