Last week, Sin City turned into Win City for geeks from across the globe, as the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) hit town. Over 3200 of the world’s leading technology innovators turned up to show off their latest gadgets, giving us a glimpse of what’s in store for tech-hungry consumers. And they didn’t disappoint.
Here’s a few of our highlights from the show:
Ditch the pocket
Wearable technology isn’t necessarily new – we remember flicking through our mums’ catalogues at home and wishing a little too hard that Santa would bring us a Casio TV-remote calculator watch for Christmas. We reminisce about the pre-O2 days when our friends could reach us on our Swatch Beep pager watches. Those were the days.
Over the last year or two, though, wearable tech has advanced in leaps – innovations such as the Jawbone UP lifestyle tracker and the Samsung Galaxy GEAR Smartwatch are just a few of the awesome gadgets that can be clipped on to your various body parts. Of course, Google Glass caused quite a stir in 2013, but even now, we’re only scratching the surface. This year’s CES showed just how much potential lies in wearable technology, with Intel even showcasing Edison – an entire dual core computer, the size of an SD card, that will be used to power all manner of on-body gadgetry.
Flat out – dig those curves
This year’s show heralded a new era for screens, big and small. Big hitters like Samsung, Sony and LG all touted their curved TV screens, and Samsung even showed off their upcoming ‘bendable TV’. Even smartphones got bent as Samsung got out the Galaxy Round and LG unveiled their G Flex Smartphone, with its curved screen and superhuman self-healing powers.
Does all this mean that flat screens are about to be consigned to the history books? We don’t think so – at least not for a while – but we have to admit, the curves are cute.
Home is where the Smart is
Intelligent homes are another rapidly-developing area of innovation. If all the gizmos at CES weren’t enough to prove this point, Google’s $3.2billion purchase of home automation start-up Nest Labs, completed in the few days since CES waved goodbye to the geeks, should be.
The show didn’t disappoint, with smart appliances like refrigerators, ovens, washing machines and vacuum cleaners just beginning to scratch the surface of home automation this year. Other areas of real development, like access control and lighting, were also on show.
What caught your eye at CES 2014? Let us know in the comments.
Image: cesweb.org
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