Image credit: ToyotaIn the future, you won’t go to shops; instead, shops will come to you. The core of the system is the new “e-Palette Concept Vehicle,” which basically looks like a small bus. Probably better than dronesAmazon, Pizza Hut and Uber are already coming up with ideas for how to use the tech, as is Mazda and the Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi. Some of these potential uses seem fairly obvious: Pizza Hut will likely use it for pizza delivery while Uber and DiDi will use it to move pas

However, with two of the biggest laptop makers, Acer and Asus, announcing that they are adding Amazon’s younger, and more popular, Alexa voice assistant into their laptops, could the end be nigh for Cortana? So, while I’m no big fan of Cortana, Alexa coming to my laptop isn’t too exciting either. What Alexa on a laptop does have going for it is that Alexa is a pretty embedded presence in my house already. Last year it was reported that Amazon and Microsoft were working together to allow Alexa an

You’ve kitted your home out with loads of pricey top-notch smart tech – but what’s keeping a smart crook from getting in and pilfering your connected wares? At CES 2018, traditional lock manufacturer Yale is again trying its hand at smart-focussed equipment, this time partnering with smart home veterans Nest for the Nest x Yale lock. Flexible securityFor starters, the pin-code locked Nest x Yale can have as many as 250 pin-codes assigned to it, and they too can be assigned different times of the

Security company Canary has unveiled a new security camera called Canary View at Vegas electronic show CES 2018. The Canary View is a smaller, more streamlined version of the original Canary camera, for $99 (about £70, AU$120). The original Canary (now being referred to as Canary All-In-One), was a huge Indiegogo success story, managing to secure close to 2 million dollars, 1,962% of its original target. The Canary View is available to buy from the Canary website. Other news from Canary during C

Alexa’s found a home in speakers (obviously), TVs, and now even items as small as Jabra’s new true wireless earbuds. Announced at this year’s show, the Jabra Elite 65t and Elite Active 65t are two pairs of true wireless earbuds that are packing built in support for Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, as well as offering access to Google Assistant or Siri on your phone. The two earphones are joined by the Jabra Elite 45e, a pair of wireless in-ear headphones that still have a cable connecting the two

This article is brought to you by Mac Life magazine. If you’d like to read more articles like this then subscribe to Mac Life magazine, and save an extra 10% off a subscription – it’s also the perfect gift for any Apple fan. If you’re using it and were in the habit of downloading iOS apps to your Mac, you may now have a large and redundant archive of files. Back up to external storage and you can trash the folder, because these apps will never again be updated on your Mac. If you can’t bear to p

Adobe Premiere Pro is an industry-standard video editor and getting the most from it will require an investment of time as well as cash, but if you’re serious about video then it’s well worth the effort. Premiere Pro’s interface (based around panels and a timeline) is often aped but rarely bettered. Unlike other apps, however, Premiere Pro is highly customizable. Adobe Premiere Pro is available as an individual subscription, or as part of the Creative Cloud suite (a better investment if you want

We’ve grown used to having voice assistants on our phones and in our homes, and now the next big frontier appears to be headphones, with brands up and down the price spectrum building in support. Bose got the ball rolling last year with the release of the Bose QuietComfort 35 IIs, and now at CES 2018 mid-range brand JBL has announced that it’s doing the same with its upcoming Everest 710GA and Everest 110GA headphones. Both the over-ear 710GA (pictured above) and the in-ear 110GA will offer supp

But while some companies show off movie theater-sized TVs, Philips is focusing on bringing theater-quality specs to consumer-sized screens. Philips has partnered with Dolby to bring Dolby Vision high-definition to its new 69- and 59-Series 4K UHD televisions, abandoning HDR10. And their highest-end 69 Series TVs supposedly cover a “wide color gamut” of 75% of all naturally available colors. Philips 6900 Series with Dolby VisionThe entry-level Dolby 4K TVs — the 59 Series — come in five sizes ran

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be constantly in the business news, but many stories are focused on still-developing technologies aimed at the biggest enterprise users only. AI technologies are everywhere, but in most cases they’re so well hidden under the hood of a tool or service that we don’t even realize they’re there. The technology is popping up everywhere, bringing us new and more intelligent applications and services, and these can be employed by any business right now. Smarter Bing sea

Just in case there was any lingering doubt about it, GoPro has confirmed that the Karma drone will be its first and last attempt to make a magnificent flying machine – the company is getting out of the drone business and putting the focus back on its action cameras. “Although Karma reached the number two market position in its price band in 2017, the product faces margin challenges in an extremely competitive aerial market,” said GoPro in an earnings report. GoPro says it will quit making drones

This article is brought to you by Maximum PC magazine. If you’d like to read more articles like this then subscribe to Maximum PC and save an extra 10% off a subscription – it’s the perfect New Year gift for any PC fan. Subscribe to Maximum PC magazine with an extra 10% offWe tend to find it hard to get excited about controllers for our beloved PCs. The use cases are slim, but a good controller is an essential part of any gaming enthusiast’s PC toolkit. Platformers, racing sims, and fighting gam

Asus has unleashed an ROG gaming laptop at CES 2018, which is a little different because it’s a limited edition machine signed by a famous pro gamer. The Asus ROG Strix SKT T1 Hero Edition owes its less-than-succinct name to the fact that this is actually a collaboration between the notebook manufacturer and SK Telecom T1, the very successful South Korean esports outfit – and home of the highly skilled renowned League of Legends player ‘Faker’. The laptop’s core spec comprises of an Intel Core i

Looking to help you more efficiently take on your 2018 reading challenge, Amazon has just announced Audible audiobook playback is expanding to a wider variety of its Kindle ereaders. The first generation Kindle Oasis, and the regular old Kindle, can now access Amazon’s audiobook service direct from the devices themselves, and playback content. Audible support was a key unique selling point of the 2017 Kindle Oasis, it’s worth noting. 250,000 spoken talesThe Audible store is now the go-to stop fo

Microsoft runs a little-known scheme called Home Use Program for business volume licensing customers that have an active Software Assurance coverage on their Office applications. Users can choose to buy either Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 or Microsoft Office Home and Business 2016 for Mac for a one-off fee of only £9.95 (or $9.95 in the US and AU$16.50 in Australia) ; that’s a saving of 98% and 96% respectively. Some require employees to use a program code to validate their HUP eligib

Artificial intelligence is big news at the moment, with pretty much every company claiming that its latest product is powered by AI. Digital assistantsOne of the easiest examples for most people to understand as an AI is your digital assistant. By that we mean Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, or any of the ever-growing number of voice assistants out there. There’s a very impressive school of AI known as Natural Language Processing (NLP) at work behind every request. The memory gameNowhere

European smart home manufacturer Netatmo has used CES 2018 to unveil its new way to control your smart home: Facebook Messenger. By texting Netatmo’s dedicated Smart Home Bot, you can request that your heating be turned up, your lights turned on, and even an update on who’s currently in your home. The feature works with all the Netatmo range that currently includes security cameras Presence and Welcome, a Thermostat, Weather Station, and an air quality monitor called Home Coach. Additionally, th

The new Garmin Forerunner 645 Music has arrived as the first watch from the company to let you listen to music while running without having to take your phone with you. Garmin’s latest running watch just debuted at CES 2018 and it comes with GPS, Garmin Pay and all of the other features you’d expect from a high-end Forerunner watch. In terms of pricing we know the Forerunner 645 Music will cost £399.99 (about $540, AU $690) with either a black or cerise band. There’s a non-Music variant of the w

For a long time now, consoles have claimed the center of the living room by virtue of the fact that you can connect them to “the big TV”, not worry too much about latency, and enjoy immersive visuals on a large scale (particularly now that 4K consoles have arrived). For that reason, fans of PC gaming have primarily had to rely on smaller monitors on desktops and laptops with the high refresh rates, low latency, PC-specific HDR, and G-SYNC variable refresh rate technology needed for the highest q

Want to play demanding games on your underpowered laptop or desktop PC? Then you might be interested to learn that Nvidia’s game streaming solution which allows you to do just this has opened its doors as a free beta. Your saved games are stored in the cloud, meaning you can access them from different devices (perhaps running different operating systems). When you’re given access to GeForce Now, that is – the slight downside is that at the moment, Nvidia says that there’s a waiting list to give