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CES 2020 - The future is now. Pizza-making robots are making delicious 12-inch pizzas on the show floor of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week.

Picnic is a Seattle-based "innovator of food production technology and Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) solutions" that has teamed with live event hospitality leader Centerplate, to serve CES attendees fresh pizza. Picnic's robot is capable of making 300 12-inch pizzas an hour, which is a helluva lot of pizza per day.

The AI-powered pizza making robot uses a vision system to make adjustments to the pie if it is off-center, with Picnic CEO Clayton Wood explaining: "Picnic's distinct culmination of food production customization and throughput, smart data and cloud analytics is quickly resonating with food service operators".

CES 2020 - Acer unveiled its gigantic 55-inch 4K 120Hz OLED gaming monitor at CES 2020, joined by a bunch of new gaming displays that are all shaping up to be worthy of our attention in 2020.

One of those includes the new Predator X38, with Acer cramming the entire kitchen sink into a 37.5-inch curved panel with 2300R curvature, packing in a native 3840 x 1600 resolution, making it a UWQHD+ display.

We have the ability to overclock Acer's new Predator X38 through to 175Hz which is glorious, and even better when you consider it has NVIDIA G-Sync support and VESA DisplayHDR 400 certification.

The latest on Sony's next-gen PlayStation 5 for 2020 is coming from a new photo of an alleged PS5 developer kit console, something that was being cleaned and then promptly leaked online.

In the above shot we can see that V-shaped PlayStation 5 being cleaned, with the developer kit rocking an LCD display to the right (which the final consumer version of the PS5 will not). The 4K Blu-ray drive is right there on show, as too are the LED activity lights and various USB ports for connectivity.

We get a closer look at the new DualShock 5 controller which looks a little chunkier than the current DualShock 4 controller. But apart from that there's nothing new here, with all eyes on Sony for CES 2020 where they could show off something about the new PlayStation 5. We don't know what, but Sony will be shouting something from the roof tops of CES.

Next-gen dominance will come down to the age-old equalizer: The retail price tag.

Reports indicate the PlayStation 5 could be weaker than the Xbox Series X's 12TFLOP GPU, with a possible shrunken MSRP to match. By all accounts the Xbox SX is a beast that "eats monsters for breakfast" that could carry a monstrous price tag to match. Analysts are starting to weigh in on sales predictions, with most agreeing on a $400+ price point for both, but what happens if there's a price difference? If the Xbox SX is more expensive, the PS5 could win.

"You know what's going to take the wind out of Microsoft's sales? Charging more than $400. That's a problem. I think far more relevant to the success of both boxes is if there's a price differential. If they're priced the same I think they have an equal chance of thriving. If they're priced vastly different, the cheaper one's going to win," Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in a recent episode of The Pachter Factor.

CES 2020 - Acer has just stolen my heart with the unveiling of its new Acer Predator CG552K at CES 2020, with it arriving as a gigantic new 55-inch 4K 120Hz OLED.

The new Acer Predator CG552K is a huge 55-inch TV that has a native 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolution, with blistering fast 120Hz refresh rate and those gorgeous deep blacks and beautiful colors of an OLED panel. Acer has a barely-there bezel on the Predator CG552K, helping it not just have crazy good internals, but it'll look great in your room.

We have up to 400 nits of brightness on the Acer Predator CG552K, so you won't be completely blinded by its brightness but it'll look damn good at the samne time. We have 3 x HDMI 2.0 ports, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4 ports, 1 x USB Type-C port, 2 x USB 3.0 ports and finally, 2 x USB 2.0 ports. Acer is also including dual 10W speakers in the Predator CG552K -- all of this will cost $2999... which isn't too damn bad at all.

If George Lucas had his way, gaming history could be very, very different.

In the years before Interplay made Fallout, one of the most legendary cRPGs of all time, George Lucas had an idea: What if Lucasfilm Games and Interplay combined forces? According to Interplay founder Brian Fargo, Lucas not only wanted Interplay to merge with Lucasfilm Games, but the Star Wars director wanted Fargo to run the new studio.

Fargo ruminated on the possibility in a recent Tweet. In 1995 Interplay had just shipped Stonekeep, a very Elder Scrolls-esque first-person dungeon crawler that impressed Lucas. This was before Fallout's release in 1997 and if Fargo had indeed taken up Lucas' offer, we probably would never have seen Fallout come to fruition. We'd probably just have had more old-school Star Wars games...maybe a cRPG spin-off?

CES 2020 - Samsung has been teasing something about 'Project Neon' for a while now, and while some thought it would be some fancy full artificial human being -- in reality, it seems it's just an ultra-realistic human avatar.

Neon would be used for entertainment and business use, so think of a virtual person greeting you at a hotel, a receptionist, or even as an actor in guiding someone through a building or tutorial. We don't know what to expect exactly, but the head of Neon and computer-human interaction researcher Paranav Mistry tweeted a tease above.

He said that the company's new "Core R3" technology is capable of "autonomously create new expressions, new movements, new dialog (even in Hindi), completely different from the original captured data".

No Man's Sky has consistently been one of the top-played games on Steam since it's release in 2015.

Over the last four years Hello Games has redeemed No Man's Sky with seven free expansion updates. Every successive update has invigorated the playerbase on Steam, especially the latest Beyond update that even added VR support. This comeback story carries with it an important lesson for developers and publishers: Heavily monetizing a game with microtransactions isn't always the best way out. Sometimes when you just give to the community, the community gives back and keeps playing your game for years on end.

That's what happened with No Man's Sky. For four years running, No Man's Sky has been among the most-played games on Steam. In 2019 it amassed over 50,000 concurrent players, putting it alongside heavy-hitters like Red Dead Redemption 2, Rocket League, and Monster Hunter World. Not bad for an all-indie game.

Square Enix plans to embrace game streaming and cloud in a big way...and it doesn't get any bigger than Final Fantasy.

Photo: Seirra259

Square Enix has talked about game streaming, subscriptions, and cloud gaming for a while now. Final Fantasy XIV remains the biggest tentpole for its online endeavors, but most others have more or less floundered, relegating the games-maker to more traditional mainline dedicated game sales. Now with 5G tech on the horizon and a steady rollout of big platforms to tap 5G like Project xCloud, Google Stadia (which Square Enix is already supporting), and even Amazon's and Verizon's upcoming game-streaming platforms, Square Enix might finally be ready to make good on its cloud ambitions.

CES 2020 - BenQ has just announced its new ZOWIE XL2740 gaming monitor, offering a new 27-inch TN Film panel with a native 1920 x 1080 resolution and super-fast 240Hz refresh rate.

The new ZOWIE XL2740 monitor is aimed at esports gamers, with LFC for low frame rate, a super-fast 0.5ms GtG response time along with the 240Hz refresh rate. But it's the addition of DyAc+ technology that impresses me, with BenQ and ZOWIE touting it improves accuracy and reduces motion blur... kay. DyAc+ (Dynamic Accuracy Plus) can be used instead of Adaptive-Sync, minimizing blur when the frame rate better matches the display refresh rate.

BenQ is using a 27-inch 1080p TN Film panel display, 0.5ms GtG response time, 1000:1 contast ratio, 32 cd/m2 brightness, 170/160-degree viewing angles, 8-bit color, and standard sRGB color gamut. We have tilt, height, swivel, and rotate adjustments with a slew of connectivity between DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0, HDMI 1.4, and old school dual-link DVI connectors. There's also some USB ports, as well as a 3.5mm headphone and mic jack.

CES 2020 - Dell has just announced its new UltraSharp U4320Q monitor, offering a large 42.5-inch size and native 4K resolution on an IPS panel.

The new Dell UltraSharp U4320Q has been made for users who want a premium monitor that has the ability to replace multiple smaller screens, since its 42.5-inch size and native 3840 x 2160 resolution fit the bill. We have 350 nits of brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms GtG response time, 178-degree viewing angles. It's a 60Hz refresh rate, so don't go expecting any insane 49-inch 5120 x 1440 @ 240Hz action here.

One of the points of Dell's new UltraSharp U4320Q monitor is the built-in Picture-by-Picture and Picture-in-Picture feature, which lets you have 4 different PCs on the monitor at once. You'll have to have your inputs all set up correctly, but having 4 completely different PCs being displayed on a single monitor is a helluva thing.

CES 2020 - Dell has just unveiled the flagship office monitor, with its new 86-inch Interactive Touch Monitor set to get purchased by the 1% business types who want the absolute best.

The new Dell Interactive Touch Monitor has an 85.6-inch 4K IPS-based panel, with both anti-glare and anti-smudge coatings (you wouldn't want to get fingerprints on this, would you -- but it is a touchscreen after all). Dell has its ComfortView technology included, which will adjust the blue light for easier-on-your eyes meetings.

Dell's new monitor supports up to 20 simultaneous touch points, so you can have people playing finger Twister on this without a problem, or they can be drawing all over it with Dell's new and improved dual-tip styluses. Dell includes dual 20W speakers, a bunch of HDMI outputs, USB Type-A, USB Type-B, and USB Type-C connectors, and even a full-sized DisplayPort.

CES 2020 - Samsung has just introduced some new members of its Galaxy Book family of laptops, but with cheaper models including the new Galaxy Book Flex Alpha.

Samsung's new Galaxy Book Flex Alpha rolls out as a cheaper 2-in-1 laptop wqith a QLED display, so in reality it's a slightly less premium version of the Galaxy Book Flex, but also cheaper. We have a rotating 13.3-inch 1080p QLED display, with a square design and thinner bezels than the previous-gen units.

Inside, Samsung configures the new Galaxy Book Flex Alpha with Intel's latest 10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs, either 8GB or 12GB of RAM, and either 256GB or 512GB of SSD storage. Samsung is touting up to 17.5 hours of battery life from a single charge, which is all done through an easy single USB-C cord.

CES 2020 - The Consumer Electronics Show is always a special time of the year, it has some of the most fringe tech out there -- but we also find hidden gems like this: BlackBerry has teamed with Damon Motorcycles on a new EV superbike.

BlackBerry is known, at least now, for its Android-based smartphones -- but the original part of its company in Research in Motion (RIM) is here in BlackBerry Limited form, making enterprise software. This software comes in the form of BlackBerry's QNX operating system, which will be the basis for the CoPilot warning system on Damon Motorcycles' new Hypersport Pro Electric Superbike.

The Hypersport Pro Electric Superbike system as a whole will feature radars, cameras, and other sensors that will track speed, and the direction of objects moving close to the bike. The early warning system would warn riders when there is an upcoming safety concern, with BlackBerry promising that the advanced collision system is "highly secure" and that it has "enhanced situational awareness" and provides an "increased peace of mind" for riders.

CES 2020 - Segway is making waves at CES 2020 this year, teasing off its new prototype electric vehicle that it is calling the S-Pod -- and it looks like a wild ride.

Segway teamed with Ninebot on the new prototype TV that weighs 330 pounds and has a top speed of 24.8 miles per hour, while in its current prototype state it has up to 43.5 miles of travel in it from its battery. Segway's new S-Pod is a personal transport vehicle that the company describes as a "first-class smart transporting pod".

The S-Pod is powered by gyroscopic, self-balancing technology that makes sure you'll never fall out of it -- and while the original Segway could be controlled by leaning forward or to the side, the new S-Pod has its movement manipulated with a tiny joystick in the right side of the seat for maximum laziness. Segway says it'll also have a detachable built-in pad, too.

CES 2020 - Samsung has unveiled its beautiful new premium 8K TVs, meaning the rumors were real on the exciting new bezel-less TV from Samsung. We now know it's real, with Samsung packing an insane 8K resolution, with it also setting a "new standard" for TV screens with its Infinity Design.

There's virtually no bezel or frame on Samsung's new TV, and it's oinly 15mm thick, too. Samsung is powering the new TV with an AI "quantum processor" that handles the revamped UI, and upscales any source of video up to 8K. It will also access your TV through your antenna, streaming services, or more through a universal guide.

Samsung packs in what it calls AI ScaleNet technology that streams 8K on networks that only have bandwidth that handles 4K, where it will compress an 8K video source down to 4K, stream it over the internet -- which is where the AI takes over, upscales it it back to 8K resolution. Interesting, but it's something I'd want to try in person. I use an 8K monitor myself and 8K videos from YouTube require around 120Mbps -- but throw in compression and AI and we have some interesting stuff going on.

ASRock is coming out swinging with its own leaks on their custom Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card, that the company will be calling their RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3.

The new ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 is a factory-overclocked Radeon RX 5600 XT, offering up the Navi 10 at its fastest GPU clocks yet (before it's even announced) at 1355, 1560, and 1620MHz boost GPU clocks respectively. It still has 6GB of GDDR6 at 12Gbps on a 192-bit memory bus, all powered with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

ASRock is using a smaller PCB here with its RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3, at just 29cm -- but the card has a larger cooling system that runs right over the PCB. I'd love to see a custom version of this with the cooler running up to the edge of the PCB for smaller, mITX gaming PCs powered by the ASRock RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 graphics card.

CES 2020 - ASUS has just had its new Zephyrus G15 gaming laptop leak, with the ASUS Zephyrus G15 packing an unannounced AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS processor.

ASUS will be offering up two different models of its ASUS Zephyrus G15 gaming laptop and its 15.6-inch displays, with a 1080p 144Hz IPS panel and a 240Hz display. As for the GPU, we won't be seeing Navi inside of gaming notebooks just yet so ASUS is providing either a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB or GeForce RTX 2060 6GB graphics card.

Inside, the ASUS Zephyrus G15 gaming laptop can be configured with up to 32GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, 512GB or 1TB of NVMe storage, Wi-Fi 6 technology, a 76Wh 4-cell battery, a 180W PSU, and it comes in at 2.1kg in total.

Today is the day of custom Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics cards leaking, with our first look at the custom MSI Radeon RX 5600 XT MECH (and MECH OC) models but now we're getting a look at XFX's own custom RX 5600 XT.

XFX's upcoming Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO STAGING has a strange name, and I seriously do not know why it's called this. The original THICC branding was kinda cool as a tongue-in-cheek thing, but PRO STAGING? Yeah, I don't know. The new XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO STAGING has factory overclocking at up to 1460MHz in game mode, but we don't know anything more about its boost clocks.

We should see the XFX Radeon RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO STAGING coming in faster than MSI's second-best RX 5600 XT MECH OC (the GAMING series will beat the MECH series). But XFX's new card will also include the same 6GB GDDR6 at 12Gbps on a 192-bit memory bus.

AMD is expected to unveil its new Navi 10-based Radeon RX 5600 XT grapphics card at CES 2020 in the next couple of days, but now we have some leaks from MSI's new MECH range of cards.

MSI's upcoming Radeon RX 5600 XT MECH graphics cards have been leaked, with teh MECH series cards finding their place just under the flagship GAMING series. MSI's upcoming cards will come in two SKUs with an OC and non-OC model in the upcoming Radeon RX 5600 XT MECH graphics cards.

The overclocked RX 5600 XT MECH OC graphics card has 1185, 1420, 1600MHz GPU clocks for base, game, and boost mode respectively. The non-OC version of the RX 5600 XT will have its Navi 10 GPU clocked at 1130, 1375, and 1570MHz for base, game, and boost clocks respectively. Both models include 6GB of GDDR6 memory at 12Gbps on a 192-bit memory interface and a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, with a TDP that should find itself at 150W or so.