CES 2024: our 8 favorite weird and wonderful announcements –

CES 2024 is coming to a close, and although we’ve seen a lot over the past week and a bit, and I mean a much tech news, we’ve managed to put together our top picks that caught our eye, and we’ll also explain why they should catch your eye, too.

LG’s transparent TV

Kicking off our list is perhaps the most confusing device on display at CES this year, as it seems to be the only television that wants to be turned off. We say this because that’s when the LG SIGNATURE OLED T looks most impressive, because you can look through the whole thing to see what’s on the other side. The technology and science used to make this thing is undoubtedly impressive, but we’re not sure who it’s for.
At an assumed cost of tens of thousands of pounds, if not more, the transparent television won’t be in your partner’s house anytime soon, but sometimes it’s worth pushing boundaries just for the sake of it. In a perfect world, companies would do more weird things like this, if only to see how people react. It’s also worth noting that this is also the first wireless TV.

RTX 40 GPUs are going super

As we expected, Nvidia unveiled the upgrades for its series of RTX 40 cards. The 4080, 4070 Ti and 4070 all get new, super-powerful versions, and it didn’t take long for well-known manufacturers like ASUS and Gigabyte to show off their versions of the cards.

By the looks of it, we’re getting a nice jump in performance for a similar price range for each of the cards getting a Super version. Whether this will be enough for computer makers to change their attitude toward Nvidia is unknown, but as the market leader in all things graphics cards, we don’t see it suffering for long.

Samsung keeps the ball rolling

In 2020, we got our first look at Ballie, Samsung’s robot designed to be part home assistant, part pet, part soccer ball. It’s probably a waste of the technology inside Ballie to send it screaming to the back of the net, because four years later Samsung has shown how much the little bot has improved.

Now it is equipped with a projector, which can turn almost any surface into a screen. He is also a much smarter home assistant, able to control lights and pet feeders if they also have the necessary technology. Ballie looks to become quite a companion, even if there are probably years before we can get our hands on him.

MSI promotes cheating

Okay, that headline is probably a bit strong, but it seems MSI has decided to give us an accessory that will give us an extreme advantage in our games. The MPG 321URX QD-OLED is – like most monitors – a mix of letters and numbers that tells you very little about what to expect from the accessory you are buying.

AI is the key term here, something we saw a lot of at CES 2024, as it allows the monitor to learn from our gaming habits, and it can also scan enemies on a minimap, tell a player where they came from, and how strong they are, among other details. Some will no doubt call this map-hacking, but maybe this is just the future of gaming.

A motorcycle that can see

Motorcycles are by far one of the most dangerous ways to travel between destinations, but Verge Motorcycles wants to address that. The upcoming TS Ultra bike will be equipped with an array of sensors and cameras that work in harmony with machine learning and AI to give the bike an effective “sense of sight.”

Why would you want this? The purpose of the feature is to provide the rider with information and data that will make motorcycling smarter and safer. Oh, and as if this feature and cycling weren’t cool enough, the TS Ultra has a rimless rear wheel, which will no doubt make Tron fans grin from ear to ear.

The Claaaaaw

MSI is finally getting in on the latest trend in gaming hardware: portable PC gaming. It does so with a device known as the Claw, a Meteor Lake-powered handheld platform that uses the company’s patented Cooler Boost technology to keep it glacially fresh when rendering and serving the latest titles.

The system features a Full HD touchscreen that operates at 120 Hz and measures seven inches, and offers the ability to play both PC and Android titles. The main snag seems to be that the 53 Wh battery lasts only two hours under maximum load, but otherwise this looks to be a strong competitor in the portable PC gaming sector.

Musical Mercedes

Have you ever driven along and thought about how you could use your time on public roads to also conduct the next big power ballad? Then the collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and Will.i.am has no doubt piqued your interest. The automotive giant has joined forces with the former Black Eyed Peas star to bring the MBUX Sound Drive system to a variety of Mercedes-Benz and Mercedes-AMG cars.

The idea of the system is that it uses software and sensors to monitor signals in the car to create musical expressions that can be used both to provide appropriate rhythms to influence and affect the driver and passengers, as well as in an effort to create musical elements that can be assembled into actual compositions. It all seems very niche, but it is fascinating nonetheless.

Accessible aviation?

As we move ever closer to a carbon-neutral, fossil-fuel-free world, many fingers will be pointed at the airline industry. Hyundai wants to get ahead of this by working on a new air transportation system that is electrically powered and designed to provide travel solutions for shorter trips between 25 and 40 miles in distance.

The project is the SA VTOL, and after unveiling the first iteration at CES in 2020, the S-A2 was presented this year. Although Hyundai still has to jump through a host of safety and passenger certifications, and since there is no mention of how accessible this air transport will be to the masses, there are still many questions to be answered leading up to the project’s planned debut in 2028. But given that it is said to accommodate a pilot and four passengers and even be as quiet as a dishwasher in flight, it is still an exciting premise.

That’s our list, but we’d love to know what your favorite thing was from the event. Let us know in the comments and be sure to check out the rest of our CES coverage on the network.