Dell’s Frank Azor calls the Gore material used in the XPS 13 “magic”

Dell introduced a slew of new products at CES 2018, including a new XPS 15 2-in-1 that brings some true innovation — and real power — to the large-format convertible 2-in-1. The company also refreshed its stellar XPS 13 clamshell notebook with a thinner design and some exotic materials, and introduced a number of other computing products including an updated Inspiron Desktop 5680 and a line of ultrathin monitors. Suffice it to say, Dell had a successful CES 2018.

According to Frank Azor, Dell’s Vice President and General Manager of Alienware, Gaming, and XPS, Dell’s focus has been on taking the XPS line — introduced at CES three years ago — and making each machine better in terms of thickness, weight, size, and performance. The new XPS 13 and the XPS 15 2-in-1 are iconic of these efforts, using “magic,” as Azor quipped, to accomplish the feat of making thinner, lighter, and smaller machines that still manage to ramp up the power.

Azor started with the XPS 13, speaking specifically to improving the machine’s thermal design and the use of exotic materials like aerogel insulation, produced by Gore, to increase performance by 80 percent over the previous model. As Azor described it, the decision to engage Gore to create the material for the new XPS machines was a direct result of packing increased power into thinner chassis and thus the requirement to move more heat outside of the machines. Notably, the XPS 13 won Digital Trends’ Best of CES 2018 award for computing, specifically for its new design improving on our favorite 13-inch notebook. In addition to the machines performance and design, its aesthetics — particularly the new white and rose gold version — also got a revamp.

Next, Azor spoke about the XPS 15 2-in-1, focusing on some of the innovations that Dell built into its latest convertible 2-in-1. He spoke to the unique magnetic levitation (maglev) keyboard technology that aims to preserve the feel of deeper keyboard while fitting into the notebook’s incredibly thin frame. The use of Intel’s latest Kaby Lake-G CPUs that integrate AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics was also discussed, along with its promise of providing solid productivity and entry-level gaming in a purpose-build 2-in-1 device.

There’s a ton of great information on the new machines in the video. Make sure to check it out to learn everything you’ve wanted to know about Dell’s newest notebooks.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Dell’s XPS 15 2-in-1 gets slim maglev magic, yet packs AMD Radeon graphics
• HP Spectre x360 15 vs Dell XPS 15 2-in-1: Both are awesome, but one is the future
• Dell XPS 13 vs. Asus ZenBook 13: Two thin and light 13-inch notebooks face off
• Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 hands-on review
• The Dell XPS 13 is thinner, and talks to your phone. Here’s how it happened.

With a $350 billion contribution the U.S. economy, Apple plays the patriot

Apple is betting big on America. In a historic move, the company announced a series of new initiatives to demonstrate its commitment to supporting the U.S. economy and workforce. In total, the company will be contributing more than $350 billion to the national economy over the next five years, a sum that as Apple points out, does not include ongoing corporate tax payments, tax revenues generated from employees’ wages, nor the sale of Apple products themselves.

A three-pronged strategy lies at the heart of Apple’s bold new investment. The company pledged to increase direct employment of American workers, grow the amount of spending with U.S.-based suppliers and manufacturers, and finally, encourage further growth of the app economy.

“Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the U.S. economy,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness. We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible.”

While the company has often come under fire for outsourcing many of its operations to foreign countries, Apple is firing back at critics by creating more than 20,000 new jobs in the next several years by hiring both at existing campuses and opening a new one. The location of the newest facility has yet to be announced, but upon opening, will “house technical support for customers.” Apple is also planning on investing in data centers around the U.S. and to ensure that none of the company’s many facilities are unnecessarily chipping away at American resources, the company is ensuring that all Apple infrastructure is powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

Apple is also increasing the size of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion with the goal of supporting innovation within U.S. manufacturers. Already, the company works with more than 9,000 American suppliers located throughout the 50 states, and Apple is re-upping its commitment to supporting fellow U.S.-based businesses.

Finally, Apple is looking to educate young people in order to grow not only the app economy but the tech industry as a whole. Promising to “accelerate its efforts across the U.S. in support of coding education as well as programs focused on science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM),” Apple is preparing more young Americans for an innovative future. The company will also be expanding coding initiatives for students and increasing funding for ConnectED, a program that teaches youngsters from historically underserved backgrounds to learn important skills.

Editors’ Recommendations

• What everyone’s saying about the FCC’s net neutrality plan (in GIF form)
• Get the dish on ASKO appliances’ new state-of-the-art dishwashers
• Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know
• Faraday Future: What you need to know about the ambitious electric car maker
• House Republicans pitch to abolish federal EV and PHEV tax credits

With a $350 billion contribution the U.S. economy, Apple plays the patriot

Apple is betting big on America. In a historic move, the company announced a series of new initiatives to demonstrate its commitment to supporting the U.S. economy and workforce. In total, the company will be contributing more than $350 billion to the national economy over the next five years, a sum that as Apple points out, does not include ongoing corporate tax payments, tax revenues generated from employees’ wages, nor the sale of Apple products themselves.

A three-pronged strategy lies at the heart of Apple’s bold new investment. The company pledged to increase direct employment of American workers, grow the amount of spending with U.S.-based suppliers and manufacturers, and finally, encourage further growth of the app economy.

“Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the U.S. economy,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness. We have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who help make our success possible.”

While the company has often come under fire for outsourcing many of its operations to foreign countries, Apple is firing back at critics by creating more than 20,000 new jobs in the next several years by hiring both at existing campuses and opening a new one. The location of the newest facility has yet to be announced, but upon opening, will “house technical support for customers.” Apple is also planning on investing in data centers around the U.S. and to ensure that none of the company’s many facilities are unnecessarily chipping away at American resources, the company is ensuring that all Apple infrastructure is powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

Apple is also increasing the size of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion with the goal of supporting innovation within U.S. manufacturers. Already, the company works with more than 9,000 American suppliers located throughout the 50 states, and Apple is re-upping its commitment to supporting fellow U.S.-based businesses.

Finally, Apple is looking to educate young people in order to grow not only the app economy but the tech industry as a whole. Promising to “accelerate its efforts across the U.S. in support of coding education as well as programs focused on science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM),” Apple is preparing more young Americans for an innovative future. The company will also be expanding coding initiatives for students and increasing funding for ConnectED, a program that teaches youngsters from historically underserved backgrounds to learn important skills.

Editors’ Recommendations

• What everyone’s saying about the FCC’s net neutrality plan (in GIF form)
• Get the dish on ASKO appliances’ new state-of-the-art dishwashers
• Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know
• Faraday Future: What you need to know about the ambitious electric car maker
• House Republicans pitch to abolish federal EV and PHEV tax credits

CES 2018 is over, but these hot products and trends will shape the year ahead

Like an army sweeping over a conquered city, Digital Trends writers and editors walked hundreds of miles and interrogated scores of companies at CES 2018. Our goal: to find the trends that will shape the year ahead in technology … and maybe play with some cool stuff along the way. Here’s what we learned, and how it will affect the products and tech that will shape your life in the year ahead.

Home theater

Televisions and entertainment technology remain at the heart of the Consumer Electronics Show, and 2018’s event was no slouch in this department. Last year saw the eye-popping Wallpaper OLED from LG, which took our breath away. This year Samsung made the headlines, with its new TV named simply “The Wall.” Based on a new technology called MicroLED, the TV is modular, meaning Samsung can snap several panels together to make a giant display, or just use one or two in smaller screens. OLED may remain top dog today, but this technology is the freshest idea we’ve seen in years.

The advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters.

LG was no slouch, showing off arguably the coolest product of the show: a 65-inch, rollable 4K OLED display. It’s this flexible form factor that’s poised to take the reins of all things screens in the very near future.

Meanwhile, several manufacturers showed off 8K sets, new displays that pack in four times as many pixels as 4K images. While technology must ever advance, the advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters. These panels may lead consumers to hold off on purchase of new sets, fearing that a new tech is “right around the corner.” News flash: It ain’t.

Audio

A great TV is a waste of money without great speakers to match, and the best orchestra in the world is destroyed by crappy headphones. Fortunately, at CES 2018, we saw some fantastic headphones, none more so than the Sennheiser HD 820, which uses Gorilla Glass to keep sound inside, and make some really stellar looking cans.

CES also served up ear candy for the big spenders, including a $45,000 turntable that knocked our socks off. But the big leap forward in audio technology is not for entertainment but everyday life: audio products that aim to improve hearing, enhance our ability to interact with the world around us, or simply solve the annoying ear-ringing malady known as tinnitus. One set of new earbuds, dubbed simply the Bragi Ears, use a specially developed algorithm to map your hearing, account for any hearing loss or tinnitus from which you may be suffering, and amplify the world around you to let you hear subtle whispers from up to 100 feet away. Now that’s innovation.

Cars

A week ago, I thought we’d see electric cars everywhere. I was wrong. Sure, there were some announcements, such as the cutesy Electra Meccanica (a car built for one) and the Byton– the latest electric car concept to debut at CES. Will it be around in two years? Who knows? But an explosion of announcements in autonomous driving turned what was starting to feel like a “next decade” promise into a “next year” promise. From partnerships to new joint ventures to entirely new companies, everyone was talking autonomous cars, giving a fresh feeling of potential to what was starting to feel like an empty promise.

Meanwhile, connected cockpits are the new driver’s seats, and a dozen companies were showing them off. These sought to answer one question: If the car drives itself, do you need a steering wheel? Or a speedometer? Or anything really? We were particularly enamored with Bosch’s vision of the future, which relies on facial recognition and haptic technology to make driving more relaxing and, ultimately, safer.

Mobile

The mobile phone space is usually quiet at CES, what with Mobile World Congress right around the corner in February. But CES is a more important show in some ways, leading many companies to push for a presence there. Huawei in particular made headlines, with a keynote presentation that was intended as the launchpad for a major push into the U.S. Geopolitics played a weird role in the show this year, however, with U.S. lawmakers urging AT&T to cut commercial ties with the Chinese company. It’s hard to sell smartphones in the U.S. without a partnership with carriers.

Accessories are a mainstay of CES, and the wireless charging pads, cradles, and mounts were hard to miss at CES, thanks to Apple’s embrace of the Qi standard – at last. Meanwhile, wireless power transmission took a few big steps forward as well, though the tech remains a little futuristic.

Computing

Intel and AMD – two bitter rivals whose back and forth has driven innovation in computing for more than a decade – called an unexpected truce at the end of 2017. Laptops at CES showed new chipsets that merge the computing power of Intel’s CPUs with AMD’s graphics capabilities, perhaps promising the best of both worlds. The products we saw were thin 2-in-1s, meaning they fold around 360 degrees to be used as tablets. And AMD’s graphics power means we can expect some decent gaming performance from both of these computers – something we rarely see in laptops at reasonable prices.

In other chip news, Qualcomm spent a good deal of time touting its Snapdragon 845 chip, and with good reason. The Snapdragon line traditionally powers smartphones, but next-gen chips will find their way into everything, from smart watches to VR headsets. A line of Snapdragon-powered laptops will literally last for days on end. Finally, the battery life we’ve all craved!

Gadgets

What would CES be without crazy gizmos, and we saw a slew of them, including a ton of pet tech, devices that deliver Smell-O-Rama (at last), a robot that plays ping-pong, and something amazing called the Tesla Suit.

Some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

But some trends we’ve talked about a lot in the past seemed more hot air and hype than hardware. Sure, we saw 3D printers that offered astonishing new levels of speed, such as Californian company Uniz (which used a new printing tech to set a 3D world record), and caught our first official glimpse of a 3D metal printer that blew our socks off. But in general, this tech doesn’t seem to be going mainstream any time soon. Likewise, a new Vive VR headset is cool and all, but in general, some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

Other trends are here to stay, including the market for products we call “rideables,” which includes hoverboards, e-scooters, and an array of one-wheeled and two-wheeled battery powered devices. We were blown away by the IotaTrax, a new device from the guy who basically invented the entire space. It’s essentially a hybrid device that lies somewhere between a hoverboard and a self-balancing unicycle. Like a hoverboard, it has two wheels, which provide a stable riding platform. But like a unicycle, those wheels are situated between the rider’s feet. And like hoverboards and unicycles, it’s pretty awesome.

Smart home

One thing was clear from CES 2018: Google won the show.

The tech giant was everywhere at CES, setting up a giant playground in the parking lot, wrapping the Vegas monorail, buying ad space on seemingly every billboard in town, and ensuring that booths from here to the Hard Rock Café touted compatibility with Google. Google was omnipresent.

David McNew/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Apple was nowhere to be found. Sure, the iPhone maker hasn’t been to CES in more than a decade, opting instead for its own high-profile events where it can control the conversation and dominate the headlines. But increasingly, it feels as though Apple is being left behind by the smart home market, which grows and evolves without it. Should Apple finally show up?

In the kitchen, appliances are finally, at last, maybe just maybe starting to get smarter, ushering in the age of what we’re calling “guided cooking.” A few years ago, countertop appliances used apps or built-in touchscreens to help cooks set the right temperature, automatically stirring contents at the right speed and duration, and giving exact measurements. This year, large appliances seem to be catching on to the trend too.

Meanwhile, Google and Alexa continue pushing into the kitchen, notably in GE’s Kitchen Hub, a huge 27-inch screen that goes above your stove. Not only does it work with Alexa and Google Assistant, it acts like an Echo Show in that it plays videos, lets you listen to playlists, and controls Zigbee and Z-Wave smart home devices.

Finally, the very air and water we breathe and drink got wrapped into the smart home trend this year. At CES, we saw an increase in the number of smart air monitors and water leak detectors. While radon, carbon monoxide, and smoke detectors have always been around, smart detectors do more than just scream at you when you’re burning the casserole in the oven. Airthings debuted a new smart indoor air quality monitor at CES that monitors carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and radon, and alerts you when the levels become dangerous.

Editors’ Recommendations

• ‘8K? I don’t even have 4K yet!’ The future of television is still far off
• From TV tech to smart homes, Samsung’s Scott Cohen takes our questions
• It’s almost here! Here’s the best of what’s coming at CES 2018
• TWB Podcast: CES preview; LG 8K television; Home assistant takeover
• It’s not just more of Alexa! All the big smart home trends from CES 2018

CES 2018 is over, but these hot products and trends will shape the year ahead

Like an army sweeping over a conquered city, Digital Trends writers and editors walked hundreds of miles and interrogated scores of companies at CES 2018. Our goal: to find the trends that will shape the year ahead in technology … and maybe play with some cool stuff along the way. Here’s what we learned, and how it will affect the products and tech that will shape your life in the year ahead.

Home theater

Televisions and entertainment technology remain at the heart of the Consumer Electronics Show, and 2018’s event was no slouch in this department. Last year saw the eye-popping Wallpaper OLED from LG, which took our breath away. This year Samsung made the headlines, with its new TV named simply “The Wall.” Based on a new technology called MicroLED, the TV is modular, meaning Samsung can snap several panels together to make a giant display, or just use one or two in smaller screens. OLED may remain top dog today, but this technology is the freshest idea we’ve seen in years.

The advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters.

LG was no slouch, showing off arguably the coolest product of the show: a 65-inch, rollable 4K OLED display. It’s this flexible form factor that’s poised to take the reins of all things screens in the very near future.

Meanwhile, several manufacturers showed off 8K sets, new displays that pack in four times as many pixels as 4K images. While technology must ever advance, the advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters. These panels may lead consumers to hold off on purchase of new sets, fearing that a new tech is “right around the corner.” News flash: It ain’t.

Audio

A great TV is a waste of money without great speakers to match, and the best orchestra in the world is destroyed by crappy headphones. Fortunately, at CES 2018, we saw some fantastic headphones, none more so than the Sennheiser HD 820, which uses Gorilla Glass to keep sound inside, and make some really stellar looking cans.

CES also served up ear candy for the big spenders, including a $45,000 turntable that knocked our socks off. But the big leap forward in audio technology is not for entertainment but everyday life: audio products that aim to improve hearing, enhance our ability to interact with the world around us, or simply solve the annoying ear-ringing malady known as tinnitus. One set of new earbuds, dubbed simply the Bragi Ears, use a specially developed algorithm to map your hearing, account for any hearing loss or tinnitus from which you may be suffering, and amplify the world around you to let you hear subtle whispers from up to 100 feet away. Now that’s innovation.

Cars

A week ago, I thought we’d see electric cars everywhere. I was wrong. Sure, there were some announcements, such as the cutesy Electra Meccanica (a car built for one) and the Byton– the latest electric car concept to debut at CES. Will it be around in two years? Who knows? But an explosion of announcements in autonomous driving turned what was starting to feel like a “next decade” promise into a “next year” promise. From partnerships to new joint ventures to entirely new companies, everyone was talking autonomous cars, giving a fresh feeling of potential to what was starting to feel like an empty promise.

Meanwhile, connected cockpits are the new driver’s seats, and a dozen companies were showing them off. These sought to answer one question: If the car drives itself, do you need a steering wheel? Or a speedometer? Or anything really? We were particularly enamored with Bosch’s vision of the future, which relies on facial recognition and haptic technology to make driving more relaxing and, ultimately, safer.

Mobile

The mobile phone space is usually quiet at CES, what with Mobile World Congress right around the corner in February. But CES is a more important show in some ways, leading many companies to push for a presence there. Huawei in particular made headlines, with a keynote presentation that was intended as the launchpad for a major push into the U.S. Geopolitics played a weird role in the show this year, however, with U.S. lawmakers urging AT&T to cut commercial ties with the Chinese company. It’s hard to sell smartphones in the U.S. without a partnership with carriers.

Accessories are a mainstay of CES, and the wireless charging pads, cradles, and mounts were hard to miss at CES, thanks to Apple’s embrace of the Qi standard – at last. Meanwhile, wireless power transmission took a few big steps forward as well, though the tech remains a little futuristic.

Computing

Intel and AMD – two bitter rivals whose back and forth has driven innovation in computing for more than a decade – called an unexpected truce at the end of 2017. Laptops at CES showed new chipsets that merge the computing power of Intel’s CPUs with AMD’s graphics capabilities, perhaps promising the best of both worlds. The products we saw were thin 2-in-1s, meaning they fold around 360 degrees to be used as tablets. And AMD’s graphics power means we can expect some decent gaming performance from both of these computers – something we rarely see in laptops at reasonable prices.

In other chip news, Qualcomm spent a good deal of time touting its Snapdragon 845 chip, and with good reason. The Snapdragon line traditionally powers smartphones, but next-gen chips will find their way into everything, from smart watches to VR headsets. A line of Snapdragon-powered laptops will literally last for days on end. Finally, the battery life we’ve all craved!

Gadgets

What would CES be without crazy gizmos, and we saw a slew of them, including a ton of pet tech, devices that deliver Smell-O-Rama (at last), a robot that plays ping-pong, and something amazing called the Tesla Suit.

Some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

But some trends we’ve talked about a lot in the past seemed more hot air and hype than hardware. Sure, we saw 3D printers that offered astonishing new levels of speed, such as Californian company Uniz (which used a new printing tech to set a 3D world record), and caught our first official glimpse of a 3D metal printer that blew our socks off. But in general, this tech doesn’t seem to be going mainstream any time soon. Likewise, a new Vive VR headset is cool and all, but in general, some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

Other trends are here to stay, including the market for products we call “rideables,” which includes hoverboards, e-scooters, and an array of one-wheeled and two-wheeled battery powered devices. We were blown away by the IotaTrax, a new device from the guy who basically invented the entire space. It’s essentially a hybrid device that lies somewhere between a hoverboard and a self-balancing unicycle. Like a hoverboard, it has two wheels, which provide a stable riding platform. But like a unicycle, those wheels are situated between the rider’s feet. And like hoverboards and unicycles, it’s pretty awesome.

Smart home

One thing was clear from CES 2018: Google won the show.

The tech giant was everywhere at CES, setting up a giant playground in the parking lot, wrapping the Vegas monorail, buying ad space on seemingly every billboard in town, and ensuring that booths from here to the Hard Rock Café touted compatibility with Google. Google was omnipresent.

David McNew/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Apple was nowhere to be found. Sure, the iPhone maker hasn’t been to CES in more than a decade, opting instead for its own high-profile events where it can control the conversation and dominate the headlines. But increasingly, it feels as though Apple is being left behind by the smart home market, which grows and evolves without it. Should Apple finally show up?

In the kitchen, appliances are finally, at last, maybe just maybe starting to get smarter, ushering in the age of what we’re calling “guided cooking.” A few years ago, countertop appliances used apps or built-in touchscreens to help cooks set the right temperature, automatically stirring contents at the right speed and duration, and giving exact measurements. This year, large appliances seem to be catching on to the trend too.

Meanwhile, Google and Alexa continue pushing into the kitchen, notably in GE’s Kitchen Hub, a huge 27-inch screen that goes above your stove. Not only does it work with Alexa and Google Assistant, it acts like an Echo Show in that it plays videos, lets you listen to playlists, and controls Zigbee and Z-Wave smart home devices.

Finally, the very air and water we breathe and drink got wrapped into the smart home trend this year. At CES, we saw an increase in the number of smart air monitors and water leak detectors. While radon, carbon monoxide, and smoke detectors have always been around, smart detectors do more than just scream at you when you’re burning the casserole in the oven. Airthings debuted a new smart indoor air quality monitor at CES that monitors carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and radon, and alerts you when the levels become dangerous.

Editors’ Recommendations

• ‘8K? I don’t even have 4K yet!’ The future of television is still far off
• From TV tech to smart homes, Samsung’s Scott Cohen takes our questions
• It’s almost here! Here’s the best of what’s coming at CES 2018
• TWB Podcast: CES preview; LG 8K television; Home assistant takeover
• It’s not just more of Alexa! All the big smart home trends from CES 2018

CES 2018 is over, but these hot products and trends will shape the year ahead

Like an army sweeping over a conquered city, Digital Trends writers and editors walked hundreds of miles and interrogated scores of companies at CES 2018. Our goal: to find the trends that will shape the year ahead in technology … and maybe play with some cool stuff along the way. Here’s what we learned, and how it will affect the products and tech that will shape your life in the year ahead.

Home theater

Televisions and entertainment technology remain at the heart of the Consumer Electronics Show, and 2018’s event was no slouch in this department. Last year saw the eye-popping Wallpaper OLED from LG, which took our breath away. This year Samsung made the headlines, with its new TV named simply “The Wall.” Based on a new technology called MicroLED, the TV is modular, meaning Samsung can snap several panels together to make a giant display, or just use one or two in smaller screens. OLED may remain top dog today, but this technology is the freshest idea we’ve seen in years.

The advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters.

LG was no slouch, showing off arguably the coolest product of the show: a 65-inch, rollable 4K OLED display. It’s this flexible form factor that’s poised to take the reins of all things screens in the very near future.

Meanwhile, several manufacturers showed off 8K sets, new displays that pack in four times as many pixels as 4K images. While technology must ever advance, the advent of 8K is hardly a step in the right direction, given the current slow rate of adoption of 4K by broadcasters. These panels may lead consumers to hold off on purchase of new sets, fearing that a new tech is “right around the corner.” News flash: It ain’t.

Audio

A great TV is a waste of money without great speakers to match, and the best orchestra in the world is destroyed by crappy headphones. Fortunately, at CES 2018, we saw some fantastic headphones, none more so than the Sennheiser HD 820, which uses Gorilla Glass to keep sound inside, and make some really stellar looking cans.

CES also served up ear candy for the big spenders, including a $45,000 turntable that knocked our socks off. But the big leap forward in audio technology is not for entertainment but everyday life: audio products that aim to improve hearing, enhance our ability to interact with the world around us, or simply solve the annoying ear-ringing malady known as tinnitus. One set of new earbuds, dubbed simply the Bragi Ears, use a specially developed algorithm to map your hearing, account for any hearing loss or tinnitus from which you may be suffering, and amplify the world around you to let you hear subtle whispers from up to 100 feet away. Now that’s innovation.

Cars

A week ago, I thought we’d see electric cars everywhere. I was wrong. Sure, there were some announcements, such as the cutesy Electra Meccanica (a car built for one) and the Byton– the latest electric car concept to debut at CES. Will it be around in two years? Who knows? But an explosion of announcements in autonomous driving turned what was starting to feel like a “next decade” promise into a “next year” promise. From partnerships to new joint ventures to entirely new companies, everyone was talking autonomous cars, giving a fresh feeling of potential to what was starting to feel like an empty promise.

Meanwhile, connected cockpits are the new driver’s seats, and a dozen companies were showing them off. These sought to answer one question: If the car drives itself, do you need a steering wheel? Or a speedometer? Or anything really? We were particularly enamored with Bosch’s vision of the future, which relies on facial recognition and haptic technology to make driving more relaxing and, ultimately, safer.

Mobile

The mobile phone space is usually quiet at CES, what with Mobile World Congress right around the corner in February. But CES is a more important show in some ways, leading many companies to push for a presence there. Huawei in particular made headlines, with a keynote presentation that was intended as the launchpad for a major push into the U.S. Geopolitics played a weird role in the show this year, however, with U.S. lawmakers urging AT&T to cut commercial ties with the Chinese company. It’s hard to sell smartphones in the U.S. without a partnership with carriers.

Accessories are a mainstay of CES, and the wireless charging pads, cradles, and mounts were hard to miss at CES, thanks to Apple’s embrace of the Qi standard – at last. Meanwhile, wireless power transmission took a few big steps forward as well, though the tech remains a little futuristic.

Computing

Intel and AMD – two bitter rivals whose back and forth has driven innovation in computing for more than a decade – called an unexpected truce at the end of 2017. Laptops at CES showed new chipsets that merge the computing power of Intel’s CPUs with AMD’s graphics capabilities, perhaps promising the best of both worlds. The products we saw were thin 2-in-1s, meaning they fold around 360 degrees to be used as tablets. And AMD’s graphics power means we can expect some decent gaming performance from both of these computers – something we rarely see in laptops at reasonable prices.

In other chip news, Qualcomm spent a good deal of time touting its Snapdragon 845 chip, and with good reason. The Snapdragon line traditionally powers smartphones, but next-gen chips will find their way into everything, from smart watches to VR headsets. A line of Snapdragon-powered laptops will literally last for days on end. Finally, the battery life we’ve all craved!

Gadgets

What would CES be without crazy gizmos, and we saw a slew of them, including a ton of pet tech, devices that deliver Smell-O-Rama (at last), a robot that plays ping-pong, and something amazing called the Tesla Suit.

Some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

But some trends we’ve talked about a lot in the past seemed more hot air and hype than hardware. Sure, we saw 3D printers that offered astonishing new levels of speed, such as Californian company Uniz (which used a new printing tech to set a 3D world record), and caught our first official glimpse of a 3D metal printer that blew our socks off. But in general, this tech doesn’t seem to be going mainstream any time soon. Likewise, a new Vive VR headset is cool and all, but in general, some killer app beyond gaming is needed to push VR over the edge.

Other trends are here to stay, including the market for products we call “rideables,” which includes hoverboards, e-scooters, and an array of one-wheeled and two-wheeled battery powered devices. We were blown away by the IotaTrax, a new device from the guy who basically invented the entire space. It’s essentially a hybrid device that lies somewhere between a hoverboard and a self-balancing unicycle. Like a hoverboard, it has two wheels, which provide a stable riding platform. But like a unicycle, those wheels are situated between the rider’s feet. And like hoverboards and unicycles, it’s pretty awesome.

Smart home

One thing was clear from CES 2018: Google won the show.

The tech giant was everywhere at CES, setting up a giant playground in the parking lot, wrapping the Vegas monorail, buying ad space on seemingly every billboard in town, and ensuring that booths from here to the Hard Rock Café touted compatibility with Google. Google was omnipresent.

David McNew/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Apple was nowhere to be found. Sure, the iPhone maker hasn’t been to CES in more than a decade, opting instead for its own high-profile events where it can control the conversation and dominate the headlines. But increasingly, it feels as though Apple is being left behind by the smart home market, which grows and evolves without it. Should Apple finally show up?

In the kitchen, appliances are finally, at last, maybe just maybe starting to get smarter, ushering in the age of what we’re calling “guided cooking.” A few years ago, countertop appliances used apps or built-in touchscreens to help cooks set the right temperature, automatically stirring contents at the right speed and duration, and giving exact measurements. This year, large appliances seem to be catching on to the trend too.

Meanwhile, Google and Alexa continue pushing into the kitchen, notably in GE’s Kitchen Hub, a huge 27-inch screen that goes above your stove. Not only does it work with Alexa and Google Assistant, it acts like an Echo Show in that it plays videos, lets you listen to playlists, and controls Zigbee and Z-Wave smart home devices.

Finally, the very air and water we breathe and drink got wrapped into the smart home trend this year. At CES, we saw an increase in the number of smart air monitors and water leak detectors. While radon, carbon monoxide, and smoke detectors have always been around, smart detectors do more than just scream at you when you’re burning the casserole in the oven. Airthings debuted a new smart indoor air quality monitor at CES that monitors carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and radon, and alerts you when the levels become dangerous.

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Google to expand its cloud infrastructure with three new subsea cables

Google has announced plans to construct three new undersea cables that are set to be activated in 2019. The project is said to be part of the company’s investment in cloud infrastructure.

The subsea cables are set to increase the amount of bandwidth available to the network that connects Google’s international cloud data centers, according to a report from IT Pro. This should result in better performance for sites and services that utilize the company’s cloud platform.

The Havfrue cable is set to link the U.S. with Denmark and Ireland, according to a blog post published by Google. The company is collaborating with Facebook, Aqua Comms, and Bulk Infrastructure on the project, which will be constructed by TE SubCom and is named for the Danish word for mermaid.

Google is working with RTI-C and NEC on the Hong Kong-Guam cable system, which is said to create multiple scalable paths to Australia in conjunction with the Indigo subsea system and other existing infrastructure.

Finally, there’s the Curie cable, which is named for the physicist and chemist Marie Curie who pioneered research into radioactivity. Google is going it alone for this project, and in doing so becomes the first major non-telecom company to pursue the construction of a private intercontinental cable. It’s set to span from Chile to Los Angeles, and is the first subsea cable to land in Chile in over 20 years.

“Owning the cable ourselves has some distinct benefits,” wrote Ben Treynor Sloss, vice president of engineering at Google. “Since we control the design and construction process, we can fully define the cable’s technical specifications, streamline deployment and deliver service to users and customers faster. Also, once the cable is deployed, we can make routing decisions that optimize for latency and availability.”

Of course, there are other benefits for a company that has the means to undertake such a project. Removing any other entities from the construction of undersea cables means that Google is in complete control of its network. Increasingly, we’re seeing the likes of Amazon and Google use their cloud platforms as major drivers of revenue, and this kind of major investment demonstrates that this is going to continue to be the case for years to come.

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See if airlines owe you money from up to 3 years ago with AirHelp’s new tool

It’s hard enough getting airlines to reimburse you for that hellish trip you had to endure last night, much less last year. But now, one app is helping you set wrongs right, even if those wrongs occurred in the not-so-recent past. AirHelp, which last year announced a boarding pass scanner to give real-time information about delayed flight compensation, is now launching a new tool that will help you travel back in time — that is, with regard to airline payback.

Available on both the web and on your mobile device, AirHelp’s newest tool connects to your email address, scanning for all flights you’ve taken in the last three years, and importing that information into the AirHelp database. From there, the tool will be able to check your eligibility for compensation for flights that were delayed or canceled. Moreover, the feature allows you to visually map all the journeys you’ve taken in recent memory, so you can see what a globetrotter you really are. You can also check out how much money you’ve spent on flight tickets (yikes).

Folks need only connect AirHelp to their email account once — after that, the tool will be able to update you on future eligibility for compensation whenever your flight plans are disrupted.

“Raising awareness of air passenger rights and identifying new ways to be a consumer advocate has always been our priority,” says AirHelp CEO and co-founder Henrik Zillmer. “Over nine million air passengers are entitled to compensation for disrupted flights every year, yet most of these travelers don’t know that they are eligible or understand how to pursue a valid claim. Our new tool will produce compelling content for today’s social media-driven consumers, while building a platform for automatic notifications about compensation eligibility. We’re excited to educate even more travelers about their rights in a fun, interactive manner with technology.”

AirHelp is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, and the new tool is currently available for folks using Gmail, Hotmail, and Microsoft Outlook servers. Other features in the AirHelp family include the Boarding Pass Scanner and Lara, the company’s A.I.-powered lawyer for those particularly contentious airline disputes.

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Sony Xperia XZ Pro could be among first phones with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Sony has had a whirlwind few months due mainly to the launch of several new phones, but it looks like it’s not slowing down anytime soon. According to recent rumors, the company is readying a new flagship to serve as a follow-up to the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, and it’s called the Sony Xperia XZ Pro. The phone is rumored to debut at Mobile World Congress 2018., which kicks off February 26.

We don’t know all that much about the new phones just yet, but there are a few rumors that give us hints at what the new phone may look like. Here’s everything we know about the Sony Xperia XZ Pro so far.

Specs

Perhaps the most notable thing about this device is what’s under the hood. According to a leak from MyDrivers, the phone will be among the first to feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, which is Qualcomm‘s most powerful mobile chip yet. It will also boast 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage — though there could be options for how much RAM or storage are available on the phone.

MyDrivers notes that the phone may feature a 5.7-inch OLED display with a 4K resolution, which would be one of the highest-quality displays so far. Sure, it’s not the first phone to feature a 4K display, but hopefully this device will be among a new generation of devices with ultra-high-resolution displays, which should make for far better mobile virtual reality experiences.

Sony has traditionally placed an emphasis on cameras, and it’s likely the Xperia XZ Pro will be no different. The phone will apparently feature a dual rear-facing camera with one 18-megapixel sensor and one 12-megapixel sensor.

To power all of this, the phone is rumored to feature a 3,420mAh battery. It will boast an IP68 water-resistance rating.

Design

Sony hasn’t exactly had a great track record with design, but all signs point to the company attempting to turn that around in 2018. Rumors indicate Sony will embrace bezel-less designs this year. We’ll update this article if we hear any more about the phone’s design or if any leaked images pop up.

Price and availability

According to MyDrivers, the phone will come with a price tag of 6,000 Chinese yuan, which equates to $930. That’s no small price for a phone — even if it’s a premium one. While it will reportedly be announced at Mobile World Congress at the end of February, that doesn’t mean it’ll be available then. Sony could wait a few months to launch the phone, depending on factors like availability of the Snapdragon 845. Last year, because Samsung manufactured the Snapdragon 835, it got first dibs. That may also be the case this time around.

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Google will consider load times in mobile search rankings

Google is always optimizing search, but has given mobile more prominence lately, including axing its long-running Instant Search feature last July to unify searching on desktop and device. Their latest tweak, which goes into effect July 2018, aims to improve the mobile browsing experience by factoring in a page’s loading speed to its search rank, promising to lower slow sites.

The so-called ‘Speed Update’ will only affect pages that ‘deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries,’ according to Google’s blog. While the search team was coy with exactly how this new factor will affect rankings, it did encourage developers to gauge their site’s performance (hint hint) using the Chrome User Experience Report, the automated tool Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights.

The update applies the same standard to all pages regardless of what tech it’s built with. And if it’s any consolation, relevance is still king: “The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content,’ according to Google’s post.

Source: Google blog