CES 2017

Snapchat's Spectacles may have given wearable cameras the consumer-acceptance Google Glass never had, but a far more capable set of specs could steal their thunder. Vuzix - which has been pushing head-mounted displays for several years now, though primarily to enterprise users and developers - brought its latest glasses to CES this week, the Blade 3000. While at first glance they might look like regular glasses, they're actually outfitted with a transparent display.

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So far, there's been no lack of autonomous cars at CES, but BMW is taking things in a different direction with its i Inside Future concept. While the concept is steeped in a future where autonomous cars are the norm, it has little to do with the technology that will make these cars go. Instead, this "sculpture," as BMW is calling it, deals entirely with what our car interiors could look like once we make the jump to fully autonomous car.

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The CES expo isn't usually the place for big video game announcement, but Nvidia’s presentation saw not only the debut of a Mass Effect: Andromeda trailer with two minutes of new gameplay footage, but also confirmation of the game's long-awaited release date. Developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts revealed that the sci-fi RPG will come to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 21st, with a March 23rd release for those in Europe.

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Misfit has announced a new smartwatch called Vapor, a wearable with a fully round 1.39-inch AMOLED display with a 326ppi resolution and a ‘vibrant color palette,’ according to the company. This smartwatch packs a bunch of features into its tiny body, including sensors like an altimeter, heart rate sensor, accelerometer, GPS, and gyroscope. There are also the expected features including a microphone and health tracking.

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As was rumored as far back as October, LG has essentially admitted that its take on the modular smartphone with last year's G5 hasn't panned out, and it will be moving away from the strategy with the upcoming LG G6. Fortunately the company isn't giving up on smartphones altogether after the G5 and its add-on "Friends" modules flopped with consumers, with LG's Chief Technologist Skott Ahn telling the Wall Street Journal that it's "not something we would consider."

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At CES 2017 today, Western Digital's SanDisk brand announced two new high-speed mobile storage products, including a microSD card and a USB flash drive. The first is the 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card Premium Edition, the first such card to meet the new Application Performance Class 1 (A1) standard. With this microSD card, smartphone users can take advantage of not just increased storage capacity, but greatly improved speed for loading apps and saving media.

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The Razer Project Valerie laptop has three displays - and all three are really, truly dedicated to gaming. Each of these displays is connected to the base computer, creating a laptop that's thicker than the company's standard Razer Blade, but all the more versatile as a result. While this notebook isn't the sort we'll be trusting around clumsy miscreants while engaged, the hardware used to make this project a reality is well worth the gander.

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At CES 2017 this week, running shoe company New Balance revealed its first fitness-focused smartwatch, the RunIQ. Designed in partnership with Intel, the wearable is powered by Google's Android Wear software and pairs common smartwatch functionality with a number of running-centric features. Priced at $300, the RunIQ is available for pre-order now and is scheduled to begin shipping on February 1st.

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Sony says that today’s music is mostly characterized by “heavy-hitting bass lines and dropping beats.” That means you’ll need speakers that can handle those adequately, not exactly the domain of headphones, especially in-ear pieces. Not so, says Sony. At least not for its EXTRA BASS headphones. It is introducing four new such headsets at CES 2017, two wireless, one wired, and one in-ear. All with deep bass notes, convenient smartphone integration and, in the case of one, even noise cancellation.

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Huawei's Mate 9 originally launched back in November, but has only been available in parts of Europe and Asia until now. That changes on Friday, January 6th, as the 5.9-inch phablet is finally launching in the US. Not only that, but it will come pre-installed with an app that lets users access Amazon Alexa, marking the first smartphone partnership for the cloud-based voice assistant.

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If you ever needed proof that Android Wear is still alive, Casio just gave one. Somewhat. Almost exactly year after it announced its first smartwatch, the WSD-F10, the famed watch maker is announcing its second Smart Outdoor Watch, the WSD-F20. And while the big new feature here, at least as far as hardware is concerned, is the addition of GPS functionality, smartwatch enthusiasts might be a bit more interested in its software. That’s because the WSD-F20 is coming with the already delayed and somewhat doubted Android Wear 2.0.

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The bar for gaming PCs is being set higher and higher each year, faster than some gamers can catch up with. But just because your still fully functional PC doesn’t meet a game’s minimum requirements doesn’t mean you have to give up on gaming. And just because you don’t have a PC at all doesn’t mean you’ll have to miss out on PC titles. NVIDIA is proposing a middle ground called GeForce NOW, which, for a fee, gives gamers, whether on PCs, Macs, or even Android-based SHIELD, the ability to play some of the biggest PC titles. All without installing anything other than the GeForce NOW app.

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