CES 2014

Evan McKay 

The Consumer Electronics Show is alive and kicking this weekend inLas Vegas, and the stuff coming out of there is looking pretty crazy!!! Li-Fi, curved 77” HDTV, steam boxes, and Sony streaming game service in 720P! THIS SHIT IS INTENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The first on my list from CES is Li-Fi, which stands for “light fidelity.” This means it uses visible light to transmit data instead of radio signals which is what the Wi-Fi we all know and love uses. So from what I've been reading, these new Li-Fi devices will be capable of getting 250 Gigabytes per second! That is so super crazy fast it’s scary! Another point to note about this, is the first smartphone with this tech installed is going to be unveiled this weekend.  It uses these light waves not only for data transmission, but also converts them into energy! So data transmission will take up no battery power, thus super extending the proverbial shit out of your battery life! There are some alleged down sides however. Although you do not need a direct line of light and can even exchange data off reflected light, it will not work through walls. Meaning the range will be much shorter and signal strength might be less reliable when working with reflected light, which is not as well as direct light. It is also going to be expensive to install, but I have a feeling the price on that will come down. Let’s end it on a high note here! The light transmission is totally safe to use on planes, in hospitals, and in nuclear power plants. 

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A not totally unrealistic representation of a small percentage of PC gamers. Maybe a large percentage.

Next on my CES list, PC gaming still has something to say even though the new next-gen consoles debuted just two months ago. We finally get a look at some of the steam-boxes everyone has been talking about. If you do not know about these saucy consoles, let me break it down. Steam is an online virtual library of PC games. You can buy a ton of games there. They also have fantastic sales of as low as 80% off, relatively frequently. Valve owns steam, and not wanting to get cut out of the console market, decided to put their own spin on it. They created an operating system for a console and made this bad ass controller with touch screens instead of joysticks. However, they did not make a console. Instead they gave the OS to hardware producers such as Alienware, Origin PC, and Falcon Northwest (Cnet, Ackerman). These companies are going to make “Steam-box”, so Steam’s console will be legion and should be priced around $400-$500 like current gen consoles. The high end variants of the Steam Box consoles will be able to dual-boot into windows and can dual function as consoles and gaming PC’s; they will probably cost around $800 - $1200 (like a gaming PC). 

Last on my selective list, Sony would like to return the PWN and dropped a big announcement at CES 2014. They have starting discussing the details of “PlayStation Now,”  which is a video game streaming service like Netflix, except solely for video games. You will be able to stream PS3 games in 720P to every sony device, even Bravia TVs. That is amazing to me; you can just stream PS3 games directly to your TV without having a console!!! That is bad ass!. The service will also have a rental feature so you do not need a subscription if you only just want to play games like the last of us, like me. The only mystery is the price… We know the beta will be starting in June and I cannot wait to see this up and running on my PS4.

There were many more CES 2014 treasures than I possibly begin to discuss. Get yr google on, and get ready to get your nerdy mind blown!!! Keep PWNING YA’ LL!!!!!

The sweet, sweet, Steam Machine controller.