Roku is upgrading to OS 12, which will offer improvements including to streaming live TV and sports, among other things. A concurrent mobile app update features a new home screen and new tools for account management and photo storage. The company also announced that new Roku-branded TVs will be sold exclusively through Best Buy and online. Unveiled at CES 2023, the Roku Select and Plus series TVs made by Roku are now shipping, with 11 models spanning two lineups that offer sizes ranging from 24- to 75-inches. Pricing starts at $150 and scales to $1,200. Continue reading Roku Updates OS, Adds News, Announces Best Buy TV Deal

What a difference a year makes. CES 2023 attracted more than 115,000 attendees from 140 countries to Las Vegas where 3,000 companies filled 2 million square feet of exhibit space. Among the major themes relevant to M&E this year were artificial intelligence, the multiverse, AR and immersive experiences, displays, mobility, IoT, and numerous policy and regulation topics. ETC@USC attended the convention with onsite and remote teams, once again blending its in-person tradition with a virtual presence. Our post-show report features extensive coverage and perspectives related to these key creative, business, and technology areas. Continue reading CES 2023 Report: Connection, Collaboration and Cooperation

Social VR firm Bigscreen has opened pre-orders for Beyond, its first virtual reality headset. The $999 model, which the company says is the “world’s smallest,” offers a custom-fit from a 3D scan of each purchaser’s face. The PC-only wearable is also lightweight, at just under 6 ounces, including the strap. Delivery int eh U.S. is slated for Q3. The slight packaging doesn’t come at the expense of resolution, with dual 5K (5,120 x 2,560) micro OLED displays. However, some say the 93- degree horizontal field of view (90 degrees vertical) is a drawback. Continue reading Bigscreen’s First VR Headset Is Now Available for Pre-Order

The Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is a 1000R curved 57-inch gaming monitor that uses quantum mini-LED technology for pixel resolution of 7,680 × 2,160 at 32:9. Announced in November as the first monitor with DisplayPort 2.1 support, it has 240Hz refresh rate and connects with the Samsung Gaming Hub for cloud gaming. Samsung, which is calling the Neo G9 “the world’s first single monitor with dual ultra-high-definition resolution,” says it will ship later this year and did not announce pricing. The company also announced the 49-inch Odyssey OLED G9. Continue reading CES: Samsung Neo G9 Curved Gaming Monitor Wows Crowd

At CES 2023, Asus refreshed this year’s models of its popular ROG Zephyrus gaming laptops. The new flagship M16 comes tricked out with 13th Gen Intel i9 and Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics. The RTX 4080 variant starts at $3,900. Also arriving in the first quarter of 2023 are updates on the G14 and ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, with options including AMD Ryzen 9 Zen 4 or 13th Gen Intel processors and Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs. On the display front Asus offers the ROG Nebula, powered by mini-LED powered Nebula HDRs. Next-gen cooling rounds out the package. Continue reading CES: Asus Upgrades Popular ROG Zephyrus Gaming Laptops

The upcoming Razer Edge, a gaming handheld built for streaming, may change how players interact with cloud games. With a 6.8-inch AMOLED display at 2,400 x 1,080 FHD+ resolution with a 144Hz refresh rate, the Razer Edge and Razer Edge 5G from Verizon start at $360 and are designed for ever-connected mobile play. Razer says its latest handhelds are the first developed exclusively for the latest Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform. They include active cooling “for long gaming sessions playing top AAA titles and native games on the go without having to compromise performance.” Continue reading CES: Razer Edge Cloud Gaming Handheld Arrives January 26

ChatGPT came too late (end of November) to make a significant impact on CES this year, but the cacophony of opinions about the generative AI model definitely made its way to Vegas. The timing was perfect. Just as the crypto crash left the hype industry paralyzed, OpenAI launched ChatGPT in what now feels like a nerdy and frustrating tech version of the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert in ’69 (with computer scientists as the Hells Angels). Make no mistake: this is a landmark achievement in machine learning — perhaps the single greatest since the 2006 paper by Hinton, Salakhutdinov, Osindero and Teh on backpropagation in deep neural networks. However, it’s critical that industries, including M&E, distinguish between hype and reality. Continue reading CES: Generative AI Is Having Its ‘War of the Worlds’ Moment

Smart TVs were among the hottest products of CES. One set that seemed to generate raves all-around was TCL’s 98-inch 4K QLED with Dolby Vision HDR and Google TV. The unit features a built-in subwoofer, powerful Mini-LED backlight system and more than 2,300 dimming zones. During the show, TCL announced it was readying its first QD-OLED TV and committing to Samsung Display panels. However, the company later explained that a line in the “press release confirming plans to launch the brand’s first QD-OLED television this year was incorrectly included.” TCL, which said it will be “focused” on Mini-LED this year, showed a range of compelling TV tech. Continue reading CES: TCL Expands TV Lines, 98-Inch 4K QLED Model Is a Hit

Samsung Display has debuted a concept mobile device that both folds and slides, the Flex Hybrid. The company’s “smart mobile device” prototype unfolds to reveal a display on the left side, with the right side sliding outward to expand screen real estate. The Flex Hybrid’s OLED screen expands from a 10.5-inch 4:3 configuration to a 12.4-inch 16:10 display. Samsung Display also previewed two larger displays at CES 2023, the Flex Slidable Solo, which expands in a single direction, and the Flex Slidable Duet, which grows on both sides, from 13 or 14 inches of screen space to 17.3 inches. Continue reading CES: Samsung Flex Hybrid Mobile Device Can Fold and Slide

Sony wants to make gaming inviting for all players, including those with limited mobility, and to that end unveiled at CES 2023 a customizable controller kit for PlayStation 5 codenamed Project Leonardo that the company has in development. The configurable controller aims “to help many players with disabilities play games more easily, more comfortably, and for longer periods.” The circular controller lets players create a personalized controller by mapping buttons, swapping hardware and creating personalized profiles. Though specifically designed for the PlayStation 5, it will work in tandem with many third-party accessibility accessories. Continue reading CES: Project Leonardo PS5 Controller Aims for Accessibility

Audi-backed startup Holoride is bringing virtual reality entertainment to vehicles via a puck-like device it says consumers can integrate into any vehicle. The product, unveiled at CES 2023, marks a turning point for the company, which thus far has focused on B-to-B sales to automakers, although the company’s primary focus has been Audi vehicles. The suggested retail price on the consumer offering is $799 for a package that includes the device retrofit, an HTC Vive Flow headset, a safety strap and a one-year Holoride subscription. The Holoride retrofit is also available standalone for $199. Continue reading CES: Audi-Backed Startup Holoride Brings Motoverse to Cars

Connection, collaboration, and cooperation are three words that underscore almost everything we saw during four days at CES 2023. We anticipated this would not be a show of breakthrough innovations. Instead, we expected innovative ways to use recent advances. In broad categories, AR, haptics, and AI were much in evidence. Interesting light field displays and curved screens caught our eye. There were fewer cars but way more commercial vehicles and components driving “software-defined mobility.” TVs were secondary to connected ecosystems in Samsung and LG’s displays, while creators took center stage for Sony, Canon, and Nikon. Clear across the show, innovation may come from startups but to scale it takes giants. Continue reading CES: Show Floor Reveals the Ups and Downs of Tech Trends

While smart home technologies have often made a strong showing at CES, adoption has been hampered by issues of interoperability. This year at CES saw the widespread reveal of Matter (originally known as Project CHIP), a new smart home standard designed to support interoperability. Matter was originally announced in 2019 as a partnership between Apple, Google and Amazon to create an open-source smart home standard. Today, if CES 2023 is any indication, the standard is becoming more prevalent across a wide variety of connected devices and different product sectors. Continue reading CES: Matter Smart Home Protocol Marks Major Trend in 2023

Engineered for game design and other 3D workflows, the Asus Vivobook Pro 16X 3D OLED offers glasses-free spatial imaging. To do this, the laptop leverages something Asus calls Spatial Vision, an autostereoscopic OLED technology that creates a set of images for each eye using real-time eye tracking tech. With the 3D mode activated, the images are then projected through a microscopic layer of lenticular lenses built into the display panel. The technology is similar to the SpatialLabs technology Acer debuted in 2021, with one big difference: a Spatial Vision screen will appear 3D to multiple onlookers simultaneously. Continue reading CES: Asus Spatial Vision Brings Glasses-Free 3D to Laptops

Designed for hybrid workers, Lenovo’s new dual-screen Yoga Book 9i received several best of show awards at CES 2023. With two 13.3-inch, 2.8K OLED PureSight displays, Lenovo is calling this 9i refresh “the first full-sized OLED dual screen laptop.” One hundred percent DCI-P3 color accuracy and Dolby Vision HDR offers users ultra-vivid images, sharper contrast, and richer detail, according to Lenovo. The Yoga Book 9i responds to hand-gestures for moving between screens and resizing windows, the setup has a haptic touchpad and keyboard, as well as a detachable keyboard that turns off when not in use. Continue reading CES: Lenovo Offers Dual Screens with Its New Yoga Book 9i