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Paula ParisiJanuary 15, 2025
Panasonic reinforced its 2024 reentry into the U.S. television market, introducing three new models including the flagship Z95B OLED at CES 2025. Some say the company’s new top-of-the-line torch bearer — with spatial audio and sizes up to 77 inches — is competitive with premium models from top manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung and LG. The Z95B features a “next-generation” OLED panel “with Primary RGB Tandem technology, which employs a four-layer emission structure that refines the wavelength of light and increases color purity, thus enhancing light efficiency by 40 percent,” according to Panasonic. Continue reading CES: Panasonic OLED is Competitive in Premium TV Category
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Hank GerbaJanuary 15, 2025
Lenovo announced the Legion Go S, the first device outside of Valve’s own hardware to officially ship with SteamOS. Launching in May 2025, the $499 handheld gaming PC joins Valve’s Steam Deck in the lower-price segment of the PC handheld market. The device features an 8-inch display with 120Hz variable refresh rate and runs on a Lenovo-exclusive AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. Lenovo plans to release both SteamOS and Windows versions, with the Windows variant arriving first. The device introduces several technical improvements over its predecessor, replacing detachable controllers with an integrated grip design. Continue reading CES: Lenovo Reveals Third-Party SteamOS Gaming Handheld
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Debra KaufmanJanuary 10, 2025
Disney+ is the latest major streaming service to deploy HDR10+, which adds dynamic metadata to any video source to optimize picture quality on a frame-by-frame basis. In doing so, it joins other big streamers: Apple TV+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, and Google’s YouTube. The HDR10+ standard, which replaces SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) provides improved brightness and contrast as well as the benefits of standardization and global certification. HDR, originally debuted in 2017 by Samsung and Panasonic, now has over 160 adopters and more than 13,000 compatible products. CES featured a collection of additional HDR10+ announcements. Continue reading CES: Disney+ to Support HDR10+ High Dynamic Range Video
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Paul BennunJanuary 10, 2025
There’s a knotty problem present in every single available VR device, and it gives most people a headache or eyestrain when using the device long enough: the distance between your eyes and the displays remains the same no matter how far away an object appears to be. At CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week, Canadian spatial media company CubicSpace demonstrated a software mitigation to this issue, showing us images on a standard 3D display and a stock Meta Quest 3 device, with a before-and-after effect of native pipeline and via their software. Continue reading CES: CubicSpace Demos Solution to a Consistent VR Problem
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Paula ParisiJanuary 10, 2025
Extreme brightness, advanced AI and a 165Hz refresh rate for gaming are among the features of the LG’s 2025 OLED evo lineup. Powering the OLED evo M5 and OLED evo G5 series is LG’s freshly minted Alpha 11 Gen 2 processor, with improved power and AI capabilities to take it beyond last year’s G4 series in picture and sound. LG calls the line the world’s first wireless OLEDs, with the ability to transmit throughout the home. LG’s Brightness Booster Ultimate — offering “brightness three times higher than conventional OLEDs” — and the Alpha 11 Gen 2 processor enhance the package. Continue reading CES: LG Wireless OLED TVs Boost Brightness, Include AI Tech
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Douglas ChanJanuary 9, 2025
During the “Speed, Customization, Innovation: AI in Gaming” panel during CES this week, game publishers and developers shared their latest insights regarding how they use generative AI tools. A prevailing question involved the impact of AI’s ability to generate pixels and video frames efficiently — especially in light of Nvidia’s keynote the prior evening announcing its new Blackwell RTX 50 Series GPUs’ enormous ability to do so. Other opinions shared during the panel included thoughts on whether AI is overhyped for gaming and wish lists for fixing the limitations of AI tools. Continue reading CES: Thoughts on the Benefits and Limitations of AI in Gaming
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Debra KaufmanJanuary 9, 2025
When it comes to gaming, Microsoft is not just about Xbox, the popular gaming console it introduced in 2001. Microsoft VP of Global Revenue & Business Planning Jonathan Stringfield wants brands to know that they can reach a broad ecosystem of gamers not just on its console but on mobile devices and PCs. “Consumers expect to be able to watch entertainment across platforms,” he said during a CES 2025 panel discussion. “That’s what we’re doing in the gaming space. And that’s a space that is exploding — not just in overall numbers but who those gamers are.” Continue reading CES: Microsoft Courts Brands for Its Three Gaming Platforms
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Douglas ChanJanuary 8, 2025
The Eureka Park section at CES 2025 in Las Vegas is an exhibition area dedicated to thousands of startups and early-stage products from across the globe. Our reporting team visited the space organized specifically for Japanese startups and discovered a few that are developing innovative technologies that could potentially be applied to 3D computer graphics modeling, XR, and gaming. Among the standouts were Tokyo-based CalTa that developed the digital twin platform Trancity — and Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo’s exhibit of its ongoing Feel Tech system. Continue reading CES: Japanese Startups Showcase 3D Modeling, XR, Gaming
CES 2025 kicked off appropriately with a high-powered panel on AI’s impact in entertainment. Under the expert moderation of our friend, and former president of the Hollywood Professional Association, Seth Hallen, three of the industry’s most senior leaders spoke candidly about what the technology means to the industry: Samira Panah Bakhtiar (GM of Media and Entertainment, Games, and Sports at Amazon Web Services), Academy Award-winner Ed Ulbrich (Chief Content Officer and President of Production at Metaphysic), and Richard Kerris (GM of Media and Entertainment at Nvidia). Continue reading CES: Industry Leaders Highlight Transformative Potential of AI
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Douglas ChanJanuary 8, 2025
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang kicked off CES 2025 with a keynote that was filled with new product announcements and visionary demonstrations of how the company plans to advance the field of AI. The first product that Huang unveiled was the GeForce RTX 50 series of consumer graphics processing units (GPUs). The series is also called RTX Blackwell because it is based on Nvidia’s latest Blackwell microarchitecture design for next generation data center and gaming applications. To showcase RTX Blackwell’s prowess, Huang played an impressively photorealistic video sequence of rich imagery under contrasting light ranges — all rendered in real time. Continue reading CES: Nvidia Unveils New GeForce RTX 50, AI Video Rendering
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Douglas ChanJanuary 8, 2025
In the conference track of CES this year is a lineup of talks and panels on gaming and esports. During the “Generational Shifts: The Evolution of Gaming” panel, moderated by Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Senior Manager of Market Research Steven Hummel, industry executives and thought leaders shared their views on market trends emerging post-pandemic and how those trends are driving gaming across other media. While it is not surprising to hear that the average age of gamers tends to skew younger these days, perhaps the bigger takeaway is that gaming has become the new social media for many. Continue reading CES: Gaming Is the New Social Media for Young Generations
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Paul BennunJanuary 7, 2025
Israeli startup PxE Holographic Imaging has developed a drop-in replacement sensor for any camera that holographically captures depth information without lidar or other hardware. Or more specifically, it augments any existing sensor with this capability, so any existing sensor OEM’s product can be adapted. Imagine face ID without an IR projector and sensor, your videoconference camera able to send a 3D image, or volumetric capture suddenly becoming more affordable. Extraordinarily, the physics appears to check out, and PxE demonstrated the technology to us at short- and room-size range in their CES suite at The Venetian Las Vegas. Continue reading CES: PxE Develops Camera Sensor That Captures Depth Info
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Debra KaufmanJanuary 7, 2025
During the COVID-19 pandemic, gaming enjoyed a tremendous surge in popularity — a high point that has suffered somewhat of a dip in the last year. However, gaming executives are bullish on their 2025 prospects. “During the pandemic we saw double digit growth in mobile, PC and console,” explained Sensor Tower SVP of Gaming & Entertainment Chirag Ambwani. “And now, in the last six months, we’re seeing gaming coming back to growth after that slight dip.” Better, some trends are highlighting the growing importance of gaming, suggest the experts. United Talent Agency’s Michelle Kim moderated a CES panel on Gamevertising to address the latest trends. Continue reading CES: In-Game Sponsorships, Gamified Promos Build Brands
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Debra KaufmanJanuary 7, 2025
Fourth Frame Studios Head of Studio Oluwafemi Okusanya held a conversation with Blizzard Entertainment Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Monica Austin on how her company is defining its IP in the marketplace. Austin reported that “World of Warcraft” just had its 20th anniversary and reached one-quarter of a billion players. “Blizzard was the first studio to recognize community,” she said. “For the next 20 years, we want to think about a modern version of building community. Community from a marketing and Blizzard lens is the biggest opportunity for exploring our IP.” Continue reading CES: Power of Gaming IPs, Why Games Are the New Comics
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Don LevyJanuary 6, 2025
CES Unveiled 2025 offered a preview of new technologies two days ahead of the official opening of the massive CES show floor in Las Vegas on January 7. From AI-powered tools and robotics to energy-saving innovations and immersive displays, the event showcased a spectrum of advancements. Among the more notable highlights included cognitive AI demonstrated by Neural Lab, the latest brain-computer interface tech from Naqi Logix, AR and smart glasses developed by companies such as Rokid and Mustard, and a variety of interesting video- and audio-related offerings to be showcased at CES. Continue reading CES Unveiled: Preview of Tech to Be Featured at Trade Show