Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Lenovo has launched its 14″ Ultrabook, claiming to be the lightest in the world. Named ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the secret to its light-weight architecture are Lenovo’s top Material Engineers. The usage of carbon fibre in the Ultrabook’s frame construction, which is both lighter and stronger, was the key towards achieving a weight of 1.3Kg. Additional features such as its powerful Intel Haswell chipset, backed up with 8GB of RAM and SSD with 512GB storage compliments the performance of the Ultrabook. With a resolution of 2560 x 1440 it is one of the fewest which can produce a very sharp view. With features like on-board NFC, 4G LTE and Bluetooth 4.0, along with Adaptive Keyboard which is a row of touch-sensitive keys that change function depending on the active application, it gives enough usage time with its nine hour battery life. This lightweight delight is priced at £790.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

LG NP8540 wireless speakers system

Whole-house music streaming was another big draw at CES 2014.  LG previewed two of its all-in-one speakers – the NP8740 and NP8540. Though similar to the Sonos’ Play: 5 and Play: 3, LG has added their own special touches.

Designed for indoor specifications, these portable speakers come with a “grab bar” at their rear. Compatibility with smartphones hasn’t been overlooked as provisions have been made for the for the speaker system to be controlled with a smartphone by an intuitive “drag-and-drop” app which controls each speaker independently.

These LG speakers will also support lossless music playback up to a maximum of 24 bit/192KHz.  This is where LG came up trumps against Sonos who currently don’t have this feature. LG has a third model on the way too – the Bridge Box which is designed for systems with more than two speakers. In this capacity LG looks unbeatable at the moment.

LG NP8540 wireless speakers system

BMW 2014 is all about driverless and self-parking

An automated driving system is essentially a computerised system that assumes all real time functions that are required in order to drive a vehicle, without any input from a human driver or operator. There are two types of types of automation, conditional automation and full automation. Conditional automation is when the car is capable of driving itself, but not in all real life conditions. Full automation is when no human is required to be present in the vehicle.

BMW, at the CES 2014, took a leap forward in the field of autonomous vehicles. It introduced the computerized systems required for the car to steer, accelerate, and brake autonomously. The system was demonstrated on a wet corner. The stability systems were turned off, and the car was allowed to skid on the corner. As it started to slide, the system performed a counter steering maneuver, preventing the car from doing a 180. This was pretty impressive, even though the track was programmed into the car’s GPS system.

The new BMW i3 (electric) has an even better system, that allows for autonomous parallel parking. The car has ultrasonic sensors which scan to the right and left of the car to look for obstacles. Apparently the car can park comfortably in any space just 22 inches longer than the car itself. However, a well-defined curb was set up for the car to see, and the car may not perform so perfectly in real life situations.

These advances in the technology required to automate cars is pushing BMW ahead into 2014. With driverless and self-parking, the company gives competition to full automated vehicle systems, such as the Google Car.

BMW 2014 is all about driverless and self-parking

Bendable TVs at CES 2014

At CES 2014 the top audio visual companies revealed their newest television models.

Samsung and LG stayed one step ahead of the pack by revealing the world’s first bendable TVs… and not that’s not a typo. Samsung’s version was an 85″ Ultra HD model that will be available later this year.