Google’s aggressive push at CES affirms that Assistant is its No. 1 focus

“Hey Google.”

That’s been the mantra of CES 2018. From massive physical and digital billboard ads, to giant gumball machines, and a presence at more than 200 partner booths, the Google Assistant appears everywhere you turn.

It feels as though Amazon has swapped roles with Google. At CES 2017, Google hardly had a visible presence, and “Alexa” was rolling off every tongue. There’s still a great number of Alexa-enabled devices launching this year, but companies aren’t just saying “it works with Alexa.” No, Alexa support is quickly followed with, “and Google Assistant” — and sometimes, Alexa’s mentioned as an afterthought.

The Google Assistant appears everywhere you turn.

2017 was a whirlwind year for Google, with the Assistant now on more than 400 million devices, and Google expanded ways to interact with the Assistant — from Android phones, Android Wear smartwatches, the Google Home Mini and the Google Home Max to third-party speakers from companies like Anker Innovations.

We’ve already seen the first wave of third-party Assistant-enabled devices launch toward the end of 2017, but at CES 2018, the Assistant is launching on an impressively varied category of products, including washing machines, vacuums, and more. Google also now has an answer to the Echo Show, thanks to companies like Lenovo and JBL debuting Assistant powered smart displays.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

“We want to make sure that people have a choice,” Gummi Hafsteinsson, product management director for Google Assistant, told Digital Trends. “You might want a white thing on a counter in your kitchen and I might want something with nice speakers. It’s actually critical for us to work with partners to make sure that we do provide usage with a choice for whatever they want in a home. Having that wide selection is actually really important.”

You want to get a point where it feels like you’re just having a conversation.

Google and Amazon have the same approach — get their respective voice assistants on every product imaginable. If you thought last year was the year of the assistant, think again. With Apple set to enter the market with the HomePod, things are going to get more competitive than ever. While Amazon may still have more Alexa-enabled devices, more skills, and more supported smart home products, Google has stolen the show this CES, and it’s safe to expect an aggressive focus on Assistant this year.

And as product design is more important than ever before to stand out — given that these assistants all perform the same across devices — Google is continuing to focus on making conversations with the Assistant feel more natural. If you haven’t noticed, all the ads and billboards opt for the “Hey Google” wake word rather than the traditional “Okay Google.” You can still use both, but it’s clear the direction we’re heading.

“It’s actually much more about the conversation,” Hafsteinsson said. “The interface has moved from being I issue a command and one thing happens, to now I actually want to have a conversation. … Ultimately, you want to get a point where it feels like you’re just having a conversation.”

At the pace innovation is moving in this space, talking to an assistant the way you would talk to a human doesn’t sound far off.

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• Amazon’s Alexa assistant looks to smarten up select 2018 Hisense TVs
• It’s almost here! Here’s the best of what’s coming at CES 2018
• Digital Trends’ CES 2018 live-stream provides up-to-the-minute coverage
• 5 tech trends you’ll be talking about in 2018
• From TVs to automobiles, Google Assistant looks to make a big splash at CES 2018

New Artec 3D scanner creates gorgeous, accurate replicas of physical objects

If you want to build your own Tron-esque virtual world, you’ll probably need a device to scan 3D objects and create digital copies. Artec 3D has just the thing to help. The company is a leader in the field of 3D scanning, and showed off its latest creation, the Artec Leo, at CES 2018.

The Leo is a handheld 3D scanner with a processor and other electronics packed inside. That means it doesn’t need an external computer to function. The scanner has a large field of view, and can reconstruct a 3D object in digital form at 80 frames per second. Once rendered, the digital models show a pristine level of detail. If you want to create a model of a friend through 3D printing, Artec could create a frighteningly accurate replica.

If you’re an average consumer, you may want to save up a bit before buying a Leo, as the device costs $25,800. That makes sense, given that Artec markets the device to industrial engineers and medical institutions, for whom the device is a pricey but useful business expense.

Digital Trends also got to try out Artec’s Shapify booth, which can scan a human body in 12 seconds and create an immaculate 3D model.

Editors’ Recommendations

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• The Sense Glove enables users to get a grip on virtual reality

You can’t talk about accessibility without talking about diversity

Over the past few years, we’ve been seeing more and more products at CES meant to assist the elderly and disabled. In fact, last year was the first year we added an accessibility category to the official Best of CES awards — and the finalists in that category were indeed some of our favorite things we saw at the show. This year was no exception, with four finalists in the accessibility category, and a whole bunch of other products that we didn’t have room for on our shortlist.

When and how did accessibility tech come to be so prominent at the world’s biggest consumer tech show? And where is the technology headed from here? To help make sense of the bigger picture, I sat down with KR Liu, who was diagnosed with severe hearing loss at age three and later went on to head up sales and marketing with audio pioneer Doppler Labs. Most recently, she teamed up with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Grassley on the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017, which passed with almost unanimous bipartisan support.

In our all-too-brief talk, we delved into the technological advancements, of course, but also the social ones — the issue of accessibility tech ultimately isn’t just a question of what’s technically possible, but about diversity: Who is allowed in the drawing room? And for whom are we creating tech in the first place?

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

OnePlus weighs in on smartphone strategy and the value of trust

OnePlus released two great smartphones in 2017, but the smartphone startup is facing more and better competition than ever before. That’s great for you and me, but much trickier for a startup still trying to carve out a notable niche for itself. What’s a small company to do?

In this case, OnePlus’ answer is to keep making the best products it can and avoid looking at competitors simply as rivals to be crushed over time. Kyle Kiang, head of global marketing for OnePlus, joined us on our CES stage to discuss the team’s strategy for building a successful mobile brand and the difficulties of developing a foundation of trust in through hardware.

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

The challenge of showcasing weed tech at CES

There was, as expected, a thin scent of weed in Roger Volodarsky’s 28th-floor Mirage hotel suite as the Puffco CEO and founder demonstrated his latest product.

It was 11:30 PM the night before CES opened, and seven attendees gathered in the living room overlooking the Vegas strip. A welcoming, tattooed man with a groomed beard and shaved head, Volodarsky was showing off the Puffco Peak, a smart dabbing rig for consuming cannabis concentrates that he’d presented at the Pepcom media event just hours earlier. Away from the mainstream events around CES, he could show how it truly works.

After all, this is the first CES since marijuana was legalized in the state of Nevada last year, and it’s available for purchase all over Las Vegas. The irony is that in Sin City, you are prohibited from consuming cannabis products anywhere but in a private residence, including hotels, parks and even dispensaries.

In practice, vaporized cannabis and edibles are easy to find and easier to consume with little residual smell (there was no hint of weed vapor in the Mirage’s hallway on Monday). But technically, a combination of state law and hotel policy means that Vegas’ visitors — of which there were 42.2 million in 2017 — lack almost anywhere to take advantage of legal cannabis.

It also means that the few cannabusinesses at this year’s CES are also hamstrung in their ability to demonstrate their products, even as there’s a gold rush of demand that led to cannabis startups receiving more than $600 million in equity funding last year. Hence Puffco’s after-hours session at the Mirage.

“We think that if you want to make an omelet you’ve got to crack a few eggs, and so that’s why we did this in here,” said the Brooklyn-based Volodarsky, on using his suite for demos. “For us it’s just the risk we take, and if they want to kick us out for it I’m OK with that.”

In contrast, Vapium, another vape company, presented at CES with a different angle: as a strictly medical company. Located in CES’ smart home section around companies hawking gas sensors and smart pet doors, its booth was a clean green and white with representatives wearing white lab coats.

Under the brand Vapium Medical, the company launched a smart vape that tells you precisely how much THC or CBD you consume with every inhalation. It achieves this by cross-referencing the airflow through the vape and the exact strain and strength of the cannabis capsules inside it. Pinpointing effective dosages of medical cannabis can allow doctors to prescribe it more accurately and monitor a patient’s use, all while creating a database about how certain strains and quantities of marijuana use affect certain medical conditions.

“Even for doctors who are convinced that cannabis is effective, there’s not really good dosing guidelines,” said Barry Fogarty, Vapium Medical’s COO. “Because it’s been a prohibited substance in most places, there hasn’t been the research that there needs to be, and so that’s exactly what we’re trying to plug into.”

Due to release in the second half of 2018, Vapium Medical is presenting the prototype purely as a medical device. “We’ll only sell products in those states where medical cannabis is legal,” said Fogarty.

There would not be any demos at the trade show either. “Especially as a medical company, we will adhere to all of the bylaws,” said CMO Lisa Harun.

For Puffco, the decision to come to Vegas was only made four days in advance.

“We thought, why not show this off at CES? It seems like a place where maybe new eyes that have a respect for great design and strides in industry, maybe they’ll respect us there,” said Volodarsky. “It’s easy to be a marketing company in cannabis. It’s much more difficult to be an innovator. And the risk is high just like in any other side of consumer electronics.”

That risk extends to its off-site presentation. “It is what it is,” said Volodarsky. “This is the unfortunate risk we take as leaders of the industry; it’s what we have to do.”

The showcase ended when Puffco’s spokesman got hungry (“He’s done a few demos,” Voladarsky said) and they headed out for pancakes. Before leaving, Volodarsky grabbed the rig for one more hit.

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

Louis Vuitton is making a luggage tracker

A smartphone app and recent FCC filing strongly hints that Louis Vuitton has a new tech product on the way: A luggage tracker that pairs with particular bags sold by the fashion company. Sources tell Engadget that it will be the first such device to work internationally, but there has been no official confirmation yet.

According to a leaflet included in the documents filed to the FCC, the luggage tracker is called the Louis Vuitton Echo and will be built by French start-up Axible. It can operate for up to six months on a full battery and can be recharged via simple USB cable. Customers use the company’s LV Pass smartphone app to pair with the tracker, which slides into a dedicated pocket in Louis Vuitton luggage. The Echo automatically switches to Airplane Mode in flight; After landing, customers can check the app for their bag’s location and see if it was opened in the interim.

The tracker only works within certain major international airports covered by Sigfox’s mobile geolocation service; Judging by the company’s coverage map, that includes most of Northern and Western Europe, along with highly-populated cities in the US, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Oman, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and New Zealand (though it’s ‘rolling out’ across the rest of those countries). Anyone buying a Louis Vuitton Echo gets three years of Sigfox service included with purchase of the device. It’s unclear how much the Echo will cost (count on a stupidly high sum — it’s Louis Vuitton, after all), nor when the device will be released.

Source: FCC

LG puts Google Assistant in its own touchscreen-equipped speaker

Google Assistant’s fingerprints are all over the CES 2018 show floor, but it’s especially easy to see on a few new Android Things-powered devices. This LG ThinQ Google Assistant Touch Screen Speaker is one of them, and like Lenovo’s Smart Display, it’s built on a Qualcomm Home Hub Platform.

On the show floor, it smoothly scrolled through demo applications popping up info in ways we’re used to seeing on our phones or through Android Auto. So far all the demonstrations only include Google apps like Duo, Maps, Music, Photos and YouTube — currently MIA on Amazon’s Echo Show — so we’ll be watching carefully to see how the device’s capabilities expand as developers dig into Android Things, which leans on existing tools to create new apps for these devices.

According to Qualcomm, this more powerful version of its platform (SDA624) can drive a Full HD+ display, capture 4K video and support Tensor Flow for on-device machine learning. Also, like Lenovo’s speaker, this one has a physical switch to turn its camera off. WiFi and Bluetooth links are present behind its 8-inch touchscreen and like several other LG products on display, it has audio tweaking courtesy of Meridian Technology, but so far the company hasn’t confirmed any other details.

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

Source: LG

Don’t call it a dildo: Kiiroo and OhMiBod on the future of sex toys

CES may have a complicated relationship with sex, but one company has made it its mission to destigmatize doing it at the world’s largest technology conference. For the past seven years, the family-run sex toy manufacturer OhMiBod has made the trek to Las Vegas in an attempt to gain mainstream distribution for its line of tech-savvy pleasure products.

This year, the company has partnered with one of the leaders in interactive sex toys, Kiiroo, to create an internet-connected vibrator that can communicate with the Fleshlight-branded Launch male masturbator. OhMiBod’s Fuse claims to be the first of its kind to offer bi-directional control — basically, allowing either the stroker or the vibrator to send sensations to the other device from long distances. Both devices also promise to sync with VR and traditional porn and can be used by webcam models to give their clients an extra-sensory experience.

The Fuse can be purchased online for and you can see the devices for yourself at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South hall through the remainder of CES. The Kiiroo Launch is now available for $220 and the OhMiBod Fuse can be had for $150.

I sat down with Kiiroo founder Toon Timmermans and OhMiBod’s Suki and Brian Dunham to talk about the future of long-distance love at CES 2018 and learned a lesson interactive sex toy branding. Whatever you do, don’t call it a dildo!

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

Artgasm turns the female orgasm into a literal work of art

The female orgasm can be elusive, but at CES 2018, sexual health startup Lioness managed to capture and immortalize them as works of art. It’s based on information gleaned from volunteers who have used its $229 bio-sensing vibrator that started shipping in August. The mini exhibit is here in Las Vegas to drum up awareness for both the Lioness brand and women’s sexual health issues, particularly how we orgasm. It was shown in a limited preview last year at the Mothership music festival, and Lioness hopes to eventually add more pieces and bring the exhibit to galleries all over the country.

The Lioness vibrator has force sensors on the dildo end, which detects pelvic floor (and wall) contractions. That’s one of the best ways to identify orgasms, according to Lioness founder Liz Klinger. There’s also a sensor that recognizes when a session starts by measuring body temperature, which tends to rise as people get aroused. Like most rabbit vibrators, the Lioness also has a clitoral vibrator in the middle, which pulses in three adjustable speeds. The device also houses an accelerometer and gyroscope to track its motion.

This data is usually displayed in the free Lioness app on a chart, showing waves cresting and falling as the pelvic floor moves. But for this exhibit, Klinger, who has a background in art and visualization, found a way to animate a climax. The three pieces here depict different women who orgasm in different ways — whether it’s someone who builds slowly and then has an intense release, or a person who climaxes quickly but not as deeply.

Each piece in Artgasm shows the pelvic floor contractions, represented by a circle in the middle that expands and contracts. The dots in the background represent the vibration intensity — the more dots there are the stronger the vibration, while the rings surrounding the inner circle show how the vibrator itself is moving. When the person is climaxing, the background flashes different colors.

It’s easy to dismiss Artgasm as crass or unnecessary, but the individual art pieces offer a way to at least attempt to talk about orgasms in a dignified, mature way. Many women struggle to talk about what they like in the bedroom, and some might not even have the vocabulary to express what exactly turns them on. Lioness plans to add the ability for its users to create their own orgasm artwork, so in a few months you may be able to see what it looks like when you orgasm, too. When you can see what’s causing a person to respond the way they do, you can better understand how to pleasure yourself or your partner. The world would be a much happier place if more of us knew how to orgasm more consistently.

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

Facebook will focus on friends over publishers in the News Feed

Facebook just announced that it will make sweeping changes to the News Feed, the primary place where users find content on the social network. Over the next few months, users will see “more from your friends, family and groups” and ” less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media,” so says CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company says that it has heard from users that the so-called “public content” is crowding out “personal moments” that the Facebook platform was built on.

Zuckerberg notes that “it’s easy to understand how we got here,” saying that there’s been an explosion of video and other types of public content that has “exploded” on Facebook in recent years. Because of that, he said that “the balance of what’s in News Feed has shifted away from the most important thing Facebook can do — help us connect with each other.” As such, it’s time to re-balance what people see when they visit the site.

Zuckerberg cited a recent study the company conducted about how using Facebook can correlate to your moods. Specifically, the study indicated that when using social media to make connections with people they care about, people come away feeling good about themselves. Conversely, passive reading of articles and watching videos can provide the opposite effect. Zuckerberg notes that’s the case even if the content in question is entertaining and informative.

Developing…

Source: Facebook