Volkswagen isn’t leaving diesel behind, but it’s charging ahead with cars that plug into the wall—and plug into your life. At CES in Las Vegas, the company unveiled two EVs: a near-final prototype called the e-Golf Touch, and a concept car called the BUDD-e. Both show innovative tricks that were clearly years in the making rather than convenient distractions from scandal. The e-Golf is already on sale, but the Touch version Volkswagen showed could come to market fairly soon, the company said. As you might guess from the name, it includes a 9.2-inch touchscreen infotainment system. The system can also take input via natural-feeling voice interactions as well as gestures. It also sports a fully digital instrument cluster just like the one debuted by the company’s Audi subsidiary in the
Microsoft this week took the next step following its acquisition of Revolution Analytics last year by unwrapping an advanced-analytics platform of its own based on the open source R programming language. Dubbed Microsoft R Server, the platform works with Windows, Linux, Hadoop and Teradata software. It's now available Last April Microsoft completed its
More than 181,000 drones have been registered in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s new drone registration database. "We’re very encouraged by the numbers," said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta at CES in Las Vegas on Wednesday, as he announced the precise total, as of that morning, of 181,061. The number represents a big jump on the initial 45,000 registrations when the system went live on December 21, but falls well short of preholiday industry estimates of several hundred thousand drone sales during the year-end period. That either means the number of new drone sales was much lower than hoped, or a significant number of people have not yet conducted the mandatory registration.
Intel’s new thumb-size Compute Stick PCs are getting faster and more sophisticated, but also more expensive. Two new Compute Sticks—which plug into TVs or monitors—will be “in production” next month with the latest, sixth-generation Core M3 and M5 processors. Those processors are also in some of the latest laptops and hybrids shown at this week’s CES. A Compute Stick with the Core M3-6Y30 will be priced at $399 with Windows 10. A Core M5-6Y57 vPro Compute Stick model will be priced at $499 without an OS. The devices will have 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and three USB ports. Intel also announced a low-cost Compute Stick for $159. It will have the Atom x5-Z8300 chip, 32GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, two USB ports, and Windows 10.
Google’s effort to power your home entertainment has a new crew of allies. The company announced it’s partnering up with several new TV and speaker makers for its On the Android TV front, Arcelik, Vestel, RCA, Hisense, TCL and Bang & Olufsen, and Linknet have pledged new models will come with Google’s software. Sony, Sharp, and Philips are already on board. New speakers, soundbars, and A/V receivers from several companies will include support for
Let the 4K OLED monitor wars begin. Dell formerly unwrapped its first OLED panel Wednesday morning at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Promising true black levels, off the hook contrast levels, and gorgeous colors, the Dell UltraSharp 30 UP3017Q brings the OLED magic at a price that’s actually a bargain for an OLED UltraHD 4K panel—it’s $4,999. That may seem like the price of a used car, but when you consider the only other 30-inch UltraHD 4K panel that we know of is the studio-grade Sony BVMX300 at $18,000, maybe it’s not so bad. To be fair to Sony, its panel is an HDR monitor. Dell’s new UltraSharp is an almost affordable OLED monitor that pushes UltraHD 4K resolution and supports charging laptops through USB-C too.
Sennheiser announced today the replacement for its award-winning HD 800 headphones and unveiled Ambeo 3D, a new immersive, 3D-audio technology. The all-new HD 800 S headphones represent an evolutionary step forward, while Sennheiser is positioning Ambeo as a next-generation content creation and listening experience. The new HD 800 S headphones build upon the success and design of the original HD 800 model. The HD 800 S headphones keep the transducer technology and earcup design hallmarks of the original, but incorporate additional refinements that Sennheiser says improves performance—especially in certain areas.
Sling TV is basically admitting that its old interface was broken, announcing a major update that changes how people find movies and shows. It’s been nearly a year since Sling launched its $20 per month streaming service, which offers live cable channels such as ESPN, CNN, AMC, and The Food Network. At first, Sling only offered about 11 channels, so its interface—basically a horizontal list of tiles for each channel—made sense. But since then, the
Whether you have a Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, or Nexus, here's a rundown of all the latest news and rumors about when Marshmallow is coming your way.
Microsoft recently announced another step that puts Internet Explorer that much closer to oblivion. Beginning next Tuesday, January 12, Microsoft will officially retire Internet Explorer versions 8, 9, and 10 for most Windows operating systems, according to a The only exception will be Windows Vista users, who will stick with Internet Explorer 9. Vista’s mainstream support ended more than a year before IE11 rolled out. The unpopular OS is almost up for retirement anyway. It reaches the end of its extended support phase in April 2017. After that, Vista will be unsupported just like
MSI’s gaming laptops are for the truly hardcore, and the new models shown at CES are no exception. Want to control MSI’s flagship laptops even have a mode to clue you in to where subtle surround-sound noises are coming from, which is great if your hearing isn’t the best—or you just want a tiny bit of an edge. Do a lot of streaming? Then you know how important showmanship can be. Add in a laugh track and suddenly your Twitch fans are laughing
Move over, Mac Pro. Apple might have been the first out of the gate with a powerful PC disguised in a compact, modish cylindrical chassis, but now proper PCs are getting in on the action. Take MSI’s diminutive Vortex gaming tower, which, to be fair, looks more like a glowing, badass knight’s helmet than a dumb black trashcan. MSI’s striking new PC owes its name to a unique “360-degree Silent Storm” cooling system, which sucks in air from the top and swirls it down, around, and through the case before exhausting it out of the bottom, ensuring that every part of the interior is cooled, according to MSI reps. That cooling is certainly needed: The Vortex gaming tower packs a desktop-class quad-core Intel Skylake Core i7 chip,
ADT announced a significant addition to its business model today: The well-known security company will soon offer its professional monitoring service as an option on third-party hardware for the first time. Dubbed ADT Canopy, the new service will link ADT dispatchers to a wide range of third-party hardware. The dispatchers will contact first responders to handle fire, police, or medical emergencies, depending on the device being monitored. In less-severe emergencies—detection of a water leak, for instance—the dispatcher will call the subscriber directly. ADT will launch Canopy with a number of connected-home devices, including Samsung Smart Things, Ring video doorbell, and Roost Smart Battery. As you can