The Best Travel Tech From CES 2020

Posted: 15 Jan 2020 11:00 PM PST

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is a sprawling showcase of bleeding-edge technology, concepts, and cool stuff being shown off for the sake of creating headlines. Through all of it though are a few products to look forward in 2020 plus some tech trends we might be seeing not long after.

This is some of the best travel tech I came across at CES 2020.

Sony’s Vision-S Electric Car

Put this one under things that will never be made into production but we really wish would be. Sony shocked CES this year by showing off a slick electric car, with high resolutions screens inside and high definition cameras[] (instead of mirrors) outside. Not unexpected from a company known for making quality displays and lenses, but a car like Sony’s Vision-S could give Tesla some actual competition… only if more than one were ever made.

sony vision-s

Delta’s Parallel Reality Screen

Imagine being able to have customized airport screens that give you specific information like your gate all in a language of your preference. Delta’s Parallel Reality let’s 100 people look at the same screen but see different things. Partnering with the startup Misapplied Sciences, Delta will debut Parallel Reality in Detroit’s airport this summer but you can watch a preview in the video below.

Folding Screen Laptops

Dell showed off a prototype folding display laptop which in a few generations could give you a viable laptop-tablet combo with the benefits of both. Having a screen on the bottom half of a laptop gives you more usable space – perfect for tray table typing – but the concept Dell debuted at CES is still too fragile and clunky for practical use for now.

dell folding screen laptop

Jabra’s MySound

Jabra makes a solid pair of noise-cancelling headphones (original review here) but it’s their new software that caught my ear at CES this year. They’ve got a hearing aid division at Jabra so they’re brought in their expertise there to help develop MySound, an app that can tailor music to your specific ears. We all hear different sound frequencies differently, based on genetics, age, and gender. At setup, MySound gives you a hearing test to determine your unique sensitivities to adjust music accordingly. The improvement I heard was so dramatic I didn’t want to listen to music any other way. MySound can improve any pair of headphones using software; it will be released around March this year.

Some Other Cars And Cameras

BMW was back with their Urban Suite concept I tried in virtual reality (VR) at CES last year; except now the driver-less car is a physical vehicle. A street legal one at that, the BMW i3 Urban Suite is car that embraces self-driving technology by letting you sleep, read a book, or simply chat with a friend as the car navigates traffic for you. Several of these all-electric i3 were driving around giving people rides at CES – imagine how much more you’d get done on a commute if you weren’t the one driving.

A few other notable gear updates:

GoPro’s Media Mod – The complete vlogging setup was finally on display and will begin shipping around March.
Everything Was In 8K – But it’s still too expensive for prime time.
Ping Pong AI Robot – I got to play against a machine that was reading my emotions to help me become a better player. It even let me win a few times to put me in a better mood, how nice!

CES this year showed a clear trend in the personalization of tech through smart feedback systems to customize our interaction with various electronics. Cars that become our living room, music made for our ears, not to mention airport screens only we can see. For the past decade hardware and software have been on different courses but improvements to both mean a unique convergence is beginning, hopefully resulting in more time for us humans to enjoy the ride without having to drive.

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