The second week of 2024 is coming to a close and it’s been dominated by CES. It’s the first trade show on the calendar and one of the biggest of the year, bringing together brands from all over the world under the general premise of “Consumer Electronics.” We’ve been in Las Vegas covering some of the show's major announcements, along with some of the overall themes and new concepts not quite ready for the market.
LG was a Major Showstopper
A brand that stuck out at this year’s conference was LG. It held the first press conference of the show on Monday at 8:00 a.m., had a series of debuts across its main categories (including new OLED TVs, new laptops and monitors, and more items from LG’s home cinema lineup), and even shared some future products and unique concepts, like this giant curved OLED monitor tunnel:
AI is Here and Everyone Wants Everyone to Have It
One of the most common themes of CES was Artificial Intelligence. More specifically, AI was presented in ways that demonstrated its capacity to improve daily life. How can AI integrate in smart home setups? How can AI benefit driving? How can AI make daily chores easier and let you focus on the things you want to do? These were the questions we kept hearing at press conferences; each manufacturer had a different answer and different products to share.
In the case of Samsung and LG, they shared a couple of prototypes of AI-enabled companions (or what used to be called robots, in common parlance): the Samsung Ballie and the LG Smart Home AI Agent. Samsung has the cuter name, but LG has the cuter machine, which almost resembles a dog with blinking eyes.
It was great to see these little machines tool around in their demo pens and see sizzle reels of what we can eventually expect from them, but for now they tread on the novelty side of the promise of AI. LG’s iteration plays very much into the Smart Home concept, while Samsung’s is more like a little helper and even has a built-in projector to display workout videos or video conferences while you walk around your Jetsons-esque home.
Photography and Optics were Scarce but Present
CES isn’t meant to be a big photo trade show like CP+, so it’s not a surprise that the heavy hitters from the photo world didn’t have many major announcements, but we still got a look at some prototypes and new products from the regulars.
Panasonic had its latest announcement on display, the impressively compact Lumix S 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. It’s hard to describe how strikingly small the lens is when your mental association with a 100mm macro lens is something that’s long, heavy, and dense; this new Panasonic prime is a viable walk-around lens and is quick to focus.
Over at the Nikon booth, the display devoted space to the new Unistellar Odyssey and Odyssey Pro smart telescopes. These compact, sophisticated telescopes are built using Nikon’s optics, and the Pro model above has a unique Nikon-design eyepiece for viewing celestial objects with the utmost clarity.
Canon’s booth was airport-themed and got you excited to see what this brand is up to, even if its focus wasn’t on any newly announced items. We saw progress on Kokomo and other VR tech; the brand is clearly looking to improve the quality of VR imagery for the inevitable surge of VR content once the Apple Vision Pro becomes available, among other numerous VR headsets. A few things that caught our eye were a trio of VR and 3D prototypes, including two APS-C-specific stereo lenses and a stand-alone VR camera. The two lenses were shown near the existing RF 5.2mm f/2.8 L Dual Fisheye 3D VR lens (which should give you a decent idea of their intended use) and the stand-alone camera seems to have a hinged second lens for switching between stereoscopic and 360° capture. We’re looking forward to hearing more specifics on these lenses in the future.
Despite all the AI, Samsung Highlighted Gaming
Samsung had a massive booth, showcasing everything from its new Jet Bot AI vacuum cleaner to the latest transparent micro-LED televisions to its Galaxy mobile devices. Besides Ballie, though, the standout of the Samsung booth was the gaming nook.
One of the first items in the room was this concept 2D/3D monitor that uses eye-tracking technology for glasses-free 3D viewing. The two cameras in the top bezel track the eyes of the gamer and help produce a very usable, natural 3D image that has a very wide sweet spot for your movement, either side to side or a bit back and forth in the chair. The monitor can also be toggled to a traditional 2D view for more natural, day-to-day applications.
Samsung also showed one of its Odyssey Neo G9 ultrawide curved monitors set up in the gaming area, configured with a steering wheel and bucket seat that perfectly suits racing games. Cruising, taking turns, and having the virtual world melt around both sides of you felt like the perfect demo from this all-encompassing monitor.
Sony’s Making a Car for Creators?
Sony’s booth and press conference were very direct about the company’s dedication to creators, touching on the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures, Sony’s new Torch Light facilities for creativity and experimentation in the filmmaking world, and even its work in the realms of spatial content creation with virtual 3D modeling.
And then a presenter guided a car out onto the stage using a PlayStation controller.
This joint-venture vehicle between Sony and Honda, named the Afeela, is a concept electric vehicle that we’ve seen pop up a few times in the past. This latest reveal highlighted the in-car visuals and 3D graphics, which continue out onto the bumper, and run off Epic Games’s Unreal Engine. This engine also contributes to the car’s driver-assistance systems to recognize other cars and objects on the road and promote safer travel.
And Everything Else from CES
That’s just scratching the surface of things from Vegas. Check out the rest of our CES announcements here.
In other (non-CES) news…
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We’ve gathered all our 2023 Year in Review articles in one place.
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A hands-on review of the FUJIFILM INSTAX Pal
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The latest installment of Teton Perspectives, featuring Autumn Schrock & Nate Luebbe
For now, we’re looking forward to a bit of post-CES recovery and then we’ll get back into some more announcements and features in the coming months. See you next week!
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