Gadgetory

the biggest tech event of the year is about to kick off I'm Bridget Carey this is your cnet update it's time once again for the annual consumer electronics show of known as CES held in Las Vegas this is where the tech world unites to show off what's to come in 2016 for the next few days seen it's going to be covering every corner of the show floor and here's what you can expect companies are still putting the finishing touches on their booths right now but there's already some news around televisions of course televisions are always a highlight of the show everyone goes gaga for screens they get larger brighter and somehow even thinner you may be familiar with ultra-high definition also known as 4k but the buzzword this year could be HDR that stands for high dynamic range and here's one way to explain it HDR on a TV doesn't just mean more pixels but rather think of it as better pixels you're getting a broader range of contrast in color and images seem to have more depth we'll hear more about that in the days to come LG announced it has LED LCD TVs with a new name super ultra high definition and calling it super makes you feel it's even better than other 4k and I'm sure there's going to be yet another TV introduced in a day or two there'll be somehow even more super perhaps super duper and this year Samsung has 4k TVs that can talk to a smart home system so you can control the front door locks and the thermostat from your TV now aside from televisions the smart home is going to be another big star of the show I'm not talking about smart locks or garage door openers it's the large appliances that get most of the attention at CES and speaking of smart home LG's going to show off its cylindrical speaker called the smart Fink which can talk to some smart home gadgets does it remind you of something hello Alexa looks like LG's trying to copy Amazon success with the echo but this is just a small taste of what's to come at the show this week there's also going to be lots of smart car tech Toyota tease that it has some sort of new mapping technology that could eliminate the need for Google's dedicated gps vehicles that drive around recording street maps and of course there will be plenty of hype for virtual reality and other contraptions to put on your head if you already have your own headset like a Google cardboard or Samsung gear VR you can visit the show yourself CNN is doing its own 360 degree video tour of yes that's happening thursday so that your tech news update but we're just getting started so stay tuned all week long coming to you from the Las Vegas Convention Center I'm Bridget Carey