Google is kicking off a new experiment in Search Labs today called “Daily Listen.” It’s a bit like NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews, while there are also podcast parallels.
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While there are lots of new and upcoming phones vying for your hard-earned money, you can get some serious bang for your buck by buying a slightly older phone at a substantially discounted price. With that in mind, a renewed Pixel 8 Pro is an absolute steal at Amazon.
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The CES keynote will never be the same.
This is my 12th CES, so there aren't many things that surprise me at this point, at least in terms of press conferences. All of the big companies used to try to one-up each other (celebrity appearances were the main method, although it's not as common now). However, the venue itself has now become the battleground for CES addresses.
This week, Delta was the first company to host a CES press conference, or as the emcee called it, "a show," at the Sphere in Las Vegas. You've likely heard about the high-tech venue at this point, which usually hosts immersive concerts rather than trade show events. Debuting in 2023, the "multi-sensory experience" is known for having both the interior and exterior draped in LED displays and offering 4D effects like wind and smells.
Three different credentials were required to attend the event in the venue which holds 18,600 people, one of which required a special trip to obtain. Once inside, Delta had various installations to celebrate its 100th anniversary and lines for the company's merchandise were absurdly long. People even skipped the Lenny Kravitz performance at the end to queue up for those goods.
There was also food that may have been similar to what the airline serves in-flight, and snacks that you'd expect on a Delta trip, like Biscoff cookies. Of course, the company stacked the audience with employees and guests, plus it trotted out a couple of celebrities — Viola Davis and Tom Brady — which I saw as a throwback to the CES keynote days of old. Then there was the full-blown concert at the end: Lenny Kravitz with a full band. This gave the attendees the experience of coming to a concert at Sphere, where U2, Dead & Company, Phish and more have performed in the past.
But, as you might expect, the most interesting aspect of the whole thing is how Delta took advantage of the Sphere's 4D capabilities. Video of each speaker was projected on the interior of the venue set on various backdrops that transformed the hall into spaces ranging from a dome to an observation deck and an airplane cabin. Several times during CEO Ed Bastian's address there were interactions with planes where the seats rumbled and blown air provided a sense of flying, complete with directional, immersive audio. There was also a cameo by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi where an Uber Eats delivery arrived at the stage with a hazelnut-flavored coffee for Bastian and those aromas were wafted into the audience.
Perhaps the most dazzling aspect of the whole "show" was the end, where cockpit video of a plane landing was projected on the interior of the Sphere. And when the plane landed, everyone's seats rumbled just liked they do when you hit the tarmac in real life. This was quickly followed by my first indoor fireworks show, designed to cap off Delta's 100th anniversary. I will say the immersive audio of the Sphere really enhanced this, and I doubt I'll experience anything like it again. I feel confident I'll never see indoor fireworks unless I return to this very venue.
Of course, there was news. It wouldn't be a CES press event without some. Delta announced its AI Concierge, an assistant inside the Fly Delta app that the company built to relieve travel stress. The airline first announced the concierge concept at CES 2020, but now it's working to make it a real thing that anticipates travel needs. Beginning this year, customers will be able to interact with Delta Concierge via text or voice. Eventually, the platform will be able to do things like hail a Joby VTOL aircraft to drop you off at the airport to avoid traffic.
The AI tech can recognize both departure and arrival needs, including arranging a rideshare pickup for transport to a hotel. At the airport, you won't have to go through a TSA checkpoint, you just keep walking to your gate thanks to PreCheck Touchless ID. If you're wearing AR glasses during your trip, wayfinding then becomes a breeze with the travel assistant lighting your path. And once you're on the plane, the Delta Concierge will eventually automatically connect you to Delta Sync Wi-Fi and the seatback entertainment system to display customized info and content recs just for you.
Delta's event was easily the most impressive CES presentation I've attended. And I've been to press events where each person had a PC and a VR headset at their seat. I don't know that any other company will invest what the airline did in the hosting and production this week, but it was immediately apparent that the bar had been raised, and that a ballroom at Mandalay Bay or The Venetian will no longer suffice if you're looking to make a lasting impression.
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© Billy Steele for Engadget
LAS VEGAS—If you've always dreamed of a world where your vehicle is a "partner" around whom you can "always be yourself," Honda has the vehicles for you—at least that's what the Japanese automaker is promising with its new "near production" Honda 0 prototypes that debuted at CES in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
In a somewhat dystopian but highly sentimental video shown at the presentation, a woman drives along a desolate road in search of a sunrise, describing her favorite colors and laughing along with the Saloon concept. A calm voiceover intones, "Saloon is my partner—always by my side, opening me up to new experiences and expanding my world," as the passenger is zipped along the flat purple and pink landscape, sharing moments of joy and tears. The car even "comforts" her when she is sad.
This is Honda's vision for what Katsushi Inouye, chief officer of electrification business development operations at Honda, called the "ultra personal optimization" of a "new level of intelligent car."
© Abigail Bassett
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a bold claim onstage at CES earlier this week when he was introducing the next-generation RTX 50-series GPUs. “The RTX 5070, 4090 performance at $549,” said Huang. It’s a claim that’s been echoed on YouTube, TikTok, and social media networks and has generated a debate over the RTX 50 series and DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation.
So, can a $549 RTX 5070 really deliver the same level of performance as a $1,5999 RTX 4090? The answer is yes and no, and it all comes down to a “fake frames” argument about DLSS Frame Generation that might not even be a big problem for a lot of PC gamers.
Nvidia’s big RTX 5070 claim is all based on its latest generation of DLSS. “Impossible without artificial intelligence,” admits Huang after promising that the RTX 5070 can deliver RTX 4090 levels of performance. DLSS 4 has a new Multi Frame Generation technique that can generate up to three additional frames per every traditionally rendered frame.
Some PC gamers have long argued that this technique, which Nvidia introduced originally with DLSS 3, is simply “fake frames” and not reflective of the true rasterization performance of GPUs that we’ve been used to for decades.
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A new US administration is about to enter office, one that will incentivize companies to build in America rather than overseas. And Apple seems well prepared for that change, as the company has reportedly just expanded its US-based chip production.
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AT&T is kicking off 2025 with a new “AT&T Guarantee” program that the company says will “set a new bar” for customer and network service. The headlining part of the announcement? AT&T will now credit you if you experience a network outage …
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San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced the launch of a new AI wearable, Omi, to boost productivity during the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas this week. The device can be worn as a necklace where Omi’s AI assistant can be activated by saying “Hey Omi.” The startup also claims Omi can be attached to […]
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Tran Le was an engineering student at Stanford University when she tried to enroll in a clinical trial for her chronic condition. Although she identified several promising trials, she found the sign-up process daunting — she had to have extensive email exchanges with clinical sites and complete lengthy 20-page forms. All that paperwork was so […]
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I don't want or need 99 percent of the stuff on display at CES — don't get me wrong, most of what we're seeing this week is impressive in one way or another, but nothing had seemed like a necessary addition to my life until I happened upon the Copper Charlie, a battery-equipped induction range that plugs directly into a standard 120V outlet. Yes, among the robots, future cars, bionic exoskeletons and AI everything, the thing that's exited me most is a stove (OK, the fluffball robot is pretty great).
Up until a few years ago, I had no idea natural gas cooktops were bad for your health, not to mention the environment. Unfortunately, if your home is set up on gas, it's not easy or cheap to switch up to electric. Nearly all full-sized induction stoves require a dedicated 240V outlet and if you don't have one where the stove goes, a call to a electrician is likely in your future.
Charlie is a full-sized oven and range that packs a ceramic glass cooktop, a 4.5 cubic-foot oven and an integrated 5 kWh battery. That battery allows the stove to run off a standard plug by storing up a charge that can bump up the power output when it's time to cook (it can also cook three to five meals during a power outage).
In person, the range looks properly high-end with a large LCD display, wooden dials and handle, stainless steel finish and clean lines. It also has a high-end price tag at $6,000. It should qualify for a 30-percent tax credit as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, so it could end up costing around $4,200 instead.
A rewiring job for a 240V outlet shouldn't run you more than $500 for the average house, though if you're dealing with an older home with tricky wiring, that price could go up. And if you're in an apartment, that may not be an option at all. Still, after rebates and deducting the cost of an outlet conversion, you're still paying around $3,500 for Charlie. That's cheaper than some induction ranges, more expensive than others — but none of those models have a back-up battery that'll let you make mac and cheese when the power goes out.
The Charlie from Copper is expected to ship in April of this year and is open for pre-orders.
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© Amy Skorheim / Engadget
