We’re deep in the weeds at 2019 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show, an annual winter tradition
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LAS VEGAS—Ah, CES. Every January, Las Vegas is flooded with an extra hundred thousand (or so) souls, making the pilgrimage to Bugsy Siegel’s desert oasis to see (and report on) the latest in technology. With so many releases and announcements coming in such a short period of time, it’s easy to get lost in the weeds.
CES runs the technology gamut, with products you can buy today on display right next to concepts that will go through dozens of redesigns and prototypes before never being seen again. We’ve taken a step back to take a look at the bigger picture.
The eight trends we’ve gathered here are all recurring themes that loomed large at the show this year. And that means you can reasonably expect them to emerge in the products we see throughout the course of the year and beyond.
A bunch of concept cars at CES? What is this, a crossover episode? We saw a ton of cool cars —with self-driving technology of course—at the show. We saw prototypes from the likes of Audi, BMW, and Hyundai, and actual cars you can buy from Lincoln and Mercedes. There was even a yacht—yes, the type that floats—and a flying air taxi concept from Bell on display. If you’re into technology and fancy yourself a bit of a gearhead, there’s no shortage of cool transportation technology on display at the LVCC…enough to give next week’s Detroit Auto Show a run for its money.
If you’re like me, you bought your first 4K TV last year. But if you bought your first 4K several years ago, you’re probably wondering what comes next. 5K? 6K? Nope, we’re going all the way to 8K. To put that in perspective, a 4K TV has about the same resolution as an 8MP camera sensor. An 8K screen is around 32MP—about four times as many pixels. For most of us, it’ll likely be a few years before the tech gets to the point where it’s mature and affordable. It’s a little too early to think about mainstream 8K captures—Sharp showed a mock-up of one in its booth—but we’re still a couple years away before it’ll be practical to shoot and edit your own 8K videos at home. Until then, we also saw a lot of other cool TVs at the show.
