LATEST ADDITIONS

First off, don’t call this beautiful objet d’art an “umbrella.” God, no! ShadeCraft founder and CEO Armen Gharabegian stated, “We are to umbrellas as self-driving cars are to the horse and wagon.” This, dear readers, is an intelligent shading system robot designed to call to mind the elegant beauty of a sunflower as it gracefully traces and tracks the sun’s movement across the sky, keeping you shaded while enjoying the great outdoors and an adult beverage. But the Sunflower is also oh so much more!

While many companies are producing smart speakers with added features such as built-in video screens, Onkyo is flipping the script and adding a camera and home monitoring features into the VC-FLX ($280).

After walking into the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center today at around 11:15 AM, I noticed something was amiss. In an industry nearly 100 percent reliant on electricity, the entire hall's AC power was out. It was (and still is as I write this) an eerie feeling to be surrounded by so much AV gear hear only conversations. No loud music. No flashing TV screens. The overhead announcer has helpfully told us that "We are experiencing a power outage. We are addressing the problem." I'm glad they mentioned this, because I at first thought it was the aftereffects of having the flu that was causing my lack of sensory overstimulation.

Smart speakers are popping up left and right, wack-a-mole style, one virtually indistinguishable from another. But, some are very distinguished. Take, for example, JBL's Link View.