Samsung has unveiled its largest curved monitor yet, the 55-inch Odyssey Ark, showing its potential for both gaming and productivity. For gamers, it wraps around your field of view so you can see both ahead and beside you when playing Flight Simulator, for instance. But it can also be flipped 90 degrees into a portrait orientation for work, showing a Zoom feed, spreadsheets and whatever else you need to see. 

Samsung

The Odyssey Ark is a Quantum Dot Mini LED display with a fairly sharp curvature and 16:9 aspect ratio, unlike the much wider 32:9 format of the 49-inch Odyssey Neo G9. It can pivot and tilt via the height adjustable stand (HAS), so you can set it to the optimal angle. That's pretty key, because it's so large when when tilted vertically that you have to crane your neck to see the top of the display. 

It also offers multiview options that "allow users to adjust Odyssey Ark exactly how they want it with a totally adaptable screen size to fit the game or the program without compromising its 4K display and bright, colorful images. The monitor also features a wireless, dial controller to manage lighting and the interface," Samsung wrote in a press release. Other specs like refresh rate, color accuracy, latency and more have yet to be revealed, but with Mini LED you can likely count on a reasonably bright, fast and color accurate monitor. 

Samsung's press shots only show the Odyssey Ark obliquely from the top and side, but YouTuber Tim Schofield tweeted some images from the CES show floor. Suffice to say, it's pretty grandiose when in portrait mode, essentially working as a triple display with the top of it literally towering over the user. Samsung plans to bring it to the US in the second half of 2022, but has yet to reveal any pricing. 

Dell launched the Alienware Graphics Amplifier way back in 2014 and only recently discontinued it, but now, the company has announced that it's giving eGPUs another shot. A new device called Concept Polaris is aimed at "performance-driven enthusiasts" and takes lessons learned from the original, though Dell has yet to decide if it will go beyond the concept stages. 

The design couldn't look more different from the Graphics Amplifier, with rounded edges replacing the more aggressive gamer-oriented styling of the original. Dell said it offers "meaningful cable routing" along with lighting effects, and the ability to mount it both vertically and horizontally. Power-wise, it uses up to a 425 dual AC adapter, allowing for a full-sized GPU with reduced occupied internal space. 

Dell

It can accommodate off-the-shelf full-sized 16-inch desktop gaming graphics cards and uses liquid cooling with Dell's 240mm Cryo-Tech cooling solution and "Element 31" thermal interface material. "With that kind of cooling architecture, overclocking your GPU natively with Alienware Command Center to reach its unrealized potential could never be easier," the company explained. 

Rather than using the clunky, proprietary connector that Dell installed on so many of its previous Alienware laptops, Concept Polaris connects to your laptop via Thunderbolt 4, though it's backwardly compatible with Thunderbolt 3 as well. In exchange for your free port, it provides external USB-A, USB-C and 2.5Gbps ethernet connections.. 

The concept sounds a lot more practical than the original, though it's hard to knock the first product considering it had such a long life. In any case, Dell is promising "desktop-level graphical strength" thanks to the overclocking potential — that is, provided it ever gets built. The company said that "it is a concept and many of these features and ambitions will evolve and change and, perhaps, even the purpose of the device will be redefined." It's hoping potential users will tell the company what they think "as we continue to explore concepts like this for the near future." 

Hisense is going big into bright Mini LED TVs this year with new models hitting up to 2,000 nits, while also introducing high-refresh 4K 120Hz gaming features like many other manufacturers. It also unveiled a new short throw laser projector that uses its triple RGB "TriChroma" laser engine with picture sizes up to 130 inches, the company announced. 

The top-end model is the 75-inch U9H, now using Mini LED Quantum Dot tech instead of what Hisense called ULED before. That means you get 1,280 full-array local dimming zones instead of 240, and up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, double the 1,000 nits of the previous U9G model. The U9H, like all of Hisense's sets for 2022, comes with Google TV. 

The U9H also got a host of both entertainment an gaming features, including Dolby Vision along with Dolby Vision IQ and Filmmaker Mode that enable the most accurate colors possible. On the gaming side, it can hit 4K 120Hz variable refresh rates (with support for FreeSync) and offers an auto low latency mode to keep response times down. It also offers an updated processor, ATSC 3.0 tuner and 2.12 audio channel configuration with Dolby Atmos support. It arrives late summer 2022 for $3,200. 

Hisense

The Mini LED-powered U8H meanwhile, takes the brightness down a notch to a still-impressive 1,500 nits, while also offering Filmmaker Mode, Dolby Vision IQ, and HDR10+. Other features are similar to the U9H, like the 4K 120Hz variable refresh rate, Freesync support, Dolby Atmos sound and ultra-high speed HDMI. The U8H arrives in mid-summer with prices starting at $1,100 available in 55-, 65- and 75-inch screen sizes. 

The U7H uses regular LED tech, but still offers Dolby Vision IQ, Filmmaker mode, HDR10+, Quantum Dot and Freesync, along with 4K 120Hz variable refresh rates, in sizes from 55- to 85-inches and prices starting at $800 (summer 2022). Finally on the TV side, the U6H drops the refresh rate down to 60Hz, but still delivers things like Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ and Filmmaker mode. Those models, arriving in summer 2022, will range from 50- to 75-inches and start at $580. 

The other interesting product we're seeing from Hisense is the new 4K PX1-PRO TriChroma short-throw laser projector (above). It uses three separate red, green and blue lasers to deliver a billion colors and a 60Hz native refresh rate, while offering features like Dolby Vision, HDR10 and Filmmaker Mode. It also comes with Dolby Atmos playback and ultra high-speed HDMI ports for eARC and auto low latency mode. As with the TVs, it also supports Android TV and all that entails. The PX1 PRO is now available for $4,000. 

Ford is making new efforts to double production capacity of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup to 150,000 vehicles per year, the company announced. That follows news from December that it capped pre-orders at 200,000 units, with CEO Jim Farley saying "we are completely oversubscribed with our battery electric vehicles." In addition, the company will start inviting the first group of reservation holders to place orders for the F-150 Lightning starting on Thursday, January 6th. 

To boost production, Ford said it created a small task force of employees from "manufacturing, purchasing, strategy, product development, and capacity planning" to find ways to accelerate production. It's also working with key suppliers "to find ways to increase capacity of electric vehicle parts, including battery cells, battery trays and electric drive systems," the company said in a press release.

The company noted that the F-150 Lightning is now in the the final pre-build phase before moving into mass production for retail and commercial customers, with deliveries starting this spring. The aim is to test production vehicles over a million miles or so in real-world customer conditions. 

Ford

On the order side, Ford said it's using a wave-by-wave reservation process, asking pre-order holders to watch for an invitation via email or check their Ford.com account. The automaker indicated that later pre-order holders might have to wait for vehicles from the following model year. (Ford also noted that over 75 percent of reservation holders were new to the brand.) 

Deliveries of the 2022 F-150 Lightning pickup will begin in spring of 2022 with a starting MSRP of $39,974 before any available tax incentives. However, some reports indicate that some dealers may be dinging customers up to $30,000 extra to be among the first to receive their vehicles. 

Ford recently announced that it would triple production of the Mustang Mach-E to reach 200,000 units per year by 2023, with plans to have the "global capacity to produce 600,000 BEVs annually." To do that, it's building what it calls its "most advanced, most efficient auto production facility in its 118-year history in Tennessee," along with three battery plants built in collaboration with SK Innovation. All of that represents a total $11.4 billion investment with 11,000 new jobs created.

The F-150 Lightning is eligible for a full $7,500 US BEV tax credit as of today (along with any state subsidies), but Ford is expected to hit its 200,000 vehicle eligibility limit later this year. At that point, the credit will gradually be phased out unless new legislation is passed that would change the rules. 

Over five years after the release of the Body Cardio (and one flirtation with Nokia), French company Withings has released its far most technologically advanced connected scale yet, the Body Scan. The big change over the last model is the addition of a handle with four stainless steel electrodes that allows it to measure ECG, segmented body composition (fat/water in your arms, legs and torso) and even esoteric things like nerve activity. All of these features will also make it one of the most expensive scales yet when it arrives to market. 

Withings says it's the number one US smart scale manufacturer and created the Body Scan "because users are demanding more and more medical and health data and information," Withings CEO Mathieu Letombe told Engadget in French. 

Withings

The new scale is certainly designed to deliver that. Though the design and high-strength tempered glass construction are similar to the previous Body Cardio, it's loaded with extra sensors that can tell you more than ever about your body. That includes four weight sensors, 14 ITO (Indium tin oxide) electrodes within the platform and four stainless steel electrodes on the new handle. The battery can now go for a year between charges compared to nine months before and it packs a larger, higher-resolution 3.2-inch LCD color display.

The handle allows safe, low-level electrical signals to pass through your entire body, not just your feet — much as you may have seen on some advanced gym scales. To start with, that enables a new 6-lead ECG that can detect heart arrhythmias via two sets of electrodes on each side of the handle and one within the base of the sale. That compares to a single lead on smartwatches, so the Body Scan can deliver more specific results "that can easily be ready by a cardiologist," said Letombe. 

An embedded algorithm can detect heart patterns associated with atrial fibrillation, showing the results on the display or Withings' Health Mate app. Those can be stored to show trends or "shared with medical professionals from the app," according to Withings. "Each time you weigh yourself, the scale can deliver that information, thanks to the new handle." 

In terms of your weight, Withings claims the Body Scan is accurate to within 0.1 pounds (50 grams) or double the previous model, but that's just the start of showing your body makeup. It uses multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to measure whole-body fat and water percentage, visceral fat, muscle and bone mass and extracellular and intracellular water. It can even provide readings for individual body parts, including your torso, arms and legs. All of that allows you to spot things used by health experts and sports professionals like dangerous localized fat or muscle imbalance, Withings said. 

Working with a French company called Impeto Medical, Withings also developed a feature to assess nerve activity. It can track sweat gland activity in the feet (sudomotor function) using a small direct current via the electrodes located in the plate. Impaired function in that regard could show signs of degeneration of small nerve fibers, something that can be corrected with regular activity and a healthy diet. 

"It's a useful function, because there are a lot of chronic health issues like obesity associated with poor nerve function," Letombe told me. "Impeto creates devices used by neurologists and others doctors that can cost upwards of 10,000 euros, and the Body Scan is a consumer product that, again, does that every time you weigh yourself." At the same time, Withings will be able to collect nerve activity data from millions of users that could be useful for medical research and patient care.

Withings

Along with the scale, Withings is also introducing (yep) a subscription service, with the price yet to be announced. It will "allow users to connect with medical specialists for advice and consultation while providing clinical teams with data in real-time," Withings said. It'll also offer personalized health plans, videos and more covering topics like nutrition, sleep, exercise and stress management to help users with their health goals. 

With the Body Scan, Withings will be offering consumers one of the more advanced health, sports and medical home devices out there — at a price. It's expected to cost $300 when it arrives to the US and Europe in the second half of 2022 following FDA clearance, or $100 more than the Body Scan's launch price. That will include three free months of the subscription service, but it's still big chunk of change for a scale. 

A lot will depend on whether it delivers on all the promised features with reasonable accuracy and if it receives its FDA clearance in a timely manner. That's not necessarily a given, as it took Withings well over a year to get its ScanWatch cleared by the FDA after it was first released. The company also had issues with its Pulse Wave Velocity (PVW) heart health feature, and pulled it in some regions over regulatory concerns. 

Given all that, it's fairly bold on Withings' part to introduce a scale with even more advanced medical and health functionality. "We think that's how we can advance a user's health, not by asking an extra effort, but delivering more targeted information on a product they use every day," said Letombe.

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Even the stand for Apple's 32-inch, $5,000 Pro Display XDR is famously expensive, but its next external monitor might be more reasonable, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. In his latest Power On newsletter, he said that Apple's next external monitor is "destined to be about half the price of the Pro Display XDR." 

Gurman also said that he's "hoping" it launches in 2022, so it's not super clear if that's from an informed source. Previously, he said that the cost of building that monitor (which uses LED backlit but not mini-LED technology) "has likely come down, and with a few tweaks and perhaps a slight drop in brightness, Apple might be able to get to a similar quality monitor (at a slightly smaller size) at perhaps about half the price."

Apple is reportedly working on some smaller 24- and 27-inch displays along with a successor to the Pro Display XDR, as 9to5Mac pointed out. The latter could use an A13 Bionic chip and Apple's Neural Engine to accelerate learning tasks. Apple was forced to ditch its "far beyond HDR" claim for the current Pro Display XDR model and was ridiculed by display expert Vincent Teoh for comparing it to a professional Sony reference monitor.

As usual, LG has unveiled its latest smart appliances for CES 2022, but this time they come with an unusual twist: a recipe service. The ThinQ Recipe app will let users choose from up to 10,000 recipes, with the app adding ingredients to your grocery list for delivery from Walmart or Amazon Fresh. 

LG has partnered with SideChef on the app, letting you cook up anything from a single recipe to a weekly meal plan. It also uses the Scan and Cook feature from Foodspace Technology that scans a bar code on certain frozen and ready-to-cook meals, automatically sending cooking instructions to compatible LG ThinQ ovens. 

LG

The new feature is designed to work with LG's latest InstaView Double Range oven and Over-the-range microwave. The former uses LG's InstaView tech that lets you see inside the appliance by knocking twice on the glass. It also uses LG's ProBake convection tech with Air Fry and Air Sous Vide modes, while the microwave offers LG's Steam Cook tech to keep foods moist when cooking. 

The new appliances with ThinQ recipe will be shown at LG's virtual exhibition booth at CES 2022 starting on January 5th, though LG didn't say when the app and appliances would go on sale. CES 2022 is still scheduled to proceed next week in Las Vegas, with LG, Samsung and Sony still committed as of this writing. Other companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Lenovo have backed out of real-world involvement, however. 

LG Display has unveiled its next generation of OLED tech, called "OLED EX," that's supposed to "enhance brightness up to 30 percent compared to conventional OLED displays," the company said. That could help fix OLED's biggest flaw next to mini LED technology, namely a lack of overall brightness. 

As LG Display points out, each OLED pixel emits light independently, meaning it can be fully on or off. That allows TVs to show perfect blacks with no "blooming" seen on LED TVs, but at the same time, OLED pixels can't hit the same brightness levels as LEDS. Current OLED sets can display peak brightness levels up to around 500-600 nits, while mini LED sets can hit 2,000 nits and higher.

LG Display

To make OLED sets brighter, OLED EX (Evolution/eXperience) uses deuterium compounds to allow the light-emitting diodes to emit stronger light. "When stabilized, the deuterium compounds allow the display to emit brighter light while maintaining high efficiency for a long time," LG Display said. 

OLED EX also allows for improved color accuracy. It apparently uses algorithms to predict the usage of 33 million OLED diodes in an 8K display, so it "precisely controls the display's energy input to more accurately express the details and colors of the video content being played." 

The company also upgraded its designs, reducing thickness by 30 percent and bezel size from 6 to 4 mm on 65-inch OLED displays. The company didn't say yet when it plans to bring the technology to market, but it noted that OLED sales increased 70 percent last year despite a 12 percent decline in the global TV market. "With our new OLED EX technology, we aim to provide even more innovative, high-end customer experiences through the evolution of our OLED technology, algorithms and designs," said LG Display's Dr. Oh Chang-ho. 

As it does every year around this time, Samsung has unveiled its C-Lab incubator projects for CES 2022, with the aim to gauge customer response and further advance the most promising ideas. The star of the show this year is ZamStar, a guitar and app combo designed to make collaboration and learning easier. Other notable projects include an AI solution to help kids develop good smartphone habits and a nursery mobile that can allow for early detection of infant strabismus (eye crossing). 

ZamStar consists of an app and a custom guitar called ZamString. The idea is that you can play a part on the guitar, add effects and then sync it up with other musicians around the world. It's clearly a riff on the COVID-19 TikTok trend of musical collaborations (remember all those sea shanties early this year), with the idea of making it easy to sync up your music. Meanwhile, the ZamString guitar has a fretboard that lights via input from a song, making it easy to figure out where to put your fingers. It's not a new concept, but perhaps the first to marry both the learning and collaboration aspects. 

Piloto, meanwhile, is what Samsung calls an "AI solution that helps children develop proper smartphone usage habits." The aim is to teach kids "self-regulation skills" on smart devices to help them make good choices. Finally, Innovision is "a daily life eye-care system with a nursery mobile to catch suspicious symptoms of the strabismus and monitor visual ability development status for babies." That seems like a smart idea, since babies gaze natural towards mobiles.

Along with its inside incubators, Samsung's C-Lab Outside is backing nine startups, including an AI-based biometric recognition solution for pets called Petnow. All of these projects will be on display with their own booths at CES 2022. So far, Samsung still appears to be planning to attend the event and has not followed the lead of other exhibitors (Google, Lenovo, Intel, Amazon, Meta, T-Mobile) by cancelling.

Last year Square Enix unveiled Final Fantasy XVI, the next chapter in the long running RPG series, promising more information to come at the end of 2021. Now, it seems that both the announcement and the game have been postponed, Kotaku has reported.

"When we last spoke, I promised I would have more information on Final Fantasy XVI sometime later in 2021," producer Naoki Yoshida wrote on Twitter. "However, I regret to inform you that I will be unable to keep that promise, as complications from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic have delayed the game’s development by almost half a year."

Developer Square Enix allowed partners to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that apparently affected the schedule. "This has unfortunately hampered communication from the Tokyo office, which, in turn, has led to delays in — or in extreme cases, cancellations of — asset deliveries from our outsource partners," Yoshida said. 

As we noted last year, FF XVI was originally launched as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, and has a medieval setting rather than the more sci-fi oriented environments of recent versions. The company said that it established an "all-new development environment" for the project and had to learn the ins and outs of the PS5. 

"We have spent much of 2021 addressing this [pandemic] issue, and hope to see its impact to a minimum by the new year, allowing us to better focus on the tasks at hand: increasing graphic resource quality, refining combat mechanics, fleshing out individual battles, putting the finishing touches on cutscenes, and conducting overall graphic optimization," said Yoshida. The plan is to now do a reveal in spring of 2022 and release the game some time after that.