Samsung is best known for its QLED TVs but at CES 2022, after years of building up hype, the company’s Display subsidiary unveiled its new QD-OLED technology and it promises to take on the best OLED TVs from LG. The tech is different from your standard OLED in that it only uses blue organic light-emitting diodes. Those diodes then shine the light they produce through a series of quantum dots, allowing the panel to produce the full spectrum of color visible to the human eye. The approach has multiple advantages.

The most notable, particularly compared to current OLED displays, is that the panel can get a lot brighter. In a demo FlatspanelsHD saw at CES, one display produced more than 1,000 nits of peak brightness across a 10 percent window. For comparison, some of the more recent TVs from LG can produce between 700 nits and 1,000 nits of brightness across the same area. Brightness is something LG has consistently tried to address with its WOLD panels. In December, the company’s display subsidiary unveiled its “OLED EX” tech, claiming it would enhance brightness by up to 30 percent compared to conventional OLED displays.

Another advantage of the technology is better color performance. The panels Samsung Display showed off at CES 2022 covered 90 percent of the Rec. 2020 color gamut. LG’s WOLED panels, which people consistently praise for their accurate and vibrant colors, hit about 70 percent of the Rec. 2020 standard. Lastly, viewing angles are improved. In addition to TVs, the technology will make its way to gaming monitors, with Samsung and Dell planning to use the tech in 34-inch displays.

We’ll have to see how the panels perform in the real world, but at least on paper, QD-OLED could easily become the new standard for high-end consumer TVs. One of the first companies set to release a TV with a QD-OLED panel is Sony with its A95K sets. Unfortunately, Sony has yet to announce how much those TVs will cost, and we won’t know until closer to release sometime this spring.

GM’s BrightDrop has secured additional orders for its all-electric EV600 and EV410 delivery vans. Walmart has reserved 5,000 of the vehicles from the company, Brightdrop announced on Wednesday. Like FedEx, which received the first part of a 500 vehicle order from BrightDrop at the end of last year, the retailer hopes to have an all-electric delivery fleet by 2040. Walmart said it will use the vehicles as part of its InHome delivery business. In 2022, the company plans to expand the availability of the service to 30 million US households by the end of the year. Walmart estimates its first vans from BrightDrop could be on the road as early as 2023.

Alongside the news from Walmart, BrightDrop announced that FedEx had reserved priority production for 2,000 additional EV600 delivery vans, and could order as many as 20,000 more over the next few years. The all-wheel-drive EV600 has 600 cubic feet of cargo storage space and can travel up to 250 miles on a single charge. It also includes auto-locking doors and motion-activated interior lighting.

GM and BrightDrop aren’t the only companies providing electric vans to some of the biggest parcel delivery companies on the planet. In 2020, FedEx ordered 10,000 EVs from UK-based Arrival. Meanwhile, electric transport startup Rivian is producing 100,000 delivery vans for Amazon.

Volvo will debut “Ride Pilot,” its take on a Tesla-like autonomous driving feature, in California, the automaker announced on Wednesday during CES 2022. Once it’s approved for use on highways, Volvo says it will offer Ride Pilot as a paid subscription add-on for a new electric SUV it plans to reveal later this year. It will later bring the feature to other markets globally.

The company worked with Zenseact and LiDAR developer Luminar to create Ride Pilot, and it’s currently testing the feature in Sweden. As you might guess from Luminar’s involvement, Ride Pilot will utilize LiDAR technology, an approach that puts Volvo at odds with Tesla. CEO Elon Musk famously called a “crutch” during a 2018 earnings call. According to Volvo, Ride Pilot will utilize a Luminar LiDAR sensor complemented by eight cameras, 16 ultrasonic sensors and five radars to enable the software to judge depth. In combination

“When we say self-driving, we mean self-driving. So this will be a feature or function where the car is actually responsible for the driving so you will not need to keep your hands on the steering wheel and you will not need to keep your eyes off the road,” said Martin Kristensson, head of AD and mobility at Volvo.

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CES wouldn’t be the Consumer Electronics Show without Razer bringing at least one prototype product to the event. This year was no different with the company using the annual trade show to unveil Project Sophia, a concept modular gaming desk. In its current iteration, the table includes room for 13 separate modules. These can be used to add components like touchscreen hotkey panels, external capture cards and audio mixers to Project Sophia, thereby allowing you to modify the station to your needs. Razer claims it’s possible to reconfigure the table “in seconds.”

Razer

The computer that powers everything is housed in a chassis that magnetically snaps underneath Project Sofia’s glass tabletop surface. Razer says it features the latest components from Intel and NVIDIA, and you can detach the case at any point to install new upgrades. Naturally, this being a Razer product, you’ll find plenty of RGB lighting, all of which you can control through the company’s Chroma software. But arguably the most eye-catching aspect of Project Sophia is the 65-inch OLED display Razer has built into the station. The company says it will also offer a model with a 77-inch display – but we’ll note here Project Sophia may never make it to market.

Looking at the rest of the concept, Razer appears to have paid less attention to ergonomics. Judging from the renders the company shared, you can’t adjust the height of Project Sophia to make it a standing desk or to better accommodate the position of a chair. And speaking of chairs, the company also unveiled a “Pro HyperSense” version of its $399 Enki gaming chair. Razer partnered with D-Box to add haptics to the chair. It will support 2,200 games, movies and TV series, including releases from publishers like Ubisoft and Microsoft. Oh, and it too will come with RGB lighting.

Razer

Razer didn't say when it plans to release either product, though we expect it's far more likely for the Enki Pro HyperSense chair to make it to market.  

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Almost exactly one year ago, Razer announced Project Hazel. The smart face mask, which later became Zephyr, went on sale in October for $100 and promptly sold out. No doubt sensing an opportunity, the company now plans to release a Pro version of the mask in 2022. It will have all the features of the standard model, including the dual-fan active filtration system with N95 filters and RGB lighting, and add voice amplification.

That’s a feature Project Hazel included but that Razer was forced to cut as it worked to bring the prototype to market. It will amplify your voice by 60 decibels up to one meter away. A button on the side will allow you to toggle the feature on and off. Beyond 2022, Razer hasn’t said when it will release the Zephyr Pro, but what we do know is the mask will cost $150. The company will also offer a starter pack with 100 days of filters for $200.

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With Intel and AMD announcing new processors this week, many PC manufacturers are also sharing details on their latest laptops. One of those is ASUS, which on Wednesday unveiled its 2022 ZenBook 14 lineup. At first glance, the most notable difference about the new "ZenBook 14 OLED" is that it features an updated design that's more square and less obtrusively branded. 

ASUS will offer separate versions of the ZenBook 14 OLED with the latest CPUs from Intel and AMD. You’ll need to go for a 12th-gen Core H processor if you want DDR5 RAM and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. Ryzen models will ship with DDR4X memory instead. Either way, you can configure the ZenBook 14 OLED with up to 16GB of RAM, though you’ll get faster clock speeds from the DDR5 modules. In addition to up to 1TB of PCIe storage, there’s an extra M.2 slot available if you decide you need more space. Powering everything is a 75Whr cell, and the entire laptop weighs less than three pounds.

The ZenBook 14 OLED comes with plenty of ports for an ultraportable, including two USB-C connections, a single USB-A port, HDMI 2.0, a headphone jack, and a microSD card slot. It also comes with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 support. If you get an Intel CPU, the two USB-C ports will offer Thunderbolt 4 connectivity, allowing for data transfer speeds of 40Gbps.

However, the highlight of the ZenBook 14 OLED is without question its display. On paper, it’s impressive. It’s a 14-inch OLED panel with 2,880 x 1,800 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio and 550-nit peak brightness. Add to that 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage, DisplayHDR 500 True Black certification, a 90Hz refresh rate and claimed 0.2 millisecond response time, and you have a display that should be equally great for productivity, gaming and video streaming.

ASUS

ASUS will also sell a “Space Edition” of the ZenBook 14 OLED. It has many of the same features as the standard 14-inch model, but you can configure it with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM. However, your only option on the CPU front is an Intel processor. Notably, it also comes with a smaller 63 Whr battery. The computer's exterior, which includes a 3.5-inch OLED display, was inspired by the MIR space station. Morse code across the outside of the laptop says Ad Astra Per Aspera. Roughly translated from Latin, that’s “through the hardships to the stars.”

There’s no word yet on pricing for either the ZenBook 14 OLED or ZenBook 14x OLED Space Edition, but ASUS promised to share more information when the laptops go on sale closer to the second half of 2022.

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After it was pulled from sale in the US last fall over a warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Owlet’s infant monitoring sock is once again available to purchase. Announced late last year and now known as the Dream Sock, you can buy the Bluetooth-enabled wearable either as a standalone product for $299 or as part of the company’s Dream Duo bundle for $399. The latter includes the Owlet Cam, a baby monitor with a 1080p camera and sensors for measuring the ambient temperature, noise level and humidity in the room where your newborn sleeps.

Each Dream Sock comes with a beside base station that connects to your home WiFi network. It relays the data the wearable and camera collect to the Owlet Dream App. Owlet is marketing the Dream Sock as a sleep aid tool. It will monitor your baby’s bedtime habits and use that information to provide personalized tips and guides to help you get them on a regular sleep schedule.

A feature the company’s Smart Sock 3 offered (and continues to do so in countries where it’s still available) was heart rate and oxygen blood level monitoring. Owlet doesn’t mention that functionality at all when it comes to the Dream Sock. That was one of the features that separated the company’s products from similar devices offered by competitors like Nanit and a major reason for why the device was popular in the first place. 

There aren’t many other products that monitor a baby’s heart rate and pulse ox in the way the Smart Sock 3 does, but it appears that functionality is what attracted the attention of the FDA and prompted the agency to contact Owlet about its marketing of the Smart Sock 3. We’ve reached out to Owlet to find out if it’s working with the FDA to bring that feature back. In the meantime, you buy the Dream Sock through Owlet’s website. It will also be available through Best Buy and Target later this month.

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After many companies dropped out of CES 2022 over health and safety fears related to the new omicron coronavirus strain, LG was one of the first to host a keynote before the trade show’s official start on Wednesday. Thankfully, you don’t have to watch the entire event to see everything the company showed off. We’ve compiled all of LG’s major announcements into a video that clocks in at under five minutes. Expect to see its 2022 OLED TV lineup make an appearance. Oh, and make sure to stick around until the end to see an adorable delivery robot.

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Like many other PC manufacturers, MSI is refreshing its gaming laptops this week with the new CPUs and GPUs Intel and NVIDIA announced at CES 2022. Among the models the company is updating are its popular Stealth GS77 and Stealth GS66 laptops. New to the 2022 versions of the laptop is a more durable zinc alloy hinge. They also feature larger trackpads and keycaps for a more comfortable typing experience. Between the Stealth GS77 and Stealth GS66, MSI will offer 10 different configurations.

With the latter, the most affordable model will cost $1,799 and feature an Intel Core i7-12650H processor, NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of NVMe storage. It also comes with a 17-inch 360Hz Full HD display. If you want MSI’s most powerful GS77 model, you’ll need to set aside $4,199. That gets you a computer with a 14-core, 20-thread i9-12900H; NVIDIA’s new flagship laptop GPU, the RTX 3080 Ti; 32GB of RAM; and a 1TB M.2 drive. Instead of a Full HD or QHD panel, it comes with a 4K 120Hz display that covers the entire Adobe RGB color gamut.

Moving to the smaller GS66, your most affordable option here is a $2,499 model with an i9-12900H, RTX 3070 Ti, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of internal storage and a 15-inch 360Hz Full HD display. For $1,000 more, you can get the computer with an RTX 3080 Ti, 32GB of RAM and 4K display.

MSI

If one of MSI’s new computers comes with at least an RTX 3070 and Core i7 processor, it will feature a “Meta-Ready” sticker on its case to tell you you’re ready to experience the Metaverse at its best. The company doesn’t say who decided you need one of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs for a technology that is more an idea than a reality at this point.

One of the ways MSI hopes to differentiate its laptops from all the other Intel 12th-gen machines you’ll have the chance to buy in 2022 is through its new cooling technology. The Core i9 Stealth GS77 will come with a metal pad that melts when the computer reaches a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid fills the space between the CPU and thermal block, leading to a more efficient transfer of heat, according to MSI. The company claims the technology allows for an up to 10 percent increase in performance.

MSI

MSI is also updating its Creator series of laptops, including the Z17, Z16P and M16. The highlight of the line is the Z17. It features a 17-inch 16:10 display with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and 165Hz refresh rate. The base model comes with an RTX 3070 Ti, i7 12700H processor and 32GB of RAM for $3,249. We’re waiting on details for when MSI plans to release all the laptops it announced today.

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The James Webb Space Telescope has completed one of the most challenging tasks involved in its mission to probe the depths of our universe. This week, NASA successfully deployed JWST’s 70-foot sunshield. The system is essential to the telescope’s operation. It will ensure its instruments don’t get hotter than 380 degrees Fahrenheit so that they’re cold enough to see the infrared light that Webb is designed to track.

NASA began deployment of the sunshield three days after the telescope’s successful December 25th launch. The entire unfolding process took the better part of eight days, with a single day pause for the agency to optimize Webb’s power systems and tensioning motors. When you consider all the components involved, it’s easy to see why NASA says the process was so challenging. In all, unfolding and tensioning the sunshield involved 139 release mechanisms, 70 hinge assemblies, eight motors, about 400 pulleys and approximately a quarter-mile of cabling. If any one of those components failed, they could have set the entire project back.

At best, it would have been another delay in a long line of setbacks. Following a redesign in 2005, NASA declared the JWST ready in 2016, but manufacturing complications delayed assembly to 2019. The coronavirus pandemic then led to further delays in shipping and testing the telescope. There’s still more work to be done before scientists can use Webb to study black holes and other celestial bodies. Over the next five and a half months, NASA has to deploy the telescope’s secondary mirror as well as align its optics. After all that, the world will get a chance to see the first images it takes.