WiFi and gadgets and the connections we make with technology, oh my, it’s our last day of CES 2018 on The Wrap.
Transcript
For January 11, day four of CES and our last, you’re tuned into The Wrap, Australia’s fastest technology round up, reporting live from the world’s biggest technology showcase.
And it’s that because it’s the beginning of the year, the ideal place for companies to talk about what’s coming. We’ve seen some exciting developments in TVs, in technology, in terrific talks and so much more, but CES is very much about connections.
It’s about the connection we as people have to our technology, and it’s about the connections we make to each other as people, as well as the companies to us.
It’s also about the connections devices are helping us make, and that’s something that played in a big way at CES 2018.
For instance, in wireless technology, we saw quite a few companies talk about what’s coming, and safety is one of them.
Both D-Link and Netgear announced networking products designed to protect the home with access to security solutions, essentially protecting the traffic on your phone, your tablet, your computers, and anything else on your home WiFi with a connection to some of the world’s greatest security platforms.
In essence, it means you may not need internet security at home because with one of these routers, it will be taken care of, though the moment you go outside, you’ll still want security, because a home router won’t protect you when you’re out and about.
CES also talked greatly of house-wide WiFi, a fairly new concept that relies on concepts like mesh networking to accomplish these feats. We’ve all felt that pain of not being able to connect in one part of our home, and this technology aims to fix it.
There are lots of solutions for this, and we’ve previously checked out Netgear’s Orbi in the past, though there’s a new version of that, Linksys has a new smaller version of its Velop platform that can be mixed with the bigger one, and D-Link will be launching Covr soon, as well. Google also has its own, and this is all good news for consumers, because you’ll want WiFi everywhere.
And connections should be everywhere.
Here at CES, quite a lot of companies are embracing the Internet of Things, and that includes voice support for commands, talking to Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Assistant.
In Australia, we don’t have Amazon Alexa. Not yet, anyway, it’s coming, but right now, Australians will only care about Google, because that’s where Google Home is, and that’s the one we can all access.
Good news, though, because much of what we saw was Google Assistant ready. We saw an Ecovacs vacuum cleaner that would follow your requests. We saw Bang & Olufsen headphones and speakers with Google Assistant integrated. We saw power strips for lamps and lights and so much more that did this from Belkin and D-Link. It’s in so much, and that means we’ll all be able to talk to our technology very soon.
And one of our expected trends of 2018 also made an appearance, as Dell made it possible for our computers to talk with our phones regardless of platform. You know how Macs can talk to iPhones? The same isn’t true for every operating system, and Android tends to get a raw deal, but provided you have a Dell or Alienware bought from this year onwards, you’ll be able to do just that, installing an app on your iPhone or Android, and then installing the drivers on your Dell computer, and away you go.
It’s the sort of connection we wish more companies would embrace, and it’s one that we suspect more computing manufacturers will adopt as it gives people a reason to buy a way to keep their phone connected with their life.
Connecting with life is the other way CES 2018 worked well, with gadgets that did that. We’ve seen technology from the medical sector, such as an electronically controlled spoon and fork from Gyenno that corrected for conditions like Parkinson’s, while Willow’s breast pump makes it possible for mum to not feel tied down by pumping for milk.
And we’re seeing sleep technology, more wearables, and just so much.
Everything at CES is made to connect, and that’s what we’ve done at the show: used it to connect, and you can connect with anything we’ve spoken about at the pickr.com.au website, which is where we’re putting it all up.
Seriously, we’ll still be uploading content by the time we’re back in Australia, which is where we’re headed next, but next week we’ll be back with our best from CES, which will include some things our four days of podcast coverage haven’t included.
The amount of technology and just stuff here is too much for one person to write about quickly, so when we’re back in Australia, we’ll be posting more. Guess what we’re doing on the plane back.
Home is our next stop, and we’ll be back next week with our regular weekly roundup delivering as much technology in the space of time it takes to drink your coffee.
Until then, we hope you have a tremendous weekend and a lovely week that follows. See you next time on The Wrap. Take care.
Leigh :) Stark travelled to CES in Las Vegas as a guest of Dell.
