Hasta La Gadget!

There are two words that will make gamers of a certain age go weak at the knees: Power Glove. We’re not saying Driver-X was inspired by the legendary Nintendo accessory when conceiving its “Contact Glove” VR controller, but the comparisons are going to be inevitable.

Driver-X’s haptic VR gloves do double duty as both a sensory feedback tool for “grabbing” objects in a virtual world and a VR controller. The company claims it’s the first VR glove that uses micro coils to deliver a more authentic tactile experience. The coils surround your fingers and when a current is applied they contract a connected film to provide, hopefully, a more realistic sensory experience.

James Trew / Engadget

The controller part uses hand “poses” and gestures to mimic the buttons and triggers found on conventional controllers. It’s a logical way to add extra functionality, especially as the whole point is to not be holding something (not something in the real world at least).

Perhaps the more interesting “feature” is the price. The Contact Glove starts at around $1,850 which is considerably less than some of the current alternatives (although each approach is quite different and maybe not directly comparable).

Either way, if you’re interested in getting your palms in a pair, it’s worth knowing that the gloves are currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. At the very least, the goal has already been reached, and we did see a working demo here at CES but the usual caveats apply.

Four years after introducing The Wall at CES 2018, Samsung is poised to take its MicroLED technology mainstream. At CES 2023, the company announced it would offer 50-, 63-, 76-, 89-, 101-, 114- and 140-inch MicroLED models, greatly expanding the amount of choice consumers have when it comes to the new display technology. Samsung didn’t provide pricing and availability information for the expanded line, but the company claims the new models are its most affordable MicroLED TVs to date. Since a few of the sets are smaller than any of the MicroLED TVs Samsung has offered in the past, you also won’t need to pay for a professional to install them in your home.

Samsung claims its MicroLED line will set the standard for picture quality in 2023. And judging from the 76-inch model’s topline features, that’s not a mere boast from the company. The set sports a 240Hz variable refresh rate and 2-nanosecond response time. It also offers 20-bit black detail for “intense” contrast.

Samsung

Samsung is also promising upgrades for its Neo QLED sets, starting with the line’s new flagship. The QN900C features an 8K Quantum MiniLED-lit panel capable of maxing out at 4,000 nits of brightness. As with Samsung’s 2022 Neo QLED sets, the QN900C features a 14-bit backlight. However, the TV offers even better contrast thanks to a tweak the company made to its 8K Real Depth Enhancer Pro software. Samsung is also promising improved picture quality when viewing older movies and TV shows thanks to the inclusion of its new Auto HDR Remastering algorithm, which can automatically apply HDR effects to standard dynamic range content.

For those who would prefer a 4K set, there’s also the QN935C. Samsung’s new 4K flagship features a redesigned power board that eliminates the need for an external connection box and allows for bezels that are less than 20mm thick. The QN935C also features top-firing speakers, allowing the set to produce Dolby Atmos sound without a dedicated soundbar. You can use both the QN900C and QN935C as a smart home hub thanks to the fact Samsung’s entire 2023 Neo QLED line will feature built-in Zigbee and Matter Thread all-in-one modules.

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Last year’s CES saw Samsung launch its new QD-OLED technology. This year, the company is expanding the line to offer additional models, including an all-new 77-inch model. As previously announced, the 2023 QD-OLED TV line will offer up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness thanks to the inclusion of Samsung’s new “HyperEfficient EL” OLED material and IntelliSense AI. Samsung says its latest panels are also more energy efficient and support 144Hz refresh rates. Additionally, the company has gone out of its way to get the panels AMD FreeSync Premium Pro certified. Samsung didn’t announce pricing and availability for its QD-OLED line. Expect those details to come in the coming weeks.

I’ve written before about the benefits of a good, cheap kitchen scale, especially for baking. But there’s still something especially tedious about weighing out all your ingredients one-by-one in separate bowls and containers.

GE’s new stand mixer solves that issue in a clever, if expensive, way. The new $999 Profile Smart Mixer, which the company is showing off at CES, has all the features of a typical stand mixer, but has a digital scale and voice controls built in to help streamline your bakes,

The scale is integrated into the base of the mixer. A button on top controls the tare function, so you can just dump your ingredients straight into the bowl without measuring out each item separately in its own container. Or, you could remove the 7-quart bowl and weigh the ingredients in a different vessel.

James Trew / Engadget

The mixer gets even smarter if you use the companion SmartHQ app, which can guide you through specific recipes, step-by-step. It also allows you to take advantage of something GE calls “Auto Sense,” which it claims can detect subtle changes in texture in order to prevent over or under-mixing for recipes in its app. While the app has a relatively small selection of recipes for now, it could be useful for more novice bakers or anyone intimidated by a more complicated recipe. The company notes that it expects to regularly refresh the app with new content.

Even if you prefer to use your own recipes, there are other handy features. The mixer has voice controls, compatible with Google and Amazon’s smart speakers, so you can start and stop mixing, or change up the speed with just your voice. GE also notes that the mixer speed goes up to 11, which it says is closer to the speed of a blender than a typical stand mixer, which may offer more flexibility with certain recipes.

With a starting “suggested” price of $999, it’s spendier than even most high-end stand mixers, but the added convenience could be worth the splurge.

The car matches investigators’ description of a vehicle that was seen near the victims’ house on the day the four University of Idaho students were killed.

Of all the new LG Gram laptops unveiled at CES 2023, the Gram Style is the most eye-catching. It features an iridescent finish on the lid and keyboard deck that, even under the garish convention center lights here in Las Vegas, managed to look pretty. Like the rest of the Gram line, the Style is an impressively thin and light laptop for its size, with the 16-inch model coming in at 1.2kg (2.7 pounds). In fact, it’s so light that the bicep curls and front raises I did using the laptop didn’t feel like any work at all (weird flex, I know).

Speaking of flex, though, I did feel the 16-inch Style yield a little under my grip during the front raises, and it’s worth reminding you that we’ve had issues with the build quality on previous Grams. Though nothing ever actually broke during our testing, in general Gram laptops have felt less premium than other ultraportables, and almost plasticky. The Style has what LG calls a “glass design,” and I use quotes because the entire laptop isn’t actually made of glass. In fact, even after I picked it up, I couldn’t tell what the back of the device was made of, and had to ask. While the base of the notebook is made from a nano-magnesium alloy, the lid and keyboard deck, where the iridescent finish is, are Gorilla Glass 3.

That keyboard deck is also another highlight here. At first glance, it looks like there’s nothing below the keyboard, but drag your finger across the surface and two LED lines light up to indicate the boundaries of the trackpad. When I tried doing that, I didn’t even feel a difference between the touchpad and the rest of the deck — looks like LG took this “hidden trackpad” in a tactile sense as well. It’s an interesting concept that might have aesthetic benefits, but I’m not sure it will appeal to those who rely on touch to figure out where the trackpad is.

The Style laptops also feature anti-glare OLED screens, which was so effective that I initially thought this was just a really bright and colorful LCD. That’s not a ding on the display though, I still found the Windows 11 wallpaper vibrant and crisp. 

The Gram Style isn’t the only new laptop LG showed off at CES — there are new sizes available, and all models are also available in Intel’s latest 13th-generation Core processors. For all the details on those products, as well as the full specs of the Gram Style, check out our news article here.