We're on the ground in Vegas at CES 2013. CES is typically an event which sees a lot of news and product announcements, but over the week, we'll also be bringing you original reporting and features. This is the place to find them all.
Jan 17, 2013
A modern gaming ecosystem emerges, with Microsoft gone and Sony silent
And yet, this sure was a great CES for gamers. We got the new high-powered Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa, and Snapdragon 800 chips, which are exciting in their own right, and Nvidia's Shield handheld gaming console to make use of this new-gen ARM power directly. Ouya makes a home console out of Tegra 3, and people seem to love it. After a long rumor cycle, Valve finally confirmed the Steam Box, which has the best shot yet of bringing PC games into the living room. And then there's Oculus Rift, which offers a revolution in how we play these games.
Read Article >These devices and technologies, all in their own way, reflect a shift in the game industry — one that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have yet to catch on to. These are devices and services that are built around the games people already have, or the ecosystems they already use, like Android and Steam, and making them better. The console model is about giving you new hardware, and expecting you to buy into that ecosystem to enjoy it.
Jan 16, 2013
Ultrabook, round two: can Intel control the future of the laptop?
There aren't many companies that can set a new direction for the entire computer industry. Right now, three come to mind: PC manufacturers march to the beat of Microsoft's Windows drum, and many follow Apple's design. The third is Intel, which influences the market behind the scenes with ever more powerful processors and aggressive marketing campaigns.
Read Article >In 2011, Intel told every PC manufacturer that it needed to have an answer to Apple's MacBook Air, and offered $300 million, among other persuasions, to help OEMs develop and market new designs. Intel called it the ultrabook, and specified a set of ultrabook requirements in terms of thickness, responsiveness, and battery life. The manufacturers complied. While some PC vendors champed at the bit by selling machines that were visually identical to existing ultrabooks but that didn't meet the specification, the new laptops still made a splash at first.
Jan 14, 2013
Microsoft just teased the next Xbox at CES
Microsoft didn't have a booth or even an official press event at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but that didn't stop the company from jumping on stage twice. CEO Steve Ballmer joined Qualcomm for its bizarre opening keynote, and more importantly Microsoft’s Chief Technology Strategy Officer, Eric Rudder, joined the Samsung keynote to showcase the IllumiRoom technology. Based on a combination of a Kinect for Windows camera and a projector, IllumiRoom combines the virtual and physical worlds of a TV and living room for true augmented reality.
Read Article >Microsoft claims IllumiRoom is a "proof-of-concept system," but the fit and finish of its promotional video, compared to the low production quality of typical Microsoft Research videos, makes me think otherwise. "The footage shown here is exactly what appeared in our lab without any special effects being added," said Rudder as he introduced the video last week. The demonstration starts with an actor commanding the Xbox to "go big," with a projection showing an Xbox console scanning the room before images are projected onto nearby walls. Microsoft didn't explain why it chose to demo IllumiRoom with Samsung, but the companies have previously worked together on PixelSense tables and the components for Microsoft's Surface tablet. Samsung manufactures a number of Pico projectors and has recently added the technology to its Galaxy Beam smartphone — suggesting it's in a position to offer the tech at a low-cost for the consumer market.
Jan 13, 2013
The Chinese Electronics Show: can China's biggest brands buy their way into America?
Huawei, Hisense, Changhong. These names are unfamiliar to Americans for now, but in a few years they will be as synonymous with consumer electronics as Sony and Samsung.
Read Article >That’s the party line out of China, at least, where major electronics makers seem to have simultaneously decided that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas would be their coming-out party.
Jan 13, 2013
Microsoft's partners fly the Windows 8 flag, but the future is Surface
Microsoft might not have been at CES this year, but its partners and OEMs were out in full force. A quiet showing from Redmond at a time when the company is trying to push Windows 8 to the world could be seen as an unusual move, but looking around the show this week it made a lot of sense. Why waste millions of dollars on a CES booth to promote Windows 8 when your struggling PC OEMs can do it for you?
Read Article >And that's exactly what happened. Sony had rows of Windows PCs with specific areas of focus on photography, applications, and more. While Samsung had an equally impressive range of Windows 8 devices and Panasonic unveiled a 20-inch 4K Windows 8 tablet. If last year's CES was a focus on Android tablets, this year was very much Windows despite Redmond's absence. It was hard to walk around the halls and not spot the recognizable Windows 8 Start Screen on a device in the distance. Perhaps the biggest guard of the Windows brand was Intel. Its usual booth in central hall was transformed into a Windows 8 showcase. Ultrabooks, tablets, and hybrids could all be found at the booth and presenters were schooling visitors on the advantages of Windows 8.
Jan 12, 2013
Heading home: here's what it takes to leave CES
First, the bad news: CES is ending. All the cool stuff on the show floor is being packed into crates, loaded into tractor trailers and shipped home. The television walls are coming down and the demos are being dismantled. By Tuesday, all this stuff will be somewhere else. And by now, it should be painfully clear that there's a lot of stuff at CES.
Read Article >Here are a few numbers to put everything in perspective. Before the first booth has been installed, the show floor has been equipped with 130 miles of electrical cable distributing enough power to light up over a thousand homes. There are electrical drops, massive tension-fabric signs and 30 miles of carpet roll. All of it was put up for CES — and in the next three days, it's all coming down.
Jan 11, 2013
I rode the ZBoard in Las Vegas and it changed my life
I'm something of an electric skateboard veteran. Last year at CES I rode the Board of Awesomeness, an electric skateboard that uses a Kinect and a Windows 8 tablet to function. This year at CES I had the opportunity to ride the ZBoard; an electric skateboard that works like a Segway — leaning forward makes you accelerate, and leaning back slows you down. The ZBoard is yet another Kickstarter success we've seen here at CES 2013, and it blew my mind.
Read Article >Jan 11, 2013
Invasion of the body trackers: take me to your leader
There's no doubt about it — CES 2013 marked the point where fitness- and health-tracking devices became a legitimate affair. The category until now has been dominated by a few success stories — Fitbit, FuelBand, and so on — and true to CES form we're seeing a lot more companies attempting to cash in. After all, "people in America, frankly, are really fat" as Fitbit CEO James Park told The Verge in an interview yesterday; the obesity problem has been a hot-button issue for decades, and companies and startups are now attempting to leverage the rise of smartphones to capitalize on the epidemic. According to Travis Bogard, VP of product for Jawbone which produces the Up fitness band, these devices make sense because "people know more about their iPhones than their health." But the majority of new products we've seen at this year's show have been me-too attempts bringing little to the table. What's the future of these devices — exciting new paradigm in personal data, or evolutionary dead end?
Read Article >The majority of these products are glorified pedometers. A simple accelerometer measures your movements with a fairly high degree of accuracy, but the magic happens in software; the data is synced to apps which convert it into useful information about the user's lifestyle, offering a picture of their activity over time. The differences between major competitors are mostly superficial. Fitbit makes tiny clip-on Bluetooth devices that track steps and sleep patterns, and just announced the wristband-style Flex. Jawbone's Up does the same thing, syncing with an iPhone via a physical plug. Nike's FuelBand is much the same, but loses the sleep-tracking functionality in favor of a dot matrix display and Bluetooth connectivity. All have mobile apps that convert the data into attractive graphs and charts. Are they cool? Sure. Are they unique ideas? Not in the slightest.
Jan 11, 2013
Body request: give me back my fitness data
At CES this year, a horde of companies brought devices that track every metric of fitness: steps, runs, weight, heartbeats, skin temperature, air quality, and even how fast you eat. Much of the choice seems to come down to ergonomics (wristband or beltclip?), and color (pink or blue or gray?), but there’s another important distinction that needs attention: does the data this device tracks belong to me, or to the maker?
Read Article >The answer is obvious. Naturally, information that’s tracked about my aerobic activity and caloric intake should belong to me. But there’s an alarming number of fitness device manufacturers who have taken a walled garden approach — they want you to not just use their device, but also their proprietary syncing solution, and their app, and their website, and their other devices… and they want you to like it.
Jan 11, 2013
Bitcoin punks go corporate at CES
The controversial digital currency Bitcoin has a display at CES. It's a good-sized booth, featuring a giant picture of a smiling woman holding an iPhone running a Bitcoin app. Crystal Campbell, a waitress who works at an Orlando restaurant that accepts Bitcoin, greets curious conference-goers with a friendly but not overeager smile. "It's basically like the cash of the internet," she explained to a tall brunette who had heard of Bitcoin, but wasn't sure exactly what it was.
Read Article >It was a surprisingly professional setup, considering that Bitcoin is a decentralized payments system with a robust but fragmented community. The $13,000 booth was paid for by Butterfly Labs, which makes the hardware used to create Bitcoins, and Bitpay, a startup that helps merchants accept the currency. Bitpay just raised $510,000 in funding from notable investors including Barry Silbert and Jimmy Furland of SecondMarket, Shakil Khan of Path and Spotify, and Roger Ver, an e-currency enthusiast who contributed his share of the round in Bitcoins.
Jan 10, 2013
Ke$ha and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad CES corporate afterparty
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the latest in the series.
Read Article >For two years in high school I was a cashier at Whole Foods. We were at a busy intersection right in the middle of three fancy prep schools, so we maintained a pretty steady flow of soccer moms doing wheatgrass shots or going really hard at the salad bar with each other all day long. My supervisor, the Front End Team Leader Eric, was one of those smart middle-aged Whole Foods dudes who seemed like he could be doing much more but had gotten fucked over in life somehow and was now a powerful combination of grateful that he had any job at all and murderously spiteful that he had to wear an apron to work every day. He taught me a lot of lessons, from the practical (where to find the just-expired burritos before they went to the landfill) to the subtly profound. During the lulls in traffic when his team was prone to long bathroom breaks and back-alley bonghits, heâd saunter, clipboard in hand, down the row of cashiers. Heâd stop right at the end of your station, lean in, and look you in the eyes. âIf youâre not busy,â heâd say in a low rumble, a half-evil grin twisting up into his face, âlook busy.â Then heâd slowly moonwalk towards the door, keeping his eyes locked, clicking his pen like a mental patient, until he got outside, where heâd do a spin and casually collect all the misplaced shopping carts in the parking lot. Fuckinâ Eric, man. I wonder if heâs on facebook.
Jan 10, 2013
At CES, self-driving cars dance with believers, skeptics, and governments
"Sensing what's around you versus understanding it [are] vastly different," said Lexus VP Mark Templin, waxing philosophical about the company's so-called advanced active safety research vehicle — "AASRV" for short — at a dimly-lit CES event early this week.
Read Article >From the unapproachable, awkward name, you'd probably never guess that the AASRV is actually a self-driving car, every bit as autonomous, advanced, and buzzworthy as the ones Google has been driving around California for the past several years. And that's just the way Lexus wants it: as the legal and ethical challenges of these vehicles cast an ever-growing pall on the research arm of the auto industry, carmakers are quick to play down the capabilities of the self-driving car and play up the responsibility of the driver. "The driver must be fully engaged in the operation of the vehicle at all times," Templin cautioned.
Jan 10, 2013
The Apple economy dominates CES 2013, but Samsung isn't far behind
Apple hasn’t made an appearance at CES since 1992, but its products are everywhere. At CES 2013, iPhones and iPads adorn the sides of booths for everything from Bluetooth speaker manufacturers to car audio companies. Booth after booth is named iFrogz, iSkins, and iLounge. Row after row of companies like Otterbox and Speck have made fortunes building cases for Apple products. Just Mobile’s booth is something like an aluminum shrine to Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s lead industrial designer.
Read Article >At CES an economy of Apple has developed — funding booths as big and as extravagant as CES mainstays. But as the convention floor gets more and more crowded with phone and tablet accessory companies, it’s even harder to stand out. iGuy, an iPad case with arms and legs no longer makes headlines the way it once did. While there’s still plenty of Apple zealotry to be had, casemakers are moving — slowly, surely — in the direction of the Samsung Galaxy S III.
Jan 10, 2013
How Kickstarter stole CES: the rise of the indie hardware developer
They said the wristwatch was dead, but they were wrong. Forward-thinking watches are making a big splash at this year’s CES, the largest technology trade show in the country, and two watches stand out: the ultrathin, ultrasimple CST-1, which looks like a metal slap bracelet with giant numbers, and the Pebble smartwatch, which interfaces with the owner’s smartphone and can also run apps of its own.
Read Article >Those two watches have something else in common: the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Pebble raised $10.2 million from 68,929 people, making it by far the largest Kickstarter campaign to date. Pebble held a press conference at CES this week to announce that the product would begin shipping on January 23. Then on Tuesday, the two engineers behind the CST-1 launched a Kickstarter campaign of their own, which hit its $200,000 goal in under 48 hours.
Jan 10, 2013
Your robot butler is still a decade away, iRobot CEO says
I got a chance to speak with iRobot CEO Colin Angle at CES this week, and he gave me a nice refresher on the state of the industry — an industry that iRobot continues to lead in both the consumer and military realms.
Read Article >Jan 10, 2013
The weird and wild interfaces of CES 2013
The public side of CES may all about showing off consumer gadgetry, but there's another, more lucrative CES going on behind the scenes. If you toured the private meeting rooms of the South Hall instead of the display booths, you'd find dozens of small manufacturers pitching themselves to the behemoths of the tech world, angling for an OEM deal or a partnership or even an acquisition. This year, the hottest commodity is a new take on UI. Depth cameras, gaze trackers, motion sensors: the weirder, the better. Forced to compete with a flood of touchscreens, PC makers are increasingly desperate for an edge on interaction design — and for the right price, small firms are happy to deliver it.
Read Article >Jan 10, 2013
RIM says it has the apps it needs for successful BlackBerry 10 launch
Three weeks.
Read Article >That's how long until RIM officially launches its new BlackBerry 10 phones. One year ago, I explained why RIM had a long road to getting developers enthused enough to create apps for the new platform. The company has spent that year going down it, honing its developer message, offering $10,000 guarantees, posting insane videos to rally the troops, and launching zero BlackBerry 10 devices.
Jan 9, 2013
We Found Fur In an iPhone Case: How a little bunny brightened a dark day at CES
Trent Wolbe will be publishing daily photo essays from CES. This is the next in the series.
Read Article >As LL Cool J took the stage at Sony’s massive exhibition space I was ready to pronounce this year’s CES dead on arrival. He was there to hype his regrettably-named music collaboration software Boomdizzle, throwing around generic technology terms with all the panache of a door-to-door vacuum salesman, the performance nowhere near as nuanced as his Special Agent Hanna in NCIS:LA’s. There was precious little actual information about how his international jam sesh enabler would perform differently from the myriad of programs already available that do the same thing. I could feel that his cool, cool heart wasn’t in it for anything more than a couple extra thou chilling in his bank account.
Jan 9, 2013
4K at CES 2013: the dream gets real
Almost exactly a year ago, upon these parched steppes of Nevada we know as Las Vegas, Vizio told us it was keen to get into the 4K TV market, but the timing wasn't quite right yet. Vizio asked for a year's worth of patience and, atypically for an electronics company, it's back at CES with the delivery of its 4K promise.
Read Article >Jan 9, 2013
Sen. Ron Wyden on FISA surveillance law: 'We are going to win this'
Civil liberties advocates suffered a major setback in December, when the US Senate voted to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a bill that allows the government to conduct warrant-less electronic monitoring on suspected terrorists overseas and, as has become increasingly evident, its own citizens. Renewed on New Year's Eve, just before the inauguration of a new Congress, the law has come under intense criticism from those who argue it gives the government dangerously broad powers to spy on Americans; yet such opposition wasn't enough to stop FISA from sailing through the Senate by a 72-23 vote before arriving on President Obama's desk for his signature.
Read Article >But Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and one of the bill's most outspoken critics, says he remains committed to implementing safeguards that would protect Americans' Fourth Amendment rights, while pursuing new accountability measures designed to keep the NSA in check. "We will win this," Wyden emphatically told reporters at CES Wednesday. "It's not a question of 'are we,' but when."
Jan 9, 2013
Pebble smartwatch finally shipping January 23rd, we talk to CEO about its future
The Pebble smartwatch is best-known for being a smash hit on Kickstarter. It broke records and leapt to a total of 85,000 orders by the time the campaign ended. The only thing left to do was ship, but unfortunately the company quietly announced a pair of delays that left an actual ship date in limbo — an unfortunately common problem with Kickstarter campaigns.
Read Article >Today at CES, CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the company now has a firm shipping date for its backers: January 23rd. It will go out in batches, Migicovsky tells us, and it only recently ramped up to full production at its factory in China, producing around 15,000 of the watches each week.
Jan 9, 2013
ARM CEO says Windows RT is just a start, launch has been restricted so far by Microsoft
I spoke with ARM CEO Warren East at CES on Tuesday, who was kind enough to explain the complexities of his company’s business model, along with addressing some of the exciting opportunities and challenges ARM is up against — in short, Microsoft and Intel.
Read Article >Jan 9, 2013
Innovating a racket: the awards sideshow at CES
The Chinese electronics maker Hisense won two CES Innovations Awards this year, one for a 55-inch Google TV-enabled television and one for a 65-inch ultra-HD television with 4K resolution. But product manager Chris Porter isn't entirely thrilled about the achievement.
Read Article >"Every company I've worked with, every time we get a CEA Innovation Award, the product does not do as well in the market as we had planned for it," Porter, a 31-year CES veteran, told The Verge after the company's press conference at this year's trade show. "Everybody talks about the CEA Innovations Award jinx. If you look at it historically, it is. Look at OLED. Last year Samsung and LG both got awards for OLED. They never were even able to deliver the product."
Jan 8, 2013
Will.i.am is the most CES celebrity ever
CES introduced an entrepreneur-focused keynote this year called "Next Generation of Innovators," part of a larger strategy to pull in smaller startups to the trade show. Black Eyed Peas member-turned-techie will.i.am stole the show with his Jetsons-esque prognostications.
Read Article >"Have you ever thought about the bathroom?" will.i.am asked, recalling a conversation he'd had with a construction contractor. "The mirror should be a camera with a display system. What the fuck do we have mirrors in 2012 for? Why do you have scales in the bathroom? The floor should weigh you."
Jan 8, 2013
It's official: 3D is dead
There's something about 2013's Consumer Electronics Show that's different from every other iteration this decade. You might not realize it immediately, for it's marked by the absence rather than the arrival of a new technology, but it's there and we're all sensing it on a deep, subconscious level. And it feels good.
Read Article >3D is gone.