Sennheiser’s latest wireless earbuds are an alternative to Beats X

High-quality audio company Sennheiser introduced new wraparound Bluetooth earbuds to its lineup to compete with Apple’s AirPods and Beats X. The company’s CX 6.00BT model features an integrated microphone, a three-button remote and six hours of battery life, and will be available this month for $100.

The CX 6.00 has a few unique tricks, like the ability to pair with two devices at once (so you can listen to audio from your phone and computer simultaneously, say) and support for 3-way calling. Otherwise, Sennheiser is introducing another pair of cans at CES: The HD 820, an update for the company’s lauded HD 800 line of headphones. The key new feature are discs of Gorilla Glass that cup the outside of each can to allegedly reflect escaping sound back toward ‘absorber chambers’ to minimize resonance. This audio ambrosia doesn’t come cheap, though: The HD 820 will retail for $2,400 in early summer.

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

Sony’s mid-range Xperia XA2 and XA2 Ultra are still all about the cameras

CES hasn’t been much of a smartphone show in recent years, but don’t tell Sony that. Rather than save the goods for Mobile World Congress, the company decided to reveal a trio of new Xperias meant to spice up its existing line of mid-range devices before the show officially kicks off.

First up is the Xperia XA2, which blends Sony’s classic Xperia aesthetic with one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 630 chipsets and 3GB of RAM. Unlike last year’s XA1, Sony’s sequel packs a 5.2-inch display running at 1080p — a much-needed bump in resolution that hopefully won’t affect the bottom line too much. And since the screen is slightly bigger than the XA1’s, that means the tweaked build of Android 8.0 here gets a little extra room to breathe.

Sony’s cameras have always been one of the biggest reasons to buy an Xperia, so it’s little surprise the company went with one of its impressive 23-megapixel sensors with hybrid autofocus and support for 4K video recording plus 120fps slow motion shooting. Low-light performance should also be at the very least respectable thanks to the camera’s ability to shoot at up to ISO 12,800. Flip the phone over and you’ll find an 8-megapixel wide angle camera with a 120-degree wide-angle lens just for good measure.

Curiously, the XA2 — along with every other phone Sony announced today — features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. That normally wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, but this shift in design is notable because of Sony’s historical inability to include fingerprint sensors in its US devices. Not so anymore: every version of the XA2 will have fingerprint sensors, and for that we’re grateful.

The XA2 Ultra, meanwhile, is a fascinating variation on a theme. It uses the same Snapdragon 630 chipset as the regular XA2, but instead pairs it with 4GB of RAM, either 32 or 64GB of internal storage and (most importantly) a much bigger 6-inch, full HD screen. And just above that display? Two front-facing cameras: the 8-megapixel wide-angle camera the XA2 uses plus a 16-megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization to ensure those selfies come out just right. It’s otherwise identical to its little brother, save for a slightly larger, 3,580 mAh battery — a nice bump to be sure, but we’ll soon see how it copes with that more expansive screen.

Rounding out the lineup is the more modest Xperia L2, which runs with a (currently unspecified) quad-core chipset clocked at 1.5GHz, along with 3GB of RAM and up to 32GB of storage. Beyond that, the trade-offs really become apparent: the L2’s 5.5-inch screen might be bigger than the XA2’s, but it only runs at 720p. It’s also going to ship with Android 7.1.1 Nougat onboard, not to mention a considerably less impressive 13-megapixel main camera.

None of these new devices have final price tags attached to them yet, but it won’t be long before Sony makes its revelations — all three phones are slated for launch this month.

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

Wearable home theater lets you see what’s outside

Home theater headsets have come a long way, but there’s still a common problem: they tend to dominate your face. It’s hard to know when someone wants your attention unless they tap on your shoulder. You might not be quite so cut off in the future, though. Kopin and Pico Interactive have unveiled a wearable home theater prototype, the Eagle, that promises the equivalent of an 80-inch screen while giving you better awareness of the outside world. You probably wouldn’t want to walk with this on your head, but it could give you a peek at an approaching person before they say hello.

Not surprisingly, the displays are key. Eagle revolves around a pair of newly unveiled 0.49-inch OLED screens that may be limited to 720p, but pump out a high 1,000 nits of brightness while consuming relatively little power. This doesn’t appear to be a convertible design like Avegant’s Glyph, though, so it won’t do as much good if you only want to listen to music.

As it stands, you’ll be waiting a while to try it — if you can try it at all. Pico is “initially” planning to release the finished version of Eagle in China through a subsidiary, and there’s no mention of whether or not it’ll be available elsewhere. Think of this more as a peek at how wearable displays are shrinking instead of something you’re likely to wear.

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

Source: Kopin (1), (2)

AMD talks details on second-gen Ryzen chips, teases Vega for mobile

AMD sought to start 2018 strong with an event that came just before CES began. The announcements include details on Ryzen’s second generation, new Ryzen and Vega mobile chips, and the company’s roadmap through 2020.

Ryzen takes a bow with its second generation

It seems like Ryzen was announced just yesterday, but AMD isn’t taking a break. Instead, it’s leaping right into the second generation of Ryzen. Now, don’t get too excited – this isn’t Ryzen 2, but instead a second generation of the original. That means the changes aren’t extreme. But neither is the wait! You’ll see these chips arrive as early as April of 2018.

Still, the second generation of Ryzen makes some notable improvements. It’s built on a new 12-nanometer production process (Ryzen is 14nm), which should net some improvements in efficiency. It’ll also offer Precision Boost 2, a series of technologies that try to optimize the processor’s performance and power draw. It improves over Precision Boost with a more “opportunistic algorithm” and more granular power stepping. Or, to put it simply, the processor should run faster and for longer.

The second generation of Ryzen will launch alongside a new X470 chipset. It’ll still use the same AM4 socket, as promised, so owners of the older X370 chipset can upgrade to the new processors. You’ll also be able to use Ryzen second generation with some old motherboards. AMD says it’ll issue a “AMD Ryzen Desktop 2000 Ready” certification, so you’ll know which motherboards support the second-gen out of the box.

Little was said about the X470 chipset’s features. That information will be revealed closer to its launch.

Ryzen 3 chips get some help from Vega

AMD wasn’t ready to talk about any specific second-generation Ryzen parts, but it did unveil two new budget-friendly, first-gen options. It’s a pair of APUs: The Ryzen 5 2400G and the Ryzen 3 2200G, each with Vega graphics.

These chips will launch on February 12.

Processor
Ryzen 5 2400G
Ryzen 3 2200G
Boost Clock/Base Clock
3.9GHz/3.6GHz
3.7GHz/3.5GHz
Cores/Threads
4/8
4/4
Compute Units
11
8
Price
$170
$100

These are extremely affordable parts – the Ryzen 3 2200G is only $100. That gets you 8 Compute Units, while the Ryzen 5 2400G has 11. That’s not a lot. The Vega 56 and 64 are named after the number of compute units on each. But hey, even the 2400G is only $170, so what were you expecting?

AMD says the Ryzen 5 2400G will offer performance similar to an Nvidia GT 1030 graphics card, so most games should be playable at 1080p. The company’s even bold enough to call it the “world’s most powerful graphics on a desktop processor.” Which, of course, is accurate — AMD’s only real competition in that arena is itself. The chips will also be unlocked, like all Ryzen hardware, so owners can overclock the snot out of them, potentially netting gains of up to 40 percent with the right settings and a bit of luck.

The original Ryzen gets a price drop

While the second-gen is incoming, the original Ryzen processors are getting a price drop — well, most of them, at least. This includes a $100 drop on the Ryzen Threadripper 1900X, to $449, and a $150 price drop on the Ryzen 7 1800X, to $350.

Processor
Original Price
New Price
Ryzen Threadripper 1900X
$550
$450
Ryzen 7 1800X
$500
$350
Ryzen 7 1700X
$400
$310
Ryzen 7 1700
$330
$300
Ryzen 5 1600X
$250
$220
Ryzen 5 1600
$220
$190
Ryzen 5 1500X
$190
$175

Ryzen was already considered affordable, so a price drop is nice to see. The fact Threadripper now starts at $450 is a bit nuts. Remember, too — AMD has promised not to change sockets for at least a couple more years, so if you build a discounted rig now, you should be able to upgrade soon.

These price drops should be going into effect over the week of CES 2018, and may even be live by the time you read this.

Ryzen 3 mobile chips target $500 laptops

Laptops will see a pair of new APUs based on the original Ryzen architecture. These should appear in laptops coming over the first quarter of 2018, though AMD didn’t mention any specific laptop design wins to mention at its event.

Here’s the scoop on the two chips:

Processor
Ryzen 3 2300U
Ryzen 3 2200U
Boost Clock/Base Clock
3.4GHz/2GHz
3.4Ghz/2.5GHz
 Cores/Threads
4/4
2/4
 Compute Units
6
3

You don’t have to study these long to figure out they’re meant for inexpensive systems. The company mentioned it expects the first laptops with Ryzen 3 2300U to come in around $500. That’s not much at all for a quad-core laptop with Vega graphics.

Still, it’ll be wise to keep expectations in check. The Ryzen 3 2300U only has six compute units and the Ryzen 3 2200U has just three. By comparison, the Intel 8th-gen Core with Radeon RX Vega comes in flavors with 20 or 24 compute units. Laptops based on Ryzen 3 mobile will play games smoothly, but most titles will need to see settings reduced to low, and the most demanding games may only be enjoyable at resolutions below 1080p.

AMD

AMD also has plans to introduce Ryzen Pro for mobile in the second quarter of 2018. These chips will support enterprise-grade features, such as Windows 10 Enterprise support and a AES 128-bit encryption engine. There’s no pricing or release date for them yet.

Vega for mobile is such a tease

AMD launched into its event with a big announcement: AMD Vega mobile. The crowd went wild! Unfortunately, the company’s intent to produce it is all we really know. AMD says it’ll target ultrathin workstations and ultrathin gaming laptops, but we doubt you needed a press release to figure that out.

The tease was made more unbearable with the announcement of Radeon Instinct, a version of Vega that’ll target machine learning. It’ll be built on a 7nm production process and, if all goes well, should be AMD’s first product built on that process.

Otherwise, we’re in the dark. We don’t know anything about pricing, availability, or how AMD expects Vega for mobile to stack up against competitors. All we do know is that Radeon Instinct will begin sampling — that is, shipping to PC makers so they can finish product designs — sometime in 2018.

AMD’s road forward

Aside from the truckload of info you’ve already sorted through, AMD said a bit about its roadmap for the future. It’s all vague, of course, but it does offer a glimpse of where Ryzen and Vega are going.

On the CPU side, AMD expects the second-generation Ryzen in April, followed by Ryzen 2 in 2019, and Ryzen 3 in 2020. Interestingly, Ryzen 2 and 3 are both planned for a seven-nanometer production process. That’s a big leap from the 14nm process used in Ryzen!

AMD

GPUs are quicker still because, as mentioned, a seven-nanometer version of Vega is expected this year. It’ll be followed by a GPU architecture refreshed called Navi in 2019, and an unnamed next-generation architecture in 2020.

This is undoubtedly an aggressive roadmap. It’s not crazy to think AMD might deliver consumer CPUs built on a seven-nanometer production node before Intel – if all goes to plan. Whatever happens, it’s good to see AMD plans to keep the pedal on the floor.

Editors’ Recommendations

• AMD’s upcoming Ryzen refresh won’t require a new motherboard, company confirms
• AMD crams desktop performance into ultra-thin laptops with its new Ryzen APUs
• Acer Swift 3 gets the AMD APU treatment, adding power to the bargain machine
• AMD is more than the Threadripper. Here are the best AMD CPUs on any budget
• Intel’s ‘Hades Canyon’ NUC packs gaming hardware into just 1.2 liters

Cheap, fast laptop gaming is finally becoming reality at CES 2018

Unless it’s specifically designated as a gaming laptop, you shouldn’t expect to be able to play games on a modern notebook laptop.

Meanwhile, if you buy any modern smartphone or tablet, you’ll end up with a device that’s fantastic not just for communication — but also entertainment. Today’s mobile gear can play games beautifully, with crisp graphics and surprisingly long battery life. The release of Civilization VI for the iPad Pro proved the point. With a starting price of $650, the iPad Pro isn’t unaffordable, and you’re gonna have a bad time if you try the game on a similarly priced laptop. It’s easier and less expensive to play Civilization VI on iPad Pro than on a laptop — and that sucks.

CES 2018, however, gives us reason to hope that’ll change. AMD and Intel have announced new chips that bring capable gaming performance to lower price points with less power draw. These new chips just might make capable laptop graphics the rule rather the exception.

AMD and Intel team up for new solutions

AMD deserves most of the credit for this new wave of affordable notebook graphics. It built mobile APUs — its term for a chip that pairs a CPU with a GPU — for years, but saw no success because its CPU technology was outdated. Now, though, AMD has a successful CPU in Ryzen and an equally attractive GPU in Vega. Pair them on a chip — and ta-da! You’ve a recipe for budget gaming bliss.

Ryzen mobile first arrived last year, but only in a beefy, top-tier trim that appeared in only a small number of notebooks like the HP Envy x360. CES 2018 adds Ryzen 3 mobile chips to the mix. Though not nearly as quick as the models already released, they will bring Vega-based graphics to systems sold below $500. You’ll see a number laptop designs featuring these chips appear in the first half of 2018 from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and HP. A few will be new, but many will be refreshes that add an AMD alternative to a previously Intel-dominated line-up.

Intel is also an important part of this story, thanks to the company’s unusual courtship of AMD. At CES 2018, it introduced four new chips that combine an Intel Core processor with Radeon RX Vega graphics.

They’re not cut-rate versions, either. According to Intel, the most powerful versions should be stiff competition for Nvidia’s GTX 1060 Max-Q. That means almost all games will be playable at 1080p resolution and high or maximum detail. Of course, a chip that capable isn’t likely to appear in affordable laptops, but it will appear in thin laptops and 2-in-1s that previously had to settle for Intel integrated graphics. The leap from Intel UHD 620 to Vega is sure to deliver a huge boost in game performance.

Nvidia, still in the mix

While AMD and Intel came out swinging at CES 2018 with big, early announcements, Nvidia shouldn’t be forgotten. On the contrary, it’s also in the mix, thanks to the humble GeForce MX150.

Nvidia’s most affordable mobile GPU didn’t see much fanfare at its launch. The company didn’t even bestow it the “GT” brand label, nevermind the “GTX” prefix that denotes a serious gaming GPU. Yet the MX150 has impressed, significantly improving on the old 940MX and, as a result, raising the bar on budget gaming overall. The MX150 can smoothly play games like Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront II at 1080p and medium detail, and you can find it in the Acer Aspire E15 at just $600.

The MX150 popped up in more laptops at CES 2018. Acer stuffed it in the Switch 7 Black Edition to create a thin 2-in-1 with surprisingly excellent graphics performance, Samsung put it in a new Notebook 9 , and Lenovo has placed it in a variety of laptops including the ThinkPad T480s. These are all examples of serious, professional laptops that also lets you load up a round of PUBG when you need a break.

We should note, too, that Nvidia’s core graphics architecture is near due for a refresh. The MX150 actually represents the tail-end of Nvidia’s current hardware (not an exciting fresh chip), and that bodes well for what we’ll see in late 2018.

Finally, laptop gaming for everyone

The laptops that debuted at CES are just the beginning of the wave. Affordable notebooks with powerful graphics remain the exception to the rule even now, at CES 2018. However, there’s finally a broad foundation of affordable, efficient GPUs that system builders can use to change that.

Once people figure out it’s possible to buy a budget laptop that doesn’t completely suck for gaming, they’ll flock to what’s good, and put the bad ole’ days of sucktastic notebook graphics to an end.  

Editors’ Recommendations

• AMD talks details on second-gen Ryzen chips, teases Vega for mobile
• Best 17-inch laptops
• AMD crams desktop performance into ultra-thin laptops with its new Ryzen APUs
• Why your gaming laptop’s GPU doesn’t matter as much as you think
• Acer’s new laptops include a liquid-cooled 2-in-1, $250 fanless Chromebook

65 inches. 4K. 120Hz. Nvidia’s BFGD is all the monitor you will ever need

Nvidia tossed out a few morsels of what’s to come from the company in 2018 during its press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Sunday. The biggest news for gamers is an upcoming family of gaming-focused displays with big screens and big ambitions. In a sense, the show marks Nvidia’s official entry into the living room 4K display market, even though it’s made a mark in the 4K set-top box sector. We’re blown away by the big news, and we simply can’t get enough of using the word “big” in the same paragraph.

Also on Nvdia’s CES 2018 menu is an update to its GeForce Now game-streaming subscription service, and a few updates to its GeForce Experience desktop client. The streaming aspect will be good news for Windows 10 and MacOS gamers alike, while players looking for more flair in their games may find the announcements regarding GeForce Experience and Nvidia’s upcoming drivers a refreshing change from the norm. Throw it all together, and Nvidia has a rather tasty buffet of gaming news at this year’s technology show.

Big displays with built-in Nvidia Shield

The meat of Nvidia’s CES 2018 blowout is a new family of displays sporting massive 65-inch screens, Ultra HD HDR resolutions at 120Hz, and G-Sync support. If that’s not enough to whet your whistle, these BFGDs (Big Format Gaming Displays) are based on Nvidia’s Android TV-powered Shield platform. That means you have integrated access to the GeForce Now streaming platform, Nvidia’s in-home GameStream service, and Android apps only served up on the Shield storefront.

“At the heart of BFGDs is the latest G-Sync HDR technology that synchronizes the display’s 120Hz refresh rate to that of the game at every moment in time,” Nvidia says. “This G-Sync Variable Refresh Rate technology delivers a highly responsive, smooth, tear-free, immersive gaming experience unmatched by any display of this size.”

If you’re not familiar with G-Sync technology, it synchronizes the refresh rate of the display with the frames-per-second output of a GeForce graphics card or discrete chip. This process eliminates visual screen tearing when the graphics chip’s performance fluctuates while rendering on-screen action. Software-based Vsync can help, but it’s known to cause stuttering and input lag. G-Sync is a native method embedded in Nvidia’s hardware.

Manufacturers to produce these monster Shield-based displays include Acer, Asus, and HP. All three will showcase their displays during the show, including the HP Omen X 65 that’s slated to arrive this fall for a yet-to-be-determined price. All models will have a bundled Shield remote and game controller for playing Android games and managing apps via the Android TV operating system.

Finally, all displays falling under the BFGD banner will have a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, support for the DCI-P3 color space, and fast response times. Google’s Assistant is also a major player in these displays, giving you full control of content by using just your voice. The G-Sync HDR component supports video playback at their native framerates, such as 24 and 25 FPS formats.

GeForce Now officially supports Uplay

GeForce Now first began as a subscription service for Shield-branded devices. For $8 per month, you can stream a select library of 56 games to most every PC with an internet connection. All the work is performed in Nvidia’s cloud, thus the Shield devices merely serve as receivers. The company also sells games through this service, such as the remastered BioShock trilogy and Batman: Arkham Knight, so you can stream and play at any time even if you don’t have a subscription.

Nvidia began testing the service on Windows 10 and MacOS last summer, but the beta came with an awesome twist: a virtual desktop with support for game libraries not originating from Nvidia’s cloud. The initial third-party support consisted of the Steam and Battle.net platforms, but now the service includes titles purchased on Ubisoft’s Uplay platform. Supported titles include Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, Tom Clancy’s The Division, For Honor, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Right now, not every PC game sold on these three third-party platforms will run on GeForce Now. Optimized games include recent hits like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Overwatch, Prey, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Rocket League. Other optimized favorites include Diablo III, Half-Life 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. There are loads more supported games that are not yet optimized for the best streaming experience.

“GeForce Now gets you playing faster than ever, as the system maintenance tasks are handled for you,” says Nvidia’s Phil Eisler. “Patches and driver updates are installed automatically, and cloud saves are enabled for cross-platform play. GeForce NOW receives regular updates, including service enhancements, new games, and additional data centers, the tenth most recently opening in Amsterdam.”

Download the new GeForce Now client for Windows 10 and MacOS here. Right now, it’s available as a free beta, but expect a subscription service to emerge sometime before the end of 2018.

GeForce Experience update

In addition to the display and GeForce Now news, Nvidia also revealed features heading to the GeForce Experience desktop client. For starters, Nvidia introduced a new feature called Freestyle on the driver level that adds post-processing filters to more than 100 games. You can set these filters to automatically load when launching a game, or simply access the GeForce in-game overlay to apply or change a filter. There are currently 15 in all with 38 different settings. Here they are:

Black and White
Contrast
Half Tone
Retro
Depth of Field
Color
Details
Mood
Sepia
Special FX
Colorblind
Exposure
Night Mode
Vignette
Adjustments

“Freestyle’s more serious uses include a colorblind mode that makes it easier for colorblind gamers to differentiate between colors,” the company said. “Gamers can even use night mode, which reduces blue color, so users can sleep better after a night of gaming.”

Continuing with the filter-based focus, Nvidia revealed that Ansel received eight new filters, along with the ability to stack filters for taking the ultimate in-game photograph. If you’re not familiar with this feature, it freezes the game state without actually pausing the game so you can run around with a virtual camera and take photos like a tourist in the Big Apple. You can adjust the camera to any position, apply filters, switch on HDR depth, and create 360-degree images.

According to Nvidia, this feature also received a huge user interface “makeover,” but details are sparse. You’ll have to see for yourself when Freestyle and the Ansel update arrive as a beta in the GeForce Experience client on January 9 (v3.12), and the Game Ready Driver release 390. You’ll need to enable “Experimental Features” within the GeForce Now client to see the updated components.

Finally, Fortnite Battle Royal, Crossout, and Elex will soon include support for ShadowPlay Highlights. This is a tool for capturing your greatest gaming moments in video and screenshots for sharing using the GeForce Experience client. Although you can capture any moment during your gaming sessions, a highlight is triggered on the game side, telling the ShadowPlay platform to automatically record and save an epic boss battle or an inhuman kill streak.

Editors’ Recommendations

• You can’t beat HTC’s new bundle packing Vive, the GTX 1070, and ‘Fallout 4 VR’
• Sony XBR-A1E Series (XBR65A1E) review
• ‘StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty’ is now free to play, throws shade at ‘Battlefront II’
• Intel promises its new CPUs will match Nvidia’s potent GTX 1060, thanks to AMD
• Who makes the best 4K streamer? Apple, Roku, Amazon, and more square off

NVIDIA’s new 65-inch 4K gaming displays run Android TV

Well this is surprising.

NVIDIA’s stepping into the gaming display space, partnering with a bunch of companies — Acer, Asus and HP to start — to release their own version of a BFGD, or Big Format Gaming Display. These 65-inch gaming displays are aimed at hardcore PC gamers who want a huge screen, and have impressive specs like a 4K resolution, HDR, as low as 1ms latency, and a 120Hz refresh rate.

Interestingly, they also have a full-on Android TV experience built in.

The pitch is that the hardcore gamers will come to the BFGD for the best experience when they hook up their PC and play, but then when they’re done with that and want to take a break they flip over to a full NVIDIA Shield Android TV experience:

This critically-acclaimed device, that before now was only available as a separate box, runs at up to 4K, in HDR, and has a whole host of apps and features. For streaming there’s support for Amazon, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and many other key channels; for home and remote playback there’s best-in-class Plex and Kodi support; for extra gaming fun there are Android games and exclusive conversions of classic titles, such as Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3; for remote PC playing there’s GeForce NOW and GameStream; for relaxed user control there’s voice-powered Google Assistant; and for future household tech there’s SHIELD’s Smart Home technologies.

So not only do you get the benefit of having an Android TV experience, but you get the NVIDIA version of that — that means Amazon Video, GeForce Now streaming and GameStream streaming. Presumably this is rolling with the same specs as a standalone NVIDIA Shield Android TV box, which is still the industry leader. A few other TV manufacturers have gone with Android TV for their default interface, but this is interesting to see as a value-add for something that is primarily focused on having the right specs for optimal gaming performance.

Because this is a partnership deal, NVIDIA is leaving it to Acer, Asus and HP to make their own announcements about BFGD releases. So we don’t know details about availability or pricing. ASUS has announced that its version will be the ROG Swift PG65, but has no details beyond that.

RightEye’s EyeQ system uses eye-tracking to uncover brain injury

There’s more to your eyesight than just whether or not you can see. Often, your vision can be a window to other health issues, like autism, Parkinson’s and even whether you have a concussion. That’s the idea behind RightEye’s EyeQ system, which aims to revolutionize the optometrist office with eye-tracking tech to not only diagnose issues, but to offer therapeutic measures to correct them as well. At CES 2018, the company released a brand new all-in-one EyeQ terminal that incorporates a PC, a monitor as well as a Tobii eye-tracking camera that promises to do all of that and more.

According to CEO and co-founder Adam Gross, EyeQ has already been in use in schools, certain clinics and hospitals, and is also in use by Major League Baseball to test their athletes. Aside from having a new terminal, RightEye is also introducing a slew of different EyeQ tests that can assess everything from Brain Health to whether or not you have autism. One particularly useful test is called Sports Vision, which can immediately figure out if you’re still suffering from concussion symptoms. There’s also a Reading Evaluation test that children can take to figure out if their reading problems stem from actual vision issues or if it’s more psychological.

I sat down to try one of the tests out, and it’s one that simply asks you to follow a dot around as well as to shoot spaceships out of the sky. The RightEye spokesperson I talked to said this was to test reaction times as well as eye movement. I managed to pass the test with flying colors, though the stark lights in the Unveiled trade show meant the eye tracker didn’t react as quickly as it should.

Gross tells me that RightEye already has their legacy systems installed in almost 200 different locations, most of them domestically. It hopes to release its newer all-in-one EyeQ terminal in February of this year.

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

Mymanu Clik+ offers real-time translation in 37 languages

Mymanu’s Clik+ headphones come with a big promise: live translation between 37 languages. We saw something similar recently from Google and Bragi, but both of those are operating as a middleman, serving up the audio with an app doing the heavy lifting. Let’s be clear, Mymanu also uses an app for translation, but the Click is designed to bring us one step closer to the app-free translation device we really want.

Prototypes of the Clik have been around for a while, but here at CES we were able to finally test it for ourselves. After a successful Indiegogo campaign last fall, the headset is poised to go into production, with an expected delivery date of March this year.

When we asked how the translation worked, we were told that it’s a combination of the app, the cloud, and when Clik is involved (the app is available on its own), there is a processor inside that improves the experience. We tested the service with one of our Chinese speaking editors, and she claims the translation from English to Chinese was very accurate. Going from Chinese to English was still functional, but less accurate (possibly in part due to a noisy show floor and crawling WiFi).

During our demo, we needed two phones and the headset to have a two-way conversation, though Mymanu tells us that on release, you’ll only need the headset and your phone, so talking with people won’t require them to do anything other than listen to the output of your phone. Group conversations will also be possible between multiple users.

Beyond the language features, Clik is also a regular pair of headphones. Much like Bragi, the Clik buds use NFMI to connect to each other, which offers a more reliable link than Bluetooth. In our brief demo, audio quality sounded promising, with punchy bass and clear mid- and high frequencies, though we’d want to give them a much more detailed test before we can truly land on a verdict.

Mymanu is confident it can meet its March deadline, so if you’re interested you might want to think about ordering a set now. Currently, the Clik can be snagged for $239 (pre-order) with the price rising to $300 once it hits the shelves. For the cash, you’ll get a charging case (which can also charge your phone). The buds themselves should offer about six hours of use between charges.

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

Source: Mymanu

ThirdEye’s AR glasses come with massive swappable batteries

I know what you’re thinking, and yes — these are some dorky-looking AR glasses. What they lack in style, however, they arguably make up for in battery life. The ThirdEye X1 packs two hot-swappable batteries with a combined 2400 mAh charge — more than any of its competitors, apparently. That means the glasses, which project a 90-inch virtual “screen” roughly 10 feet in front of you, can last all day provided you have plenty of fresh batteries. At CES 2018, I was able to put them on and get a brief glimpse of its AR capabilities — unfortunately, though, the team at the booth could summon little more than a misty loading screen. (Lame.)

The team says its glasses are unique because it’s developing both the hardware and software in parallel. They’re meant primarily for enterprise customers — think engineers, doctors and teachers — who might need to wear them for long periods. The company says it could have potential as a consumer product too, however. A sports broadcaster, for instance, might offer them to subscribers who want a big-screen (and some day, possibly multi-screen) viewing experience at home. Pricing is based on the client and their software needs — if you want a vanilla set of X1 glasses, however, they’ll run you somewhere between $800 and $1000 this March.

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