The IFA tech trade show is taking place in Berlin this week. Click through to see some of the top products making their debut at the show.
See also: 8K TV On The Way From Sony, LG, TCL
Travelers who speak no other language but their own will find this palm-sized Pocketalk translator handier overseas than booting up a smartphone app, hoping you have a connection and burning precious battery life. Choose one of the 74 languages it knows, speak, and the Pocketalk not only speaks the translation but displays on the LCD screen. Pocketalk, which goes on sale Oct. 10, gets its data from the cloud; a Wi-Fi version costs $249, a cellular model with two years of service is $299.
Baby boomers and other rock n’ rollers can feed their deep nostalgia for Marshall amps with one of these new Marshall Wi-Fi/Bluetooth smart speakers, which will come in both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant versions. The larger Alexa-enabled Stanmore II Voice ($399) is due October 2, the smaller Acton II Voice ($299) will go on sale November 9. The two Google Assistant versions will be available at the end of the year.
Acer’s Swift 5 is being hailed by the company as the world’s lightest 15-inch notebook.
Two sides of the perimeter of Lenco’s booth is archaically decorated with its historical turntables dating back to 1960, culminating in the Lenco-MD, the world’s first modular 3D printed DIY record player. You get hardware and either the printer parts or the 3D plans to print them yourself. The plans will come available sometime this winter.
Coming from Yomee in March after a successful Indiegogo campaign, this machine ($149) is sort of a Keurig for yogurt. You drop in a yogurt plug (perched atop the unit) and just add milk. A tube of 5 two-serving plugs will cost $4 (so 40 cents a serving). Right now there’s just plain, but vanilla, blueberry and strawberry are coming soon.
With its 88-inch 8K OLED hidden for private viewing only, LG populated its booth with its new line of CLOi service robots: the GuideBot, CartBot, ServeBot, PorterBot, SuitBot (an exoskeleton) and a CleanBot.
What would an LG booth be without its OLED tunnel?
Liebherr produced limited edition personalized refrigerators a few years back and has now expanded the concept for a new line of compact models via its designyourfridge.com website.
Instead of loading new detergent with each load of dishes, early next year Miele will start selling four G7000 Power Disk dishwashers. Each Power Disk detergent pack ($8.95) scours 20 loads. The four models, two pull open and two “Knock2Open,” run from 1,750 and 2,600 euros; no word on U.S. pricing or availability.
Polaroid Originals (yes, that’s the name of the company) will start shipping this smartphone app-controllable OneStep+ ($159) next week. You get a slew of effects and manual settings in the app, or you can use the camera the old-fashioned way (no shaking the photo necessary). Eight-shot film packs will run $16.
For apartment and other space-challenged homes comes this smart dual washer-dryer from Bosch. This Series 6 combo wash up to 22 pounds of laundry and dry around 13 pounds. It can be remote controlled via Bosch’s Home Connect smart home platform, and includes the company’s i-DOS automatic detergent/water dosing system.
The Eoz Air true wireless Bluetooth earbuds ($149), which come in three color combos, solve one consumer pain point — the ear hooks make sure they stay where you stick them. They’re due to ship at the end of September after a successful Kickstarter campaign, but the company is still seeking U.S. distribution.
Along with cooking demos, IFA is littered with personal grooming demos, such as these hairstylists at the Philips booth trying out their company’s latest products on visitors happy to save some hair salon dough.
