Our CES 2021 Day 2 Summary: Razer’s Futuristic N95 Mask, Smart Lipstick and a Flying Car

This story is part of CES, where our editors will bring you the latest news and the most popular articles from the all-virtual CES 2021.

CES to be digital is definitely weird, but luxurious and awake products displayed on Day 1 brought with it a sense of familiarity. Day 2 kept that momentum going, though things feel a lot more futuristic. Literally, a flying car was one of the biggest concepts of the day.

Although Day 2 has come to an end, the program is not over yet. In addition to a Microsoft speech on Wednesday and a steady stream of new product announcements from companies around the world, Samsung will also announce Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event, where the Galaxy S21 will be unveiled.

Let’s get conceptual

Razer has made the tradition of displaying conceptual articles at CES, and it becomes one of the highlights of the show every year. In 2021, Razer has two such concepts: Project Brooklyn and Project Hazel.

The first place is Project Brooklyn, a play chair with a rolling, comprehensive display. It’s also quite a display: a transparent OLED of 180 degrees. Aside from the latest technology, Project Brooklyn also has carbon fiber and leather bucket seats with haptic vibration and RBG lighting. Of course.

Second is Project Hazel, a concept for the life of COVID-19. It’s an N95 mask full of technology: sound processing pods that muffle your voice, active ventilation and auto-sterilization, an accompanying bag that also serves as a UV sterilizer. And LED RBG lighting.

Of course.

So yes, both are intriguing. But Razer’s CES concepts usually do not result in real products. Do not expect this either. That said, Acer has a similar (though less slippery) seat in the Thronos. British company Binatone also stuck its own machine with technology at CES, An N95 mask with a bluetooth headset. It’s not as fine as Razer’s, but it really does cost $ 50 – much less than Razer’s would cost.

GM brings us closer to The Jetsons

On Monday, Samsung unveiled a set of robots designed to help home, a baby living in the direction of The Jetsons. General Motors helps us take a giant leap, displays its concept for a flying car. This is called the eVTOL, or (electric) Verticle TakeOff and Landing droid.

“We are preparing for a world where advances in electrical and autonomous technology enable personalized air travel,” said Michael Simcoe, head of GM design. GM now joins as Archer and Aston martin, companies that also work on aircraft.

Chip wars

Day 1 of CES had many TV competitions between Samsung and LG, Korea’s two biggest electronics giants. Day 2 was a battlefield for processors, with Nvidia and AMD each having their own main points.

Nvidia, the reigning graphics card champion, announced several new RTX GPUs. At the top was the RTX 3080, for those who take their games really seriously (like e-sports seriously), starting at $ 1,999. But while it offers great power for 4K gaming and intense video editing, the GPU at the bottom of the spectrum is equally remarkable. The RTX 3060 only costs $ 329, and Nvidia says it’s ten times more powerful than the GTX 1060. In other words, you’ll be able to play most great new games on it, though you may have to shift the resolution down.

While AMD does make GPUs, the main reason on Tuesday was more about laptops. It has been announced Ryzen 5000 chips come to laptops, with brands such as Lenovo, Asus and HP connecting them to Ryzen 5000 laptops later this year. AMD maintains this means thinner, lighter and more powerful laptops. These CPUs will compete with Intel’s 11th generation Tiger Lake H35 chips, which were announced on Tuesday.

Oh, and just for fun, Samsung unveiled the Exynos 2100 chip which is the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S21. The phone gets a full unveiling on Thursday, but hey, it’s the day of the chip, so why do not you display goods early?

Monitors with monitors

Chips are cool, but what about the actual machines in which they are housed?

Just as telephony manufacturers are trying to take the lead with rolling, folding screens, laptops are trying to differentiate themselves with useful new designs. Thinner, lighter and more powerful is good, but real innovation in such a mature industry is great.

For Asus, this means doubling its powerful Duo line with dual screen. At CES, it has the Zephyrus Duo 15 SE, which has a 15.6-inch screen with a secondary 14.1-inch touch screen that stays above the keyboard, as you can see above. It’s a beast aimed at performance-obsessed gamers: it can be configured with a 4K 120Hz panel, with options for AMD or Nvidia graphics.

The company also dropped its new Strix Scar laptop, which can be configured with a 360Hz screen – the fastest on any laptop.

But while Asus is investing in brute force, Chinese brand Lenovo is going for efficiency. In addition to the primary display, the new Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 i has an E-ink screen on the lid, so you can check notifications, your calendar, notes and more without really opening the machine. It can also be charged via a Lenovo charging mat, so it’s one cable less to scare over.

Smart lipstick, smarter perfume

The internet-of-things industry is destined to grow by hundreds of millions of dollars annually. What this means in practice is that everyday objects are filled with computer tricks. A fresh example of CES? Lipstick.

Displayed at last year’s CES and unveiled as a real product you can buy on Tuesday (in the spring, which costs $ 299) Yves Saint Laurent’s Perso is a device that contains three liquid lipstick patterns. Using an embedded brush, you can mix the colors together to get the exact color and shade.

It’s a similar story with Ninu, a clever scent. Inside are three fragrances, in three different vials. Ninu can be connected to your phone, and through an app you can mix flavors together and customize it to your exact taste. This can of course go very wrong, so there is an AI assistant in the app that will help you not to smell rubbish.

The future, right?