Samsung is showing off earbuds cases with screens.
The concept at CES shown in this video looks to mix an earbuds case with a round OLED screen and a smartwatch-like interface. I’m not totally sold on earbuds cases with screens, but this seems pretty clever.
Corsair, Asus, and others are making it easier to build a beautiful PC
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
I hate cables. I hide them in the walls behind my TV, I make them disappear around my desk, and I try to eradicate them everywhere else in my life. So every time I hear about something in the PC building community that involves hiding or removing cables, I get excited. Over the past few years, some of the biggest names in PC building have been making it easier to hide cables away and build a PC that showcases your skills.
I’ve built a lot of PCs over the past 25 years, and the main part of the process I hate the most is cable management. It often takes me longer to tidy up cables and route them properly than it does to put all the parts of a PC together. It’s especially bad if you’ve decided to build a PC with a bunch of RGB fans and an all-in-one (AIO) cooler. There are more cables to hide and more lighting to reveal any mistakes you make. Thankfully, a lot has changed in recent years.
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I don’t get the hype about the Rabbit R1.
10,000-plus people are already sold on the big AI hit of CES 2024, but I’m not there yet. My Android homescreen layout can tell you that I’m left-handed, which is just one of the issues raised by comments like this one.
The size probably isn’t bad (David Pierce has seen the R1, and says it’s not that much thicker than an iPhone), but the keynote didn’t convince me that this voice assistant is worth my time, or that allowing a “Large Action Model” access to my accounts is a good idea in terms of privacy or security.
Sony’s Afeela needs to be more than a feeling
A look into the latest Sony Afeela prototype car, from the driver’s side.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
It’s been four years since we called Sony’s concept car the best surprise of CES. And I get it: one does not build a car company overnight. But here at CES 2024, it feels like Sony Honda Mobility is still building a concept car — dare I say, a Vision — rather than a vehicle focused on the road. Maybe that’s part of the charm?
The Afeela has gotten more car-like in some ways since last year’s full announcement: big side mirrors, wireless phone chargers, and some more actual car specs. The all-wheel drive prototype has two 180kW motors (roughly 483 horsepower), a 91kWh lithium-ion battery pack, and up to 150kW fast DC charging.
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We’re Verge reviewers, so of course we’re making goofy videos at CES.
TikTok might be the trendsetter these days, but we’ve been at this a while.
I… might actually use this Nvidia AI tool!
Nvidia’s Chat with RTX lets you train your own local chatbot with your own files for free, no cloud required. Seconds after I fed it the Epic v. Google legal complaint PDF, I got decent answers to questions like “What does Epic Games want” and “Which laws does Epic allege Google violated?”
But it also confidently hallucinated that Framework’s Nirav Patel is The Verge’s CEO after ingesting this YouTube transcript, LOL. Maybe I’ll just use it as memory aid for reams of old notepad files?
The YouTube transcript says “Framework CEO Nirav Patel,” in case you’re wondering. Nvidia pointed out that the LLM probably didn’t understand that Framework is a company.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Heck yeah, an E Ink phone that makes sense.
Phone makers keep experimenting with ways to incorporate E Ink, from secondary displays to relying on it as the only display, but its lower refresh rate can make experiences feel hampered compared to LED and OLED.
But Infinix put E Ink’s Prism tech on the back of a phone, leading to something very customizable and very pretty.
I don’t hate having a customizable case just… built in.
Photo by Alex Cranz/The Verge
E Ink has gone from cars… to toilets?!
Kohler’s got an E Ink version of its Numi 2.0 smart toilet on the show floor — and it’s got the whole Verge crew in a tizzy. Jen has all the deets, which you can check out in this video! Rumor has it, that whooshing sound you hear in the distance is a rogue Alex Cranz making a beeline toward the E Ink toilet as we speak.
The TVs, monitors, and laptops of CES 2024
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
Another year, another CES, another batch of big and strange ideas about displays. CES may not be quite the TV-centric show it once was, but you practically can’t turn around in the Las Vegas Convention Center without encountering a new way to use LEDs.
For the first of our two Vergecast episodes live from the Kia Connected Home at CES this week, we dug into the most important new screens of the year. That means TVs, monitors, laptops, smartphones, and all the other display-centric things we’ve seen so far. (On Friday, we’ll get to all the cars, smart home sensors, massage chairs, and everything else that’s not quite so screen-y.) Then, we get to the biggest CES-adjacent news of the week: Apple’s ship date announcement for the Vision Pro and the surprising lack of competition showing up in Vegas so far.
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These smart binoculars can identify birds and animals for you
Trying out the world’s first smart binoculars at CES.
First, we got AI-powered bird feeders that can tell you who is visiting your backyard, and now, a new pair of AI-supported binoculars can identify over 9,000 species of birds and other wildlife while you’re hiking in the woods or roaming the halls of CES. Okay, there are no birds at CES (and not many around the Las Vegas Strip, which may not be by accident), but I did get to test out the smart binos and do some twitching (of the birding kind) on the show floor.
These Marc Newson-designed Swarovski Optic AX Visio binoculars look and feel like standard high-end binos, but when I trained them on a nearby avian (actually, a cardboard cutout on the top of a wood pole), they told me its species.
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Live demos are hard, y’all.
I’m in Samsung’s CES booth this morning, where I finally got to see the new Ballie robot in action. It was cool! Helping with workouts, tracking air quality, making calls. And then… it got very confused about how its projector screen worked, and eventually stopped showing anything at all.
Poor Ballie might need a nap after all this work this week.
OpenAI’s custom GPT Store is now open for business
Illustration: The Verge
OpenAI’s GPT Store, where users can share their custom chatbots, finally launched Wednesday after a monthslong delay. The store brings more potential use cases to ChatGPT and expands OpenAI’s ecosystem beyond what the company builds for customers.
Since announcing the GPT Builder program in November, OpenAI said more than 3 million bots — called GPTs — have been created by users. (Yours truly included; I made a GPT that suggests synonyms for common words). The company said it plans to highlight useful GPTs weekly inside the store.
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Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a $2,500 faucet?
“Disrupt the bathroom faucet” was not on my CES bingo card, but on giant orange plinths in the middle of Kohler’s booth was the most bizarre-looking bathroom tap I’ve ever seen.
Kohler’s new angular, very orange, limited-edition Formation 01 faucet is a “revolutionary” new bathroom fixture, according to Wallpaper Magazine.
That’s a stretch; it’s just a tap — it doesn’t do anything fancy, it’s not even smart. But full points for trying something new, Kohler!
The Kohler x SR_A Formation 01 faucet is a limited-edition bathroom tap designed by British artist Samuel Ross.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
VinFast shows off a midsize truck and small utility EV for North America
Image: VinFast
Vietnam’s VinFast must really want a slice of the EV market in the US based on the vehicles it brought to CES in Las Vegas this year: a midsize pickup truck that looks to be about the same size as the Toyota Tacoma, and a small utility EV called the VF3 that was first introduced last year.
Theoretically, both of these vehicles could sell really well in the US. Trucks are some of the most popular vehicles in the country, and a midsize electric truck could do quite well given most of the segment is dominated by full-size ones. A small, affordable crossover like the VF3, which aims for mass-market appeal, could help folks who are on a budget go fully electric.
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Another day done at CES.
The show floor only just opened yesterday, but we got a glimpse at a ton of cool new products, prototypes, and features:
• Asus made a portable monitor — and a laptop — with two screens.
• Sony and Honda showed off an Afeela EV prototype that puts Fortnite on your bumper.
• Amazon announced Matter casting support for Prime Video.
• Google and Samsung teamed up to combine Quick Share and Nearby Share into a single sharing solution.
• This AI startup made a little gadget that’s supposed to use your apps for you.
There’s still more to come! Stay tuned to our coverage, and make sure to check out The Verge’s TikTok and Instagram where we go hands-on with new devices.
LG’s camping trailer is nicer than most homes.
I love bending nature to my will, but the Bon Voyage concept trailer is… something. LG’s experimental Labs group has fitted this beast with a bed and bathroom as usual, but also a wine bar, outdoor beer fridge, karaoke machine, an external TV revealed behind a fold-down table, a second pull-out table with integrated induction cooktop, that stupid Duobo coffee creature, and one of those clothing sanitizers LG has been bringing to CES for years but I’ll never understand.
DJI made a delivery drone — and it’s huge.
I’ve included a few of DJI’s photos of the drone, called the FlyCart 30, below. It can carry as much 30kg as far as 16km when utilizing its dual-battery configuration, according to a press release.
The drone has already been released in China, but it’s now going to be coming out globally, DJI says. The company anticipates that it will be available by the end of Q1, spokesperson Regina Lin tells The Verge.
More details on Jackery’s rooftop tent and solar generator.
Jackery tells the The Bearded Tesla Guy that the center solar panel of that expandable 1000W array will be capable of 400W when the rooftop tent ships in Q4. It will feature a removable power station (with optional battery expansion) integrated into the tent that’s “sleekly designed” to maximize interior sleeping space. There’s also an optional AC inverter to quickly charge those batteries off the vehicle’s alternator.
Jackery’s rooftop tent is also a powerful solar generator
The retractable panels help generate up to 4.96kWh per day in the Western US, according to Jackery.
Image: Jackery
Jackery has converted the humble rooftop tent into a powerful solar generator that lets any car escape the grid for a weekend or longer. Although it’s just a concept on show at CES right now, Jackery says it will put the tent into production sometime near the end of 2024.
The retractable solar panels are said to produce up to 1000W when the car is parked and the tent is open and facing south. That’s enough to generate 4.96kWh per day in the Western US, or 4kWh as you move east, according to Jackery’s estimates. There’s no mention of its resilience to wind, but that’s hardly a concern for a concept parked on ugly carpet inside the Las Vegas Convention Center.
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Tangle-free magnetic USB-C cables just got a facelift.
This is the Scosche Strikeline Cobra. Tiny magnetic strips woven into its thin braided jacket let it coil into a single solid object in your bag. Sadly, it’s a slow 480Mbps USB 2.0 cable, with 60W charging. Come on!
A firm called Supercalla pioneered magnetic coiling cables, and I owe the founders an apology — in the time since I wrote this story, I discovered they sell a 100W / 10Gbps cable that’s actually awesome, with strong magnets. Just wish it were longer than three feet!
The Scosche Strikeline Cobra
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
My best celeb sighting of CES 2024 so far: Martha Stewart.
We ran into her at Samsung’s booth, where she was doing… a SmartThings cooking show, I suppose you’d call it? Somehow I doubt Martha’s using a ton of Bluetooth appliances and smart ovens, but hey, you never know.
Hard to tell, by the way, who drew the bigger crowd: Stewart, or Ballie. It was close.
Sony brings Fortnite to the car (bumper)
Sony and Honda’s in-development Afeela EV will let you display messages and images on its front bumper, according to a new video about the car, including the ability to… advertise video games.
You can see the screen-ified bumper — sorry, the “Media Bar” — starting at 3:17 in the video. The video does show some more sensible uses of the Media Bar, like displaying the name of the car, a red warning sign, or even a birthday greeting. But the video also shows how you can display logos for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Fortnite, and Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, which is just ridiculous.
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