CES 2017 Announcements Wrap-up

As this year’s Consumer Electronics Show comes to a close, we have seen a lot of tech announced. Jaw-dropping tech, super useful tech and our fair share of meh! tech. CES 2017 was not as exciting as other years’, maybe that is because technology has become so complex that impressing people with new tech is a lot harder than it was a few years ago. Anyway, (in no particular order) here’s a short list of what we found to be interesting from CES 2017:

• CARS

As predicted and teased, CES has become Cars Electronics Show, and this year, there was no shortage of cars at CES – from Toyota’s Concept-i to Chrysler’s Portal minivan and even the Faraday’s FF91 that failed to start on stage. All the cars that were revealed at CES had a few things in common, they were either self-driving or electric. We even saw cars being equipped with smart assistants, such as Ford with Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home with Hyundai and even Cortana with BMWs. Seems like all these manufacturer’s are trying to catch up with the technology that Tesla has been showing us, well, I hope that all these cars won’t disappear into thin air, only to be seen on a stage somewhere else.

• Honda’s New Self-Balancing Motorcycle

This is actually a new concept, we have seen motorized self-balancing scooters but the self-balancing technology had not yet gotten to the much larger motorcycles, until now. At CES 2017, Honda is trying to defy the odds with its new Ride Assist technology. Rather than use gyroscopes for balance, which can add unwanted weight to a vehicle, Honda’s Ride Assist is based on and adapted from technology the company is already using in its ASIMO robot and UNI-MO self-balancing scooter. So, when the Honda motorcycle is moving less than three miles per hour, or is standing completely still, it’s able to enter ‘balance mode’ which sees the bike’s metal forks extend the front wheel away from the main body of the vehicle to provide greater stability. You can see how this works for yourself:

• Smartphones

Smartphones stopped being the focus of CES but this does not mean that we would not see, one or two smartphones unveiled during CES 2017. We saw the Blackberry “Mercury”, which has no official name yet, but was present as a sign that indeed blackberry is working on another android-powered smartphone. Nokia jumped back into the smartphone game with the Nokia 6 (runs android Nougat btw), Asus released quite a list of smartphones such as the Asus ZenPhone AR and ZenPhone Zoom which made quite a buzz, Samsung was not left behind, they announced the 2017 Galaxy A series of smartphones which come bundled with features that were previously only reserved for flagships (always-on display, water resistance and USB-C), Huawei was also not left behind, as they officially launched the Mate 9 (read our review here) in the US market. Huawei also announced a version of the Mate 9 that will come bundled with Amazon’s Alexa as the personal assistant, which sounds really cool if you ask me.

• Other Cool Tech

Razer Project Ariana

This is a 4K projector concept developed by Razor that expands your field of view in your favorite game by using the area around your gaming monitor as an extended screen. There is no better way to describe this product other than to let you see it for yourself:

This a product that will make all the gamers giggle with excitement, my only hope is that it actually gets to see the light of day.

Neonode Air Bar

Using your laptop is something standard, you use your hands to type and use the mouse/trackpad to interact with the UI. Apart from the people who already own touchscreen laptops, majority of us are those who have the traditional laptops. With Airbar, you can transform any laptop screen into a touchscreen. You can tap, swipe, pinch, and zoom like you would on your phone or tablet, all for a fraction of the price of a new device. The AirBar works by bouncing infrared light off your fingers, interpolating where your fingers touch the surface of the screen. Definitely, a genuine touchscreen is more precise in terms of multi-touch capabilities. But for those who want an inexpensive alternative, the AirBar is there for you.

There are a lot other tech that was announced, but this short list is what we thought was most interesting. To read more on our CES coverage, click here. If you were interested in any other tech that was announced during CES, tell us about it.