CES Wrap-up.

So, CES 2017 wrapped up on the 8th. As always, there was lots of crazy, cool, and conceptual tech displayed the Las Vegas Convo Center. While there wasn't anything Earth-shatteringly extraordinary this year, there were still a number of impressive new devices that had made their debut...

If you've seen our social media pages, you probably already know the "belle of the ball" was the "wallpaper-thin LG W7 OLED TV. Coming in at only 5mm thick, the W7 actually mounts to the wall magnetically, and has an umbilical that attaches to a soundbar where all of the AV connections will be made. What many found curious, though, and was almost immediately pointed out by the media, was the fact that this cord was not in-wall rated; which means the connection would have to be run down the surface of the wall. Hopefully, LG will address this oversight before it comes to market. Watch this space for updates...

Take a peek at it here...

Speaking of OLED, Sony announced it was getting into the OLED game with it's AE1 series of TV. Their line-up will still consist primarily of LED based sets, but the A1E will, most likely be positioned as their flagship set. All pricing still TBD.

Both LG and Sony introduced 4K UHD Blu-ray players that will appear sometime (hopefully) in 2017. As 4K TVs become a little more ubiquitous, it will be nice to have more content to play on said 4K TVs. Having a choice of players will be great for those who just aren't fans of the Samsung player; which currently is really the only option.

Dish had some really interesting product announcements, as well. The Hopper will have Amazon Echo/Alexa voice control capabilities. So you can ask Alexa to "turn on the CC," or "record Show XYZ at 8PM." This seems to be the next logical evolution for a DVR that already has voice-control abilities from Dish's proprietary voice remote.

They also introduced the "AirTV." This intelligent box is a wonderful solution for "cord-cutters" as it allows them to combine OTA TV reception for their local channels, with SlingTV for streaming pay TV content. I'll be highlighting this cool little box in an upcoming blog post, so check back soon.

Some other interesting tidbits:

3D was conspicuously absent from CES, yet there was a good bit of talk about VR.
Alexa, Cortona, and the like will be making appearances in your car, to help improve your driving experience.
Everyone seems to hip on building a self-driving car.
HDMI laid out its plans to address the NEXT TV standard: 8K
Laptop are super-thin and wearables are waining in interest.