Monthly Archives: January 2017
Nvidia Announces New Self-Driving System for Commercial Vehicles
Nvidia and automotive supplier ZF have launched a new, self-driving vehicle system designed for commercial applications.
The ZF ProAI system makes cars, trucks, and "other commercial vehicles" involved in factory work and agriculture autonomous. Nvidia vice president of automotive Rob Csongor calls artificial intelligence "the technology that will spark an industrial revolution."
It's not just cars and trucks, but other commercial vehicles like forklifts and "materials-handling vehicles," that will benefit from the ZF ProAI system. ZF CEO Stefan Sommer said Nvidia's AI is helping "take a giant leap forward" in enabling vehicular autonomy.
ZF ProAI works by processing inputs "from multiple cameras, plus lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors," allowing vehicles to "paint a 360-degree view," as well as determine safe routes through traffic while tracking itself on "an HD map."
Nvidia’s New Shield TV Adds a Steam App, Greater 4K HDR Support
During its CES keynote address, Nvidia took the cover off the newest iteration of the Shield, its set-top streaming device.
In addition to future Netflix and YouTube 4K HDR streaming support, the Shield now supports Amazon Video in 4K HDR, as well.
Also coming to the Shield is a new Steam app to allow users to stream Steam games from their PC, similar to Valve's own set-top device. The Shield is capable of streaming 4K HDR gaming content to a compatible television from a compatible PC.
The new Shield also works with Nvidia Spot, a small little orb that integrates the Shield with Google Assistant from anywhere in your home you decide to place the Spot. Basically the Spot works as an extender for the Google Assistant functionality, so you don't need to scream across your house when you want the assistant to do something for you.
Is the World Ready for 8K TVs?
Sony Shows Off Its Newest ‘Life Space’ UX 4K Projector
Sony introduced a new short-throw 4K projector today at CES.
The awkwardly named "New 4K Projector -It's all here-" differentiates itself from Sony's other Life Space, short-throw 4K projectors by bringing "new encounters with various content such as books, films and music."
The projector can be used as a traditional 4K projector, but as part the Life Space line, it has more to offer. In Sony's example, the projector is used to project "a vast amount of book covers" onto a surface. From there, you can pick out one you like and leaf through its pages.
Sony's Life Space UX It's All There Projector
Sony’s New TV Outputs Sound Directly From the Screen
Sony's newest Bravia television sets have all the features we've come to expect in high-end sets; HDR, 4K, and OLED panels, but they also do away with speakers entirely. Yet they still produce sound.
Is it some manner of sorcery? Not quite. The A1E series has Sony's Acoustic Surface technology, which vibrates the display itself and allows "sound to be output directly from the TV screen."
Sony promises it "produces a wide sound and image synchronization from all angles." The lack of speakers means the A1E series has a super-thin bezel that's uniformly... well, super-thin, around the entire set.
The new Bravia A1E Series TVs come in 77, 65, and 55-inch configurations. They also come equipped with Android TV, giving them a Google-infused smart TV experience with voice control. It also plays nice with Android devices.
Samsung Notebook Odyssey Is the Company’s First Gaming Laptop
Samsung is getting into the increasingly crowded world of high-end gaming laptops with its new Samsung Notebook Odyssey.
On top of a dedicated, performance laptop for gaming, Samsung also announced a new Chromebook designed specifically for Google Play.
The Notebook Odyssey has both a 15 and 17-inch configuration. Both versions have 7th-gen Intel i7 processors, and the 15-inch variation packs an NVIDIA GTX1050 in either a 4GB or 2GB version. The 17-inch model's GPU is to-be-announced, but its probably safe to assume it will be equivalent to, but most likely more powerful than, the 15-inch version.
Going off the spec sheet alone, the Notebook Odyssey looks like it could be a pretty solid gaming laptop. Memory on the 17-inch model is expandable up to 64GB, and storage can be expanded to a 512 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. Anyone who's installed basically any triple-A game in the last three years knows how quickly a Steam sale can wipe out storage.
Uncharted 4 Sold 8.7 Million Copies in 2016
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End has globally sold through 8.7 million copies as of December 21, 2016
Naughty Dog's PS4 sequel was released on May 10, 2016, which means these numbers occurred in under nine months. To put this number in perspective, Uncharted 4 sold over 2.7 million units worldwide in its first two weeks of release. In North America, the game's sales made Uncharted 4 the "fastest-selling PlayStation 4 first party title to-date."
Sony also revealed that PS4 software sales total remained strong during the 2016 holiday season, with over 50.4 million copies of games being sold worldwide and via digital downloads on PSN from November 11, 2016 through the end of the year.
PlayStation 4 Hits 53 Million Units Sold
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that 53.4 million PlayStation 4 console units have been sold worldwide as of January 1.
The announcement was made alongside Sony's Consumer Electronics Show 2017 showcase. Previously, the company had announced that the PS4 sold 50 million units as of December 6. The console's sales totaled 6.2 million units sold through during the 2016 holiday season, which the company defines as sales data collected in Asia between November 21, 2016 and January 1, in North America and Latin America between November 20, 2016 and December 31, 2016, and in Europe from November 21, 2016 to December 31, 2016.
Adorable LG Robots Will Clean Airports, Mow Your Lawn
LG Corporation unveiled its new lineup of intelligent robots at CES in Las Vegas, giving attendees a glimpse into a future where robots can help you around the house, make sure you catch a flight on-time, mow your lawn, or clean-up trash at the airport.
The trio of robots are meant to showcase LG’s advancements in artificial intelligence and its developments in the field of IoT (Internet of Things) a tech discipline focused on network-enabled objects that work in conjunction with web services.
In an effort to give users a smarter home, LG showed off the Hub Robot, a robot that uses Amazon’s Alexa voice recognition technology and connects to other smart appliances you own. The company said that, by using simple voice commands, the robot can turn on air conditioning or change a dryer cycle. It also uses a built-in interactive display to show a wide variety of information, like the contents inside your smart refrigerator or even give you step-by-step audio instructions for recipes.
This Wireless 7.1 Headset Works on Almost Any System
LucidSound has shipped their flagship LS40 wireless gaming headset.
Originally announced at E3 2016, the LS40 will be one of a very few wireless 7.1 headsets that will be fully compatible with the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
The LucidSound LS40 Wireless gaming headset.
According to the press release sent out by LucidSound, the LS40 will sport 50mm neodymium drivers and a 15 hour battery life. Exact price and release date information are still forthcoming.