As a matter of fact, the kitchen gadget ruled the roost at this year’s CES. It made our list of the best devices unveiled at the event and was a regular topic of conversation. A kitchen gadget has to be pretty special to garner buzz when competing with the latest laptops, smart TVs and bunny-shaped anthropomorphic AI assistants. In other words, GE’s Profile Smart Indoor Smoker delivers.
We praised the appliance for offering home cooks a legitimate way to smoke meats indoors, which is something that was previously out of reach for apartment dwellers and the like. The GE device ditches an open flame for electric heating elements to bring low-and-slow smoking indoors.
We also liked the built-in filtration system that prevents odorous smoke from wafting throughout the entire home. As for techy components, this smoker connects to Wi-Fi for remote cooking and monitoring, a feature we admired in our official hands-on with the unit. We got our hands on some brisket prepared by the unit and it sure was delicious.
The primary downside to this device is the price. Spending $1,000 on a smoker is likely to empty bank accounts and speed along divorce proceedings. This discount to $700 makes it a more reasonable purchase option. We'll have an official review of the smoker published soon.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-new-ge-profile-smart-indoor-smoker-is-300-off-right-now-173049256.html?src=rss
With today’s release of Chrome M121, Google announced it will introduce new generative AI features that will make the browser easier to use. The new additions will include a tab organizer, a writing assistant that helps draft text and the option to customize the artwork and themes throughout the browser. The “Experimental AI” toggle must be flipped on in the Settings page — found in the three-dot dropdown menu — to enable these new features.
The Tab Organizer will do pretty much what it says: The built-in AI will automatically suggest ways to classify any open tabs in your Chrome windows and suggest the option to create groups. This might be helpful if you have a lot of recurring tabs open. When you click ‘Organize Similar Tabs,’ the AI will aggregate open pages together based on topics. For example, tabs related to shopping might all cluster together and the AI could suggest a name like ‘Ski-trip shopping gear.
Chrome's new text assist too might also have some practical applications. It will launch as an experimental tool that will help users draft text — including Google reviews or social media posts. To enable this when it launches, you need to select "Help me write" to let the tool finish your sentences or suggest options for continuing the text.
Google
Customization is not new to most Google tools like Mail or Docs and now on Chrome web browsers, you can personalize the browser's visuals — something the company considers an extension of the AI wallpapers it built out for Pixel phones recently. To do so, you need to select the ‘Customize Chrome’ button on the side panel and instruct the AI to generate a theme for you. You can search for a description, such as ‘small beach town’ or ‘Blade Runner vibes,’ and preview the AI-generated theme options before selection.
Introducing these new tools will naturally rival Microsoft's AI-infused Bing engine, which introduced AI-powered tab grouping and a text composition helper back in September. Chrome, however, still dominates the US browser market share by a wide margin, which Bing is usually lumped into the "others" category, well below competitors like Firefox and Opera.
Google
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-next-chrome-update-adds-three-new-generative-ai-features-170032292.html?src=rss
Last December the state of New Mexico sued Meta for failing to protect children, claiming that Facebook and Instagram algorithms recommended sexual content to minors. Now, an unredacted internal Meta presentation has been revealed, with the company's own employees estimating that 100,000 child users were harassed daily, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to a 2021 internal document, Facebook's "People You May Know" (PMYK) algorithm was singled out as a primary connector of children to predators. When employees reported those findings to Meta executives, they reportedly rejected recommendations that the algorithm be redesigned to stop recommending adults to minors.
The feature was responsible for 75 percent of all inappropriate adult-minor contact, according to one employee. "How on earth have we not just turned off PYMK between adults and children?" another employee said. "It's really, really upsetting," added another.
The issues were particularly insidious on Instagram, according to an internal 2020 memo, with "sex talk" 38 times more prevalent on that platform than Facebook Messenger in the US. In one case an Apple executive reported that his 12-year-old child was solicited on Instagram. "This is the kind of thing that pisses Apple off to the extend of threat[en]ing to remove us from the App Store," said an employee charged with addressing the issue.
New Mexico claims that Meta has failed to address large-scale predation on its platform, particularly around recommendation algorithms. State investigators originally set up phony accounts for children, providing adult dates of birth, as kids often misstate their ages to access online services that they're not supposed to. Then, they implied that the accounts were being used by children, with one posting about a lost baby tooth and starting seventh grade. The suit alleged that, among other things, the accounts were sent child sex images and offers to pay for sex.
The state further alleges that Meta leaders didn't take action to limit adult predation on minors until late 2022, and still stopped short of strict measure recommended by safety staff. Instead it, only attempted to block suggestions to adults who previously demonstrated suspicious behavior toward children. However, according to a Meta study, 99 percent of accounts disabled for grooming children failed to state their age.
Meta recently introduced measures for teen users on Instagram and Facebook, including stopping non-followers from messaging them and blocking offensive comments. On top of the New Mexico complaint, Meta is facing lawsuits from 41 states complaining it harms the mental health of its youngest users. Another recently unsealed complaint filed by 33 states alleges that Meta "coveted and pursued" users under the age of 13 and has been dishonest about how it handles underage users' accounts when they're discovered.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/facebook-and-instagrams-algorithms-facilitated-child-sexual-harassment-state-lawsuit-claims-095314139.html?src=rss
Samsung’s first major hardware event of the year is here and, as expected, it’s primarily focused on the Galaxy S24 series of flagship smartphones. What you might not know, however, is that these smartphones are available for pre-order and that Amazon is already offering a fairly substantial bonus for early adopters.
You can get a gift card, up to $200, by pre-ordering the S24 via Amazon. All you have to do is enter a code at checkout. Once you complete the order, you’ll get an electronic gift card for use throughout the site. Being as how Amazon sells just about everything under the sun, that’s basically free money.
The gift card amount varies depending on the model. To snag the full $200, you’ll have to pony up for the top-of-the-line Galaxy S24 Ultra. The standard S24 gets you a $50 gift card, while the beefier S24+ allows for a $150 gift card. The Ultra costs $1,300, while the S24+ costs $1,000. The regular S24 will set you back $800. Flagship phones are pretty expensive, so the gift card can help offset that a bit. Samsung’s also offering a storage upgrade with pre-orders and Amazon customers get access to this perk.
What’s new with the S24 line? A whole lot, actually. They boast an ultra-durable titanium frame that should seriously increase the phone’s lifespan. To that end, Samsung has promised seven years of software support for these phones. While the specs feature the usual year-to-year bump, the software is packed with, wait for it, AI algorithms that allow for some new use case scenarios.
For instance, AI allows for a drastic increase in optical quality when using the camera’s zoom functionality. The algorithms can also be used to edit photos, create slow-mo footage and even delete and move items in the frame, with the AI automatically filling in the empty space. There’s also AI-enhanced language translation tools, ChatGPT-esque summarization capabilities and automatic copy-editing.
There’s a reason we previously wrote that Samsung “is taking the transition to the AI era incredibly seriously.” Pre-orders start today and official sales of the S24 line are slated for January 31.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-includes-up-to-a-200-gift-card-when-you-pre-order-the-samsung-galaxy-s24-series-194428875.html?src=rss
I own a jacket that’s eerily similar to Tess’ in Open Roads. It’s a blue bomber with yellow and burnt orange accents, and it’s not the only thing that Tess and I have in common. As she leisurely explores her childhood bedroom in the first few minutes of the game, Tess comes across set pieces that ground her environment in the early 2000s. There’s a chunky black television set and scattered DVD cases, little bottles of bright nail polish, a black-and-white strip from a photo booth, newspapers remembering 9/11 and hunting for bigfoot, and a bright pink tube of sickly sweet lip balm. These are the leftovers of her adolescence — the room is disheveled and largely empty, with most of her possessions packed away, ready to move. Tess picks through the room’s remaining photos and yearbooks, her hand-drawn fingers reaching out to interact with 3D objects, revealing more of her backstory with each touch. The cuff of her jacket is jarringly familiar every time it enters the frame.
Open Roads is a narrative-driven, exploration-focused game about the road trip that Tess and her mother take when a death in the family uproots their life. After clearing out the house and finding a mysterious diary in the attic, Tess and her mom, Opal, print out directions from RoadBuddy (not MapQuest) and set off on a long drive. Emotional upheaval is bound to ensue.
Annapurna Interactive
I watched developers play the first 15 minutes or so of Open Roads, and the preview reeled me in immediately. Visually, the game is polished and engaging; the settings and interactable objects are 3D, while characters are hand-drawn, carving depth into each scene. Developers at the Open Roads Team uploaded real-life handwriting samples to create yearbook pages, postcards and letters, which removes the threat of pixelated text ruining the immersion. In conversation, the characters float between movements like old-school Disney storyboards, making the entire experience feel like a lucid dream.
Tess and Opal are fully voiced by two mainstream actors, Kaitlyn Dever and Keri Russell, and in the scenes I’ve seen, their performances are fantastic. The interactions between Tess and Opal are simultaneously loving and strained, as mother-daughter relationships can be. The writing is also evocative and genuine; dialogue flows smoothly, even with the various player-chosen paths that each conversation can take. These characters feel real right away.
Annapurna Interactive
The house that Tess and Opal are leaving is lived-in and it has a sense of history. There are personal, hand-crafted touches in every room, and developers added bits of their own lives to the game. The chair by that desk? It was modeled after a developer’s own childhood memories. Those old, creepy ornaments in the attic? A developer’s grandma passed down those exact decorations in real life. The scribbles on the wall? They’re drawings from the creators’ kids. These details won’t be obvious to most players, but they lend a sense of authenticity to the game as Tess explores the closets and corners of her family home.
Open Roads doesn’t just provide early-2000s nostalgia, but it also reaches back and references the ’60s and ’70s, covering multiple generations in Tess’ family. As Tess investigates the house and picks up various objects, Opal provides context and tells stories about their life, and there are branching dialogue paths. At one point during the preview, the developer that was playing decided to make Tess walk away from the refrigerator without shutting its door, and this caused Opal to scold her. Tess and Opal’s relationship is charming and warm, but there’s a sense of tension running through their interactions that I’m eager to examine in the full game.
Open Roads feels like a mix of Gone Home, Life is Strange and What Remains of Edith Finch, in the best possible way. The writing, voice acting and animation style harmonize in the first few minutes of the game to create a realistic and nostalgic world populated with vivid characters. I’m ready to hit the road with Tess, Opal and their printed-out driving directions when the game hits PC, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox on February 22. After all, I already have the jacket.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/open-roads-preview-bring-me-to-life-in-2003-170007873.html?src=rss
Engadget readers like yourself are probably more tech savvy than the average person. That means you may get roped into helping older family members with email woes, new phone setups, or deciphering if a message is legit or a phishing scam. In my family, I’ve become my mother’s unofficial IT support hotline, which makes me wonder about older adults with adult kids who are short on time. Turns out there are a number of resources staffed with actual people who will calmly walk seniors through just about any tech trouble they may face. Many local libraries and senior centers host classes and even one-on-one tech assistance to seniors for free, but if they can’t make it to a live session or there aren’t offerings in their area, phone hotlines and online services may be the answer.
For the past couple weeks, I used my mom and her frequently asked questions to try out a few of the senior tech hotlines out there and found three services that are refreshingly helpful, two of which are completely free and a third that includes a free option. If you know a senior who could use help with their tech, directing them to one of these services won’t feel like pawning them off, but rather like you’re sending them to an IT pro with endless patience.
Top three free senior tech support companies
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-tech-support-helplines-for-seniors-according-to-my-73-year-old-mom-140013739.html?src=rss
Nowadays, there are already plenty of choices when it comes to pet trackers, and some can even monitor heart rate, but apparently none could detect atrial fibrillation (AFib) until now. At CES 2024, GPS tracker specialist Invoxia unveiled the Minitailz, the world's first pet tracker that can keep an eye out for early heart disease symptoms on your cats or dogs. Together with other vital stats and activity log, the companion app then uses conversational generative AI to generate easy-to-read reports on your pets.
According to the French company, Minitailz is able to track respiratory and heart vitals with an accuracy of 97 to 99 percent, thanks to its advanced biometric sensors combined with AI. Using deep learning algorithms, the set of data is then used to spot digital biomarkers that indicate stress, aging and pathologies. The device can also differentiate the types of movements, such as walks, runs and zoomies, as well as alerting you when your pets wander beyond your preset geofences.
Photo by Richard Lai / Engadget
The Minitailz module houses a built-in SIM card for LTE-M connectivity, which enables real-time tracking in conjunction with GPS. This can be attached to any pet collar, which is an advantage over many competing devices that are stuck inside a physical neckband, according to Invoxia.
The Minitailz is already available for dogs via Invoxia's website for $99, followed by a cat version due in March for the same price. You'll also need to buy a subscription starting from $8.30 per month.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-dog-tracker-from-invoxia-can-also-detect-your-pets-abnormal-heart-rhythms-160021010.html?src=rss
The technology industry loves to breathlessly sell you its latest and greatest and best-est new idea. Pitches have to be fast and aggressive because if you took more than a second to think about what they were selling, you might not reach for your wallet. As flashy as the products at CES 2024 in Las Vegas can be, they often have one fatal weakness. Which is to not have any sort of answer to the most important question of them all: “y tho?”
LG came to CES showing off a 77-inch wireless 4K OLED TV that is transparent for some reason. You can play footage of a singer, or an aquarium, or other screensaver-y type things as a talking piece in your home. But it turns out, being transparent isn’t great for actually watching TV, so it ships with a roll-out black background to make your transparent TV no longer transparent. I can imagine this used as an advertising screen or as an installation in a museum or corporate office. But why would you spend so much money on a TV where its key feature is an impediment to its proper function?
It’s important that devices are designed with accessibility as a primary concern, rather than tacked on at the end. Nobody would hate on a voice-activated toilet that could help folks with access needs get through their day. But Kohler’s bidet seat is deeply integrated with Alexa or Google Home. Why on earth would you spend more than two grand to give Amazon or Google detailed insights into your bathroom habits?
Lockly’s Visage smart lock uses facial recognition to allow access to your home, opening the door if it spots you approaching. Setting aside the hideous privacy and security implications of smart locks, a thing you should never connect to the internet, this is a mad idea. Why would you leave something as important as access to your home at the whims of a sensor or some unproven gadget?
The Urtopia Fusion is an e-bike equipped with a 540Wh battery promising 75 miles of range, a beefy mid-drive motor and air suspension forks. It is also, for some godforsaken reason, equipped with ChatGPT which, the company says will enable you to “talk” to your bike. Its custom assistant will, when asked, help you “explore new routes,” “get real-time information” and even “engage in entertaining conversations.” Why on earth would you want to have a conversation with your bicycle when you should be focusing on literally anything else.
Hyundai showed off a new VTOL air taxi concept that, it’s hoped, would take people on short hops of up to 40 miles. It can reach a top speed of 120 miles per hour and will probably never ever come to the real world. After all, why would you go to the trouble of reengineering the whole world to accommodate this disaster waiting to happen?
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/five-ces-products-that-make-you-ask-but-why-150010098.html?src=rss
We always find some strange gadgets at CES. There's no way around it, with thousands of exhibitors peddling their wares, trying to find a market for things no one has dreamed up before. From startups to giants like Samsung, there are plenty of things that make us pause, chuckle, and shake our heads. Here's a few favorites from CES 2024. Keep in mind, weird doesn't necessarily mean bad. It just means weird.
If you squint, you can see how a laptop paired to AR glasses could provide a much more expansive and immersive experience than a standard 14-inch laptop screen. Unfortunately, the narrow field of view, spongy keyboard and high price make this a bit of a non-starter.
Yes, Ballie is definitely cute. We got a kick of out seeing it roll around its demo area at Samsung's CES booth. But it's still pretty weird to have a tiny robot follow you around so it can project a workout video on the ceiling while you work your abs.
The Moonwalkers have a highbrow premise: by propelling the human wearing them a little bit further than they'd normally go when they take a step, this could add up to much more efficient walking over the course of a day, week or lifetime. The new "X" model is lighter and has fewer wheels, making it theoretically easier to produce. But the original Moonwalker cost about $1,400, a wild amount of money. You're probably just better off walking a little quicker.
While we can see the potential use cases for having a more intelligent voice assistant in your car, one powered by ChatGPT, having the car tell us a story about dinosaurs was a pretty weird way to go about demonstrating it.
We've all seen videos of dogs "playing" an instrument, but this might be the first one purpose-built for a pet. "Teach" your dog to "play" this "piano" and you'll surely get hours of entertainment. The $299 device even comes with an automated feeder to encourage your dog to keep going.
Turns out downtempo music music soothes pets and cartoons studying endlessly alike. We love the research showing this, but that still doesn't explain why this is better than just letting your dog listen to your Spotify account.
Let's be clear: "weird" does not necessarily mean "bad" or "useless." Adam-X certainly does look useful for medical training. But, well, it's also just a bit off-putting.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-weirdest-tech-and-gadgets-we-saw-at-ces-2024-233003886.html?src=rss
Hello and happy new year! Once again, team Engadget has set up shop in Las Vegas for CES, living out of suitcases so that we can scour the massive show floor and occasionally injure ourselves in the process. For CES 2024, we expected to see AI everywhere, and we were not disappointed.
Notably, too, there was a lot less pee on the show floor this year. (But we did find some.)
Today is our team's last day on the ground, which means it's also time for us to announce our annual Best of CES award winners. You may notice an obvious difference this year, which is that we've gotten rid of categories. From our point of view, we still attempted to see as broad a range of products as possible: laptops, mobile devices, gaming gear, smart home stuff, cars and items meant for people with disabilities. When it came to choosing winners, though, we saved time not having to debate amongst ourselves whether something was a laptop or a gaming device, a wearable or an accessibility device. A good product is just a good product.
Without further ado, we present our winners for CES 2024. But don't mistake this for the last of our coverage: We have other stories, recaps and roundups in the pipeline for you to read over the coming days. Keep following along. — Dana Wollman, Editor-in-Chief
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14
Engadget
Not only is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 powerful enough to run the latest blockbuster video games, but it's also incredibly sleek. The ROG Zephyrus G14 has an aluminum chassis with clean lines, crisp edges and a thinner, lighter design than previous models. A simple LED slash runs across the lid and can be programmed to glow in gray or white, rather than the garish rainbow favored by other gaming laptops. The ROG Zephyrus G14 looks sophisticated, and it can also run any title on the market, thanks to its AMD Ryzen 8000 series processors and optional NVIDIA RTX 4070 GPU at the high end. Top-of-the-line specs and a minimalist design make the latest ASUS line stand out in a sea of other game-focused devices at CES. This is what gaming laptops look like when they're all grown up. — Jessica Conditt, senior reporter
Samsung Music Frame
Samsung
Samsung's line of Frame TVs, first introduced back in 2017, do a great job of disguising a large-screen TV as a piece of art. The Samsung Music Frame does the same thing, but for wireless speakers. Instead of a screen, there's a place to display art or album covers that you swap pretty easily.
This wouldn't be noteworthy if the Music Frame didn't sound good — but in our demo, it did. The Music Frame includes two woofers, two tweeters and two mid-range drivers and supports Dolby Atmos. It's also quite the flexible speaker, working on its own, in a stereo pair or connected to a TV as part of a bigger home theater setup. It's even wall-mountable. We have no price or release date, but given Samsung's success with the Frame TVs, we imagine they won't wait long to get the Music Frame on the market. — Nathan Ingraham, deputy editor
LG Signature OLED T
LG
OLED TVs are great. An OLED TV you can see through — well, that’s just wild. The LG Signature OLED T isn’t the first transparent display we’ve seen at CES, but it is the first that will actually be sold to consumers (unlike Samsung’s similar transparent MicroLED concept).
This is a 77-inch set with an retractable contrast screen. Keep the filter up, and it looks like one of LGs standard, excellent OLED sets. Bring it down, and the image almost looks like it’s floating in mid-air. Like Samsung’s Frame TVs, the Signature OLED T is designed for ambience — when you’re not watching a show or movie, it can display little animations (a digital fish tank, for instance). To help it feel less obtrusive, the TV also uses LG’s wireless Zero Connect tech, which relegates most of the set’s I/O (and thus cables) to a separate box that can be tucked away elsewhere.
The TV does lack the microlens array tech found in LG’s absolute best OLED TVs and LG isn’t sure if it will come with the furniture you see in the image above. The company says it will ship sometime in 2024, though there’s no firm release date yet. But whenever it does arrive, it will almost certainly be prohibitively expensive for most people. — Jeff Dunn, senior commerce writer
TCL NXTPAPER 14 Pro
TCL
With its third-generation NXTPAPER display, TCL’s latest 14-inch tablet combines the best things about LCD displays and e-readers. You get a sharp 2.8K-resolution panel with bright colors plus a special nano-coating that not only reduces glare, but also cuts down excess blue light while providing a lovely matte texture. And for those who prefer a more traditional newspaper-like reading experience, there’s a monochrome mode that makes the NXTPAPER 14 Pro look like it has an e-ink screen. So while its specs aren’t all that impressive (MediaTek Dimensity 8020, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage), TCL’s new tablet is one of those rare gadgets that appeals to both hardcore tech nerds and traditionalists that still remember a time before everything went digital. — Sam Rutherford, senior reporter
ASUS ZenBook Duo
Engadget
ASUS has been chasing the dream of dual-screen notebooks for a while, but this year's ZenBook Duo appears to be its best attempt yet. It consists of two separate components: a dual-screen display unit and a detachable Bluetooth keyboard. You can use the ZenBook Duo in a typical clamshell mode, with the keyboard in front of one of its displays. But when you have more room, you can open up the display to have two screens sitting on top of each other (balanced on a built-in kickstand).
The ZenBook Duo also feels incredibly polished, and it has high-end hardware like Intel's Core Ultra chips and gorgeous OLED screens. It also starts at a reasonable $1,500, making it a dual-screen laptop for the masses. — Devindra Hardawar, senior reporter
Withings BeamO
Withings
There’s never a shortage of health and fitness tech at CES. This year Withings stood out with its $250 BeamO “multiscope.” It combines a body temperature sensor, an electrocardiogram, an oximeter and a digital stethoscope into one surprisingly light consumer device that promises to make it easier to collect basic health metrics at home. The company's Health Mate app collects all of that data, which can then be sent to doctors with a few taps. Withings is also seeking FDA approvals for the BeamO to be able to detect atrial fibrillation.
BeamO impressed us not only with its versatility and fairly affordable price, but also for the potential impact it could have on telemedicine. Providing your doctor with key metrics ahead of a call or visit could make it easier for them to give you sound medical advice. And those with chronic conditions could use BeamO to keep track of health data over the long term. — Valentina Palladino, senior commerce editor
EcoFlow Delta Ultra
EcoFlow
A whole-home battery and inverter system is far from the funkiest bit of hardware we saw at CES, but it’s likely one of the more useful. The EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra can take in and store power from your rooftop solar panels then use the stored energy to power your home. The DELTA Pro Ultra can even suck up juice from the grid when it's cheaper, and feed it back when energy prices surge.
A base configuration goes for $5,800 and includes one 6kWh battery and inverter, but you can stack up to five batteries per inverter and chain up to three inverter-and-battery stacks, amounting to a 90kWh capacity. That’s a beastly amount of power that could keep a McMansion humming at full tilt for a few days — or run essential appliances in a more moderately sized home for a month or longer.
The DELTA Pro Ultra can also hook into an existing transfer switch if you have one, but for deeper integration with your home’s power system, the subpanel-like Smart Home Panel 2 gives you features like app control, weather and power grid monitoring, and instant switchover to backup when the power goes out. As more solar panels are installed on rooftops, a sleek and powerful all-in-one battery solution like this can give people more control over how their power is used. If you’re intrigued, you don’t have to wait — it’s one of many CES 2024 gadgets already on the market. — Amy Skorheim, commerce writer
GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker
GE
When it comes to smoking meat at home, your options are usually limited to outdoor grills that burn charcoal, pellets or wood. If you live at a place where your landlord doesn't allow open flames, like apartments, then you're pretty much out of luck. The GE Profile Smoker ditches the flames for electric heating elements and brings low-and-slow smoking indoors.
The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker is no gimmick either. It’s capable of infusing significant smoke flavor via wood pellets as we experienced first hand this week. There won't be any smoke wafting around your kitchen as the unit captures all of that with its filtration system. If you need to cook while you're away, a unique feature does that and then holds your food at a safe temperature until you're ready to serve. Toss in Wi-Fi for remote cooking and monitoring, cooking profiles and guidance, plus the Clear Smoke tool for when you need to open the door, and the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker has a lot to offer a range of skill levels. — Billy Steele, senior reporter
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4
Sennheiser
Sennheiser's Momentum True Wireless series has consistently earned the accolade of the best-sounding earbuds in our best of list for a while now. However, the company never really had the complete package to knock Sony's 1000X series off the top spot. At CES this year, Sennheiser debuted the fourth-gen version of its flagship earbuds, which bring a host of upgrades. They still sound excellent, ANC and transparency mode are also improved.
The Momentum True Wireless 4 did a great job blocking out the noisy Las Vegas suite, allowing us to focus on the selection of jazz we used to demo the earbuds. Transparency mode also sounded more natural, which will be a big help for calls and tuning into your surroundings. What's more, Sennheiser figured out a way for active noise cancellation to not drain the battery nearly as much as it typically does; the ANC here only cuts listening time by half an hour. — B.S.
Gyrogear GyroGlove
Engadget
The number of accessibility and aging-related products that were good enough for us to consider for awards at CES 2024 was encouragingly high. We saw a tongue-operated touchpad, a hearing aid-like system that can isolate individual speakers in a noisy crowd and a visual radar for gamers with hearing loss. But GyroGlove stood out for a few reasons.
The device uses a sophisticated gyroscope to help those with hand tremors (say, Parkinson's patients) stabilize their movement, but one of the deciding factors in picking it as a winner is the fact that it's actually available. The company said it's already in talks with the chief medical officers of several insurance providers in the US, and has registered the GyroGlove as a medical device with the FDA and Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration. It's certified by various international standards organizations, to boot. — Cherlynn Low, deputy editor
Kia Platform Beyond Vehicles (PBV)
KIA
Kia’s PBV, or Platform Beyond Vehicles, concept is the rare car concept (or concepts, plural) that seems like it might actually be a real thing in the relatively near future. The PV5 is likely to be the first to make the leap. It’s a small modular van that can be equipped with a taller roof for extra headroom, or turned into a pickup by swapping out the back two-thirds. It can also be turned into a taxi with extra seating for passengers.
One of the more interesting things is how the members of the PBV family, including the larger PV7 and the smaller PV1 are expected to work together. For instance, Kia imagines a rail system that can connect a PV7 directly to a PV1, transferring cargo to the smaller vehicle for last mile deliveries.
Most importantly, PBV isn’t some fantastical dream vehicle that will never be heard from again: Kia is already building a dedicated factory in Korea that’s expected to be ready to pump out 150,000 vehicles in 2025. — Terrence O’Brien, managing editor
Samsung Ballie
Samsung
CES was a little light on notable robots this year, but Samsung revived one we loved when we first saw it way back in 2020. Ballie is an adorable, bowling ball-sized robot that rolls around your home, following you around like a robotic pet that's eager to please. Ballie is a lot bigger than it was when we saw it in 2020, and it now has a built-in 1080p projector so it can both show you things and speak to you when you ask it for help. Think of it like a Nest Hub on wheels.
We only got to see Ballie in a tightly-plotted demo at Samsung's booth, but it was simply delightful to watch Ballie roll around projecting workout routines, calendar updates and recipe videos on the walls. As with most smart home gadgets, there's a little bit of "solution searching for a problem" here. But it feels like Samsung nailed the form factor judging by how smoothly Ballie navigated its way around the demo area. And while many companies show off products like this that have no chance of actually reaching people in the real world, Samsung says Ballie will go on sale this year. — N.I.
Micron LPCAMM2 laptop RAM modules
Micron
If you've ever been annoyed that you couldn't upgrade your RAM in an ultraportable laptop, Micron has a potential solution: LPCAMM2 memory. It's a new form factor that's 64 percent smaller than standard SODIMM RAM sticks, and it's also potentially far faster and more efficient. Best of all is that it's a self-contained unit that can easily be removed and upgraded down the line.
LPCAMM2 RAM won't get as much hype as AI PCs, but it's something that could transform what's possible with future laptop designs. And if it means laptop makers stop soldering RAM directly onto motherboards, we'll call it a win. — D.H., senior reporter
Best in show: GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker
GE
CES 2024 is often described as a TV show or car show, but sometimes it’s more niche products that capture our imagination. GE Profile’s Smart Indoor Smoker is a countertop device that makes proper barbecue in your kitchen without filling your home with smoke. It’s designed to move air around the food to impart maximum smokiness inside, without letting airflow out. When your brisket, chicken or whatever is done, a filtration and catalyst system draws the smoke down, eventually expelling it as warm air.
Typically smoking food requires constant adjustments and vigilance, but the Smart Indoor Smoker has six preset cooking modes, while you’re able to adjust the degree of smokiness between five different levels. The wood pellets’ only function is to add flavor and not fuel the actual cooking process, so only a handful are needed per smoke session.
GE included a smart probe with the Smart Indoor Smoker too, so you can monitor the cooking process from a companion app and its Smoke and Hold feature can cook and smoke foods and keep them at food-safe temperatures for up to 24 hours. It’s not small (it's around the size of a mini fridge), but it’s stylish and simple to use, with a low barrier to entry for anyone tempted to try smoking their own foods. The device was also able to impart an impressive level of smokiness in only a few hours — we can’t wait to see what low-and-slow smoking could do. — Mat Smith, UK bureau chief
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-of-ces-2024-220054009.html?src=rss
