Today (January 6th), was the first official day of CES 2016 but there were announcements made before today. You can read more about them: CES Unveiled 2016, CES 2016 Day Zero (Press Day).
SanDisk
SanDisk has announced two new models of some their existing products at CES 2016. The first is a bigger storage capacity of their SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. It now comes in a 200GB option.
The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick essentially creates a small Wi-Fi network that you connect your devices to and then you can stream your media stored on the Wireless Stick.
The highest capacity before this new model was only 128GB. The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick. It is available now and will cost $119.99 USD.
The SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 now has a 128GB variant. The Dual Drive has a regular USB 3.0 on one end and microUSB on the other. The Drive is now available and costs $59.99 USD but Amazon.com is selling it for $39.99 but it is temporily out of stock (as of this post).
Both the new models of the SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick and the SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 are available right now from Amazon.com, Best Buy.com and SanDisk’s website.
Samsung
Samsung isn’t done unveiling new products (even after their CES press conference). They have introduced the Chromebook 3.
It weighs 2.5lbs in metal boday. The screen is 11-inches and has a resolution 1366×768. Inside, you’ll find a Intel Celeron N3050 and you can get either 2GB or 4GB of RAM. For internal storage, you’ll find 16GB. The Chromebook 3 also has a microSD card slot, Wi-Fi AC, Bluetooth 4.0, a 720p webcam, one USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port and HDMI.
Samsung hasn’t announced the pricing for the Chromebook 3, it should be priced under $500 USD. It will be released in the next few months.
Samsung has also said that their Gear S2 smartwatch will gain iOS compatibility later this year.
Samsung Pay will also be making it’s way to Australia, Brazil and Singapore later in the year.
Huawei
Huawei’s Honor sub-brand will be making their U.S. debut with the Honor 5X. The screen is 1920×1080 and is 5.5-inches. The 5X will also have a 3,000mAh battery.
It will have a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage. It will be running Android 5.1 Lollipop with Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 skin.
The rear-facing camera is 13-megapixels and is paired with Huawei’s SmartImage 3.0 processor. The front-facing camera is 5-megapixels.
The Huawei will cost $199.99 USD and will launch on January 31st. You will be able to buy it from Huawei’s HiHonor.com and Amazon.com.
Speck
Speck has unveiled a collapsible plastic version of Google Cardboard. It’s called Pocket VR.
The Pocket VR is made up of three pieces of plastic and a elastic band. It is designed to hold your phone and then be able to collapse it and put it in your pocket.
The one thing that the Pocket VR is missing is a button that would allow you to interact with your smartphone screen. That means that the Pocket VR is essentially a viewer and can’t be used for any VR games or stuff with interactivity.
Speck will be including their Pocket VR with their CandyShell lineup of case starting this spring. The first ones will be for the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 & 6S and each will cost $69.95 USD. That is about $30 more than a CandyShell case on it’s own (they go for about $34.95 USD).
New Balance
New Balance has launched a whole new division that they’re calling their Digital Sport division. This division will mix physical activity expertise with new technologies to help bring a new more modern era of active lifestyles.
With this new division, New Balance will also release a new line of New Balance-branded wearables including a Android Wear smartwatch that will come in late 2016. The smartwatch will use an Intel processor inside.
Netflix
Netflix has announced that they have expanded to 157 new countries. Some of those new countries include India, Russia and South Korea.
Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings has said that even though their service isn’t available in China, they are working on adding their service to the country in the near future. LG and Netflix have a new partnership that will help offer prepaid access to Netflix in a number of new markets who may not have reliable internet access.
Here is the list of the new countries that Netflix just added:
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Algeria
- Angola
- Armenia
- Australian Antarctica
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Belarus
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Bhutan
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Brunei Darussalam
- Bulgaria
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Cambodia (Kampuchea)
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde Islands (Cabo Verde)
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti Republic
- East Timor (Timor-Leste)
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Falkland Islands
- Fijian Islands
- French Polynesia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Georgia
- Ghana
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Israel
- Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire)
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Lao People’s Democratic Republic
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Macao
- Macedonia
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mali
- Malta
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Nepal
- Netherlands Antilles
- New Caledonia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Pitcairn Islands
- Poland
- Qatar
- Republic of the Congo
- Réunion
- Romania
- Russian Federation
- Rwanda
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Samoa
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- South Korea (Republic of Korea)
- South Sudan
- Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
- Sudan
- Swaziland
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Togo
- Tokelau Islands
- Tonga
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Tuvalu
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United States Minor Outlying Islands (Baker Island, Midway Atoll, Wake Island)
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu (New Hebrides)
- Vietnam
- Wallis and Futuna
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Google has announced new partners to produce products that run Android TV and ones that run Google Cast.
You can already buy TVs that have Android TV running on them from manufacturers such as Sony, Sharp and Philips. However later this year, you’ll be able to buy TVs from Arcelik, Vestel, RCA, Hisense and TCL.
On the Google Cast side, we’ll see compatible speakers and audio equipment that use Google’s technology from manufacturers like Bang & Olufsen, Harmon Kardon, Philips, Pioneer and Raumfeld.
Google also announced that Google Cast speakers will soon gain the ability for multi-room playback just like the Chromecast Audio has.
Google’s Project Brillo, which was announced at Google I/O 2015, was Google’s own version of the InternetOfThings (IoT). But since it was first announced, we haven’t heard anything up until now.
Google has announced some hardware partners for their Project Brillo including, Marvell, Harmen, Asus, Kwikset and LG. They will all be releasing Brillo and/or Weave compatible devices over the next year or so.
Stay tuned to TheCanadianTechie this week for more awesome stuff from CES 2016.
TheCanadianTechie 