Atlantico: What were the main innovations and major surprises of CES 2022? What are the best tech gadgets of this new edition of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas?

Karyl Ait Kaci Ali: Everyone was expecting a somewhat failed version of CES because many big brands have canceled their attendance at CES due to the health context. The event was actually quite interesting. Many innovations and novelties were presented either at CES or in events organized by the brands in parallel.

Televisions are one of the important product categories this year. The biggest announcement regarding televisions is the arrival of QD-Oled. For years Samsung has refused to work on the Oled. Samsung has actually been developing QD-Oled technology for some time. It is a mix between the classic Oled and the Qled that the firm already produces. These are filters that improve the colorimetry. These are particles that react to electricity and glow. This allows for a wider, more vivid color palette. The novelty of QD-Oled allows Samsung Display, the subsidiary dedicated to the production of the brand's panel, to enter a new market segment. It's a small revolution. Samsung had stayed on LCD and behind LG as OLEDs have dominated in terms of quality for a number of years. Oled panels were exclusively manufactured by LG before. LG sold them to all players in the OLED market. It is therefore an innovation that will theoretically allow you to see Oled with better colors, with more brightness.

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The market may be turned upside down. Samsung Display will no doubt supply other manufacturers. Sony has also announced a first QD-OLED at CES, probably equipped with the famous Samsung Display panel even if the brand refuses to confirm it. A new competition will rise on the market between Samsung Display and LG Display. This is likely to upset the market and drive prices down. The Oled, which is a high-end product, it is difficult to find one for less than 1,000 euros, should evolve. We could find more accessible models in the next few years. A real competition should take place on innovation as well. It is a fairly mature market segment which today is evolving quite calmly.

Another novelty, Samsung has launched smaller MicroLed. This technology shrinks the LEDs to the point that you can have one per sub-pixel. A panel, a television, contains pixels. Behind the pixels, there are generally 3 RGB sub-pixels. The idea is therefore to shrink the LEDs until we can have one LED per sub-pixel. This will remove the LCD part and the backlight part. MicroLEDs promise to have the advantages of Oled and the advantages of LCD combined. The panel will be self-emissive. Each pixel will emit its own light. With conventional LEDs, this will allow you to go much further in terms of luminosity.

The whole point of this technology is that it is difficult to miniaturize LEDs. Samsung continues the momentum this year by offering a slightly smaller MicroLED screen size, even if it remains imposing (89 inches).

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Last year, there was a surge of MiniLed. It continues this year. It is the same idea as the MicroLed but without reaching micrometer-sized LEDs. The idea is to make the LEDs smaller to have finer backlight management. However, it remains classic LCD. Builders continue. There are new brands like Sony, which is now on almost all screen technologies.

The MicroLed is excessively expensive. The last model last year of 99 inches was at 130,000 euros. The 89-inch will perhaps drop below the symbolic bar of 100,000 euros. This technology is not ready to arrive in the living room of everyone. This is explained because it is a technology that is extremely expensive to produce.

The MiniLed is a lot cheaper but it is still subject to the shortcomings of LCDs. The contrast ratio does not reach the level of the Oled. The mini LED is not self-emissive. A luminous halo effect also appears when your screen displays light elements on a black or dark background. This is the main defect of all LCDs.

The other innovations on the TV and image side concern video projectors and in particular that of Samsung, the Freestyle. It is a small portable projector that has been announced. It is supposed to be able to project an image onto any surface. Focus and any display issues will be corrected automatically. According to Samsung's presentation video, it could project an image onto walls that aren't the right color and even onto multi-colored surfaces. This point remains to be verified but it would be quite innovative.

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Hisense also makes some interesting Laser TV projectors that have built-in projection screens. The color palette of Hisense projectors is extremely wide. It is arguably the largest on the market. We would arrive at a coverage of more than 100% of the Rec index. 2020 which is a colorimetric index close to what our eyes can perceive.

Television is the area, along with automotive and VR, where there have been the most announcements and innovations at this year's CES.

Concerning computers, at Asus there was the ZenBook 17 Fold, a folding laptop with an OLED panel. It is possible to pick up the keyboard to truly switch to tablet mode. It's a bit like a tablet that you can fold in half. This is an innovation that we have already seen on smartphones with the Galaxy Fold.

There weren't too many smartphone announcements at CES. There will be more interesting announcements during the MWC show in Barcelona.

There is another interesting concept that will not be commercialized, it is the Razer Sophia. The idea is to make a gaming desk of the future with independent adjustment modules. Razer often brings concepts or prototypes to CES. This gives their vision of the future. This office incorporates a huge 65-inch Oled panel.

The other big category at CES was VR and Augmented Reality. A recent rumor announced that Apple was going to launch augmented reality glasses. Several brands are trying to get ahead of Apple.

So there were a lot of augmented reality glasses announcements at CES. There was for example the TCL Nxtwear, this is supposed to give the rendering of a 140-inch deportable screen. There are also Mojo Vision lenses. This brand tries to make connected lenses. Overlaid, they can display information in your field of vision.

They presented a prototype this year which is more geared towards sports. The lenses allow to display the data, in real time, that people who train a lot like to have like the heart rate. They also announced a partnership with Adidas and other sports brands.

The biggest announcement for VR concerns the Playstation VR 2. This is the second version of Sony's virtual reality headset for the Playstation 5. The definition is greatly improved. With both eyes, we come to 4K.

Panasonic has launched glasses for Steam, the platform for downloading PC games. Steam also offers virtual reality games and supports several headsets, including the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. Panasonic has therefore just released glasses for Steam with a slightly Steampunk look.

Despite everything, virtual reality in video games remains marginal, the uses and types of games in VR are still limited by technical and space constraints.

Concerning gadgets at this CES, robot vacuum cleaners stood out. Roborock and Ecovacs launched two robot vacuum cleaners whose objective is to spare the user all the unpleasant maintenance tasks of this kind of robots. On many robots, you have to empty the bin yourself, do the emptying... These robots will be sold with a station capable of emptying the dust bin, filling the water for the mop and cleaning the mop for future uses automatically.

There were also a lot of announcements at CES in the automotive sector, which mainly concerns electric cars.

Mercedes, for example, bet on autonomy and presented a car with more than 1,000 kilometers of autonomy. Sony showed a first electric vehicle and announced the creation of its subsidiary Sony Mobility. The firm took the opportunity to present an electric SUV that looks like Tesla's SUV.

The most innovative and impressive car remains the concept that was shown by BMW and which changes color (to black or white). This will undoubtedly require an evolution of the legal framework, for the colors of the vehicles in relation to the gray card for example.

Beyond the personalization aspect, the brand has imagined some new uses for its technology, for example flashing the car in a parking lot to make it more easily visible. BMW also explained that the color change could optimize the temperature in the car since black absorbs light and white reflects it. But for now, we still don't know if this will really have an effect that will reduce heating or air conditioning, for example.

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