Interesting sights of CES 2015

Hardware Zone sums up some of the more eye-catching stuff at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2015 in Las Vegas.

CAR TECH

Increasingly, automakers are using CES as a platform to showcase their latest models and technologies. This is Mercedes-Benz's newest AMG GT sports coupe.

American muscle! More importantly, Ford is showing off its new Sync 3 in-car infotainment software, which, like a smartphone or tablet, can receive software updates over Wi-Fi.

Toyota is turning to hydrogen with its Mirai car. In the Mirai, hydrogen is converted to electrical energy by combining with oxygen and the only waste product produced in that reaction is water.

Cars of the future will allow occupants to interact with it using hand gestures. We tried out Volkswagen's system, but found it to be unintuitive to use.

It may look like a standard Honda Odyssey, but in fact the crowd is here to check out how this retrofitted car charges wirelessly! Provisioned by the Qualcomm Halo group, their Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) system, it tackles a common issue associated with charging for electric vehicles - the need to physically plug the vehicle to a power outlet. The Qualcomm WEVC system uses magnetic resonance to couple power from a base charging unit to the vehicle charging unit.

Checking the retrofitted Honda Odyssey's main dashboard, we noticed there's a battery power gauge along with a fuel gauge for conventional drive.

In this Chevrolet car demo at Qualcomm's booth, its showcasing their Snapdragon 800-series processor powering up the various dashboards and car infotainment systems. Looks like the NVIDIA Tegra X1 has company.

At NVIDIA's booth, we were given a chance to check out NVIDIA's Drive system implemented in an electric sports car. Renovo worked with NVIDIA to modify one of their Coupe for this special technical showcase and it could be a stepping stone for more such cars from the auto maker in the future. Over the next few photos, we'll give you a further close-up of this half a million-dollar (USD) car.

The vital stats of the Renovo Coupe.

The dashboard and infotainment system of the Renovo Coupe are powered by the NVIDIA Drive system and was silky smooth just as it was showcased on its own.

CONNECTED HOME

Find yourself having lots of tooth problems? The Kolibree electric toothbrush connects wirelessly using Bluetooth to your smartphone or tablet and tracks your brushing with an app and offers tips to help improve your oral hygiene.

Depending on how you see it, this cute or creepy looking device is called Mother. Mother and its Motion Cookies are a family of smart sensors that can be used to help take care of your family. For instance, the sensors can be attached to medicine to help remind you or your family to take them.

The Visijax is smart jacket designed for cyclists that has LEDs. When a cyclisy raises an arm to signal left or right, corresponding LEDs will light up.

BBQ food is tasty, but the mess left behind on the grill is no fun to clean up. Enter the Grillbot, a device that automatically cleans the BBQ grill.

Based in Korea, Future Robot has little robots that aims to allow family and friends to get connected with each other even if they were living physically apart. For example, a mum working overseas elsewhere could connect to the robot back at home and use it to wake her children up for school.

The Edyn Garden System consists of the Edyn garden sensor, the Edyn garden valve and the Edyn app. Together, you're looking at a connected garden that monitors real-time conditions of the garden, weather and even weather forecast to determine when to automatically water the plants. You can even set what kind of plants the Edyn is monitoring to suggest and care for your plant(s) accordingly as it can access a cloud database of over 5,000 plants.

Somewhat similar to the Edyn Garden is this Parrot Pot that's designed for smaller sized plant maintenance as it's an individual pot based solution. Inside, it has a 32MHz wireless micro-computer, 8KB RAM, 250KB of flash storage and battery rated for 1 year of service to manage a 2.2-liter built-in water tank to sprinkle or water the plant at the right time and the right amount based on the plant type and environment conditions such as ...

... sunlight, soil moisture, fertilizer levels, temperature and water reserve level that the Pot monitors. Through a dedicated gardening app, you can check on your plant's status anytime and even monitor it remotely if you feel the need to override the automated decisions.

The US$49 (S$65) Pronto is a 360-degree Ir-blaster that will turn your iPhone (via Bluetooth) into the ultimate remote to control any entertainment device at home, complete with the full controls that a dedicated remote would have.

We then met this curious contraption, the Samsung PowerBot. It's a much more advanced robot vacuum cleaner and it even has a remote that allows you to draw out a specific area to be cleaned or direct it to where you need cleaning done most.

TP-Link is another to join the race to deliver an AC3200 Wireless 802.11ac tri-band router. This 'crab' of a device has 6 antennas to provide omni-directional coverage and uses Beamforming technologies to provide better range, performance and minimise power used. No word yet on availability, but first half of this year is a safe time frame of expectations judging from experience.

WEARABLE TECH

Wearables, health and fitness were a big theme and every brand, big or small, had live demonstrations of their latest activity trackers.

Gym buffs take note, the Gym Watch is a fitness tracker that measures your intensity and even your form. It can even offer motion correction for a more effective workout.

Wearables everywhere and there is even one for pets! This is the Fitbark, an activity tracker for dogs.

Connected and all forms of smart devices are a key trend this year and the Cerevo XON Snow-1 is a smart snow board capable of analysing performance and tracks metrics such as speed, acceleration, angle, weight balance and more.

Activity trackers need not be boring pieces of technology. The Bellabeat Leaf is an activity tracker designed for ladies and looks like a piece of jewelry.

Smart watches are still a key trend this year and traditional fashion brands are collaborating with tech ones to come up with their own smart and connected watches. The Guess Connect is a smart watch designed in collaboration with Martian, a smart watch company.

With so many players in the market now, brands are looking for ways to differentiate themselves. The Zensorium being claims to be the first smart watch capable of telling your mood and can provide advanced sleep insights including REM and NREM sleep cycles.

Toshiba Glass is the latest wearable device that uses a small and light projection module clipped to the side of the glass frame. Unlike Google Glass which projects information directly from the attachment, Toshiba's solution projects information onto the glass and subsequently reflected to the wearer's eye. The module is lightweight and detachable, but requires a wire attached to a computational unit and battery. There's no camera on the module.

Here's a close-up of the projection unit while it's powered on.

And here's a model donning the Toshiba Glasses. She seems to be perfectly comfortable with it.

As reported earlier that Sony might be demonstrating their "smart glass" solution, we had a brief hands-on of it at Sony's booth. The upside of the SmartEyeglass Attach! is that it's clip-on solution for existing eyewear and thus it has excellent compatibility. The downside is of course the bulky look, although it hardly weighed us down. Sony's product executives mentioned that it's currently in a tech demo phase and there are no plans yet to roll it out.

Willing people were undergoing zombie training on Samsung's Gear VR. We stayed clear.

Parrot Zik Sport is the company's most ambitious attempt to entice athletes to adopt its new audio gear and we don't doubt its capabilities. This sweat-proof, extremely light, comfortably fitting headset has a built-in heart-rate meter, accelerometer and a companion app that crunches this data to provide athletes the necessary stats to improve their future performance. It's also built with active noise cancellation technology that's customizable to allow you to hear what's happening in your external environment and yet enjoy your tunes at the same time. No word yet on when it might be available or price.

We'll let this poster do the talking.

MOBILITY

What?! Polaroid is actually making smartphones now? We're looking here at the new Polaroid Flip that is an Android 5.0 Lollipop phone equipped with a quad-core processor. It features a 5.5-inch IPS display and an 8MP camera. The expected retail price for an unlocked phone without contract is US$149. Besides the Flip, Polaroid also introduced two other models known as the Snap and Selfie.

We're all familiar with Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 now, but this is the NFL edition used by the NFL team in the states. As you can see, it has a specially designed sleeve that makes it more rugged and water resistant.

Notice the rear has a handy catch to brace the tablet one-handed and a lanyard-like attachment to secure the Surface Pen.

Finally, the leading removable storage solutions provider, SanDisk, has recently started selling a flash drive made for Apple devices using the Lightning connector.

When used with an iPad, this is how the new SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive would look like with your device.

Corning was showcasing how their Gorilla Glass has progressed over the years. Their latest, Gorilla Glass 4, is thinner but at the same time, much more hardier than their previous version. Corning has employed new test methods to ensure their latest is more durable and can survive harsher usage conditions/tests.

The LG G Flex 2 received tremendous attention at LG's booth and with such an elaborate display of show by putting together several G Flex 2 phones together, it's hard not to be wowed.

Patchworks is showing off a screen protector that will ensure it protects the glass curvature of our modern phones, such as the iPhone 6. So not only does it protect the front from scratches, it will also protect the glass from cracking if you accidentally drop your device, even on the edges.

The silicon lining on the sides is how Patchwork's screen protector will thoroughly protect your phone's glass.

The Zolt is the world's lightest, smallest and smartest mobile charger for your phone, tablet and even your laptop! Available from Spring 2015, it will cost US$99, but the compact and versatile nature to charge one laptop and two other USB devices is enticing.

The Zolt charger will ship with all the necessary power tips to handle ultra portable notebook charging (up to 70W); a suitable MagSafe cable for Apple notebooks will be sold separately at a later date.

DISPLAY TECH AND A.V. GEAR

The entrance to Samsung's booth at CES 2015 was a blast!

Inside the booth, we spotted this elaborate structure. While it seems to suggest there's a spiral pathway, it actually doesn't lead you anywhere. Weird.

Sharp's Beyond 4K Ultra HD has resolution higher than a typical 4K UHD TV. To create this TV, Sharp applied proprietary pixel-splitting and Quattron technologies which results in 66 million subpixels. With 42 million more subpixels than standard 4K, this TV can deliver 167 per cent greater resolution than traditional 4K. This TV is expected to ship sometime later this year.

This upcoming Sharp 70-inch 4K UHD TV was developed using unique materials to create a large TV screen that's less than half an inch thick. This TV is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2015.

Sharp has developed free form displays that can be used in custom designs such as the vehicle dashboard shown above here. Using the IGZO technology that enables the gate driver circuits to be embedded inside the active area, various shapes and narrow fringe along the edge of the display can be easily achieved.

Sharp was also demoing several commercial display solutions such as this 60-inch wraparound LCD display that has a 150-degree radius, designed for pillar signage.

If the aim is to just go big, Sharp has the world's largest 4K commercial LCD display at 120 inches across with direct LED backlighting for uniform brightness across its screen. Truly, this is made for really demanding needs and installations.

Do you know that there's such a thing as mirror displays?

And also see-through displays. These have been around sometime but they are usage has been limited to-date.

Niche audio specialist Kube debuted a huge 'portable' jukebox at the show.

MatchStick is a new gadget to stream content to your devices and is world's first "streaming stick" to be powered by the Mozilla Firefox OS, which is 100 per cent opensource. It is expected to retail sometime this quarter for US$29.90.

Art? Yes it is, but it's also acting as a sound wall. And indeed the company behind is aptly named as Soundwall. These pieces of art can save space and make your respective rooms come alive with audio streamed wirelessly via AirPlay or Android devices using both traditional sources and streaming audio services like iTunes, Pandora, Spotify and much more. Art never sounded this good.

Hearnotes is a true wireless earphones that's launching first quarter in the Unites States for US$349.

The Altec Lansing iMW576 Boom Jacket bluetooth speaker is the flagship of their waterproof series that is IP67 rated. It comes with built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery for up to 40 hours of battery life as well as doubling up as a charger for your mobile devices. It comes equipped with two 2-inch neodymium drivers and a passive radiator.

Casio launched two new DJ products, the XW-DJ1 DJ controller and the XW-PD1 Groove Center. Seen here is a demonstration of the XW-PD1 Groove Center that features preset patterns produced by professional beat makers that cover dance music genres like Trap and EDM. The XW-PD1 design includes 16 velocity-sensitive pads and 4 knobs for fast real-time music production. On the other hand, the XW-DJ1 lets users enjoy the popular 'scratching' DJ style when mixing and creating tracks. The XW-PD1 Groove Center will be available beginning March 2015 for an MSRP of US$399.00 while the XW-DJ1 DJ Controller will be available beginning January 2015 for an MSRP of US$299.00.

The new Klipsch Reference On-Ear headphones was built from the ground up with focus on proper representation of music from any genre. Built with 40mm neodymium full range drivers, the new headphones are built for comfort as well as simplicity. Featuring tangle-resistant flat cable, the headphones also comes with an advanced three-button remote and microphone, offering full control on iPhones and iPods while allowing phone calls to be made.

Here are some of Sony's upcoming sound bar models for this year. The top two units will continue to use Sony's ferrofluid speaker technology that debuted last year.

IMAGING

The V.360 is the world's first 360-degree action camera. Using just a single lens, precise placement and use of a convex mirror, it can capture a 360 degrees shot without delay. Shoots up to 8MP shots with its 16MP sensor, up to 30 FPS frame rate and captures video at a resolution of 6,480 x 1,080 pixels. Oh and it's also certified for military standards for shock, vibration and is water proof to a depth of 1 meter with an IP67 rating. Most importantly, you can mount this anywhere and on anything that uses a tripod-like securing system.

As seen in this live video relay on a tablet, the V.360 camera can capture views from all-around. Yes, that's our Editor Vijay at work.

As usual Nikon was busy running massive workshops and showing off both current and new gear of all types. But there was something else special this time round...

It was running the Nikon 360-degree project that captures your epic moment in a 360-degree panoramic photo thanks to a massive array of DSLRs. From the queue we observed, we would say it's a hit!

Launched in September last year, the Polaroid Cube is an action video camera that can be worn around the neck, snapped onto any belt or backpack or placed on the desk with a monkey stand. The water-proof camera has a wide angle lens with 124 degrees of coverage and can capture video at 1080p and still images at 6MP. The camera supports a microSD cards of up to 32GB and records up to 90 minutes of video using its built-in high capacity battery.

Pentax displayed an upcoming (and yet to be named model) interchangeable lens for K mount digital cameras. Shown here is the camera body with a standard zoom lens with focal lengths from 18mm to 50mm. It is expected to launch sometime in Spring 2015.

Besides the interchangeable camera, Pentax also displayed a yet-to-be-announced large diameter telephoto zoom lens (below) and a high magnification super-telephoto zoom lens (top).

Intel's RealSense 3D camera technology debuted last year, but to help spark imagination and show off its capabilities in a big way, a good portion of Intel's booth was devoted to a massive demo of this depth perception technology and applying it to an interactive session for the industry folks to get familiar and understand the technology better.

Numerous LCD displays and cameras equipped with Intel's RealSense 3D technology lined around the demo area. Here's a close-up of a pair of these cameras above one of the screens; there's two because one is calibrated to capture near-field subjects, while the other was tuned to look for subjects further away; this will ensure a more interactive and immersive demo rather than participants trying to figure out a sweet spot. Otherwise, the technology itself only requires one camera to work.

GoPro outfitted a classic BMW M1 with numerous GoPro units for an eye-catching showcase.

VIDEO GALORE

Witness the graphics rendering power of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 810 processor has such a powerful graphics engine that Qualcomm executives mention it can rival console-level gaming graphics. To prove that point, they've got this graphics demo on show with the Snapdragon 810 processor rendering it at 4K resolution!

HP Sprout's cutting-edge multi-input workstation demoed!

The HP Sprout in an innovative machine that combines several input options such a touchscreen, a touch mat, pen input, finger input, 3D scanning technology with 4 overhead cameras and has collaborative features that allow multiple parties to interact with data. HP is innovating in more ways than you know it and you only need to check out the HP Sprout in action to understand their vision of the future. For more information, check our previous news coverage.

NVIDIA's new Tegra X1 mobile chip benchmarked!

NVIDIA's Tegra SoC chips double in power and efficiency every year, without fail, and they've done it again with a demo of their new Tegra X1 chip that boasts 256 Maxwell graphics cores! Check out the smooth gameplay for yourselves. For more information, refer to our Tegra X1 benchmarking article.

NVIDIA Drive CX cockpit computer demoed

The NVIDIA Drive CX kit is engineered to be a digital cockpit computer that will allow automakers to design richer and more visual dashboards. Hop in to see the in-car visuals of the future, made possible by the Tegra X1 at its heart.

Meet the NVIDIA Drive PX - A super computer for the car

Self parking cars are just the tip of the iceberg. What if we tell you that the NVIDIA Drive PX "auto-pilot computer" is advanced enough to perform path finding and mapping that it can drive itself back to you from a parking lot? Nicknamed the Drive PX Auto Valet, witness the advanced object classification and mapping in action to make that a reality. For more information, read how Tegra X1 will power the smart cars of the future.

Devialet Phantom speakers demoed

The Phantom is a highly eye-catching and expensive speaker system (US$2,000 per speaker), that promises to replace full-sized speakers and deliver equivalent sound power in a tiny package, while still retaining good sonic quality. To achieve that, the speaker had to be redesigned from the ground-up with 1,527 engineering parts and is marketed as the "most dense sound in the world" considering its audio output for its physical size. There's an even more powerful version called the Silver Edition, which packs even more power in the same form. You can daisy chain multiple Phantom speakers to fill a rather large space with high quality and high power audio.

Visit Hardware Zone for more stories.