CES 2016: Chevy Bolt EV ushers in age of more affordable electric vehicles

Chevrolet took the wraps off the production version of the anticipated Chevy Bolt at the Internatonal CES in Las Vegas. The 2017 Bolt EV will offer a range of 200 miles on a full battery charge and is expected to sell for under US $30,000.00, which is a price point that many believe is ideal for a viable EV that the public could buy into. This electriv vehicle comes in compact hatchback form, Chevy says it will take 9 hours to charge via your standard power outlet and should be available in North America late 2016.

Replete with the latest technologies, the Bolt EV will come with 4G-LTE, can be monitored and controlled remotely with a smartphone app, as well as Apple CarPlay or Android Auto infotainment links. It also features proactive safety and assistive driving features.

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Netflix is now available in over 190 countries

Safe to say Netflix had a rather big announcement at CES 2016. The company just launched in over 130 new countries around the world. Netflix Co-founder and Chief Executive Reed Hastings made the announcement at a keynote during CES. This gives the new countries access to Netflix’s original shows and movies. The company promises that this year they will release “31 new and returning original series, two dozen original feature films and documentaries, a wide range of stand-up comedy specials and 30 original kids series—available at the same time to members everywhere.”

Netflix has also added Arabic, Korean, Traditional and Simplified Chines to the 17 languages it supports. At the moment though, they still aren’t available in China, a big market that comes with a lot of restrictions. But they are supposedly working on options to provide the service there. It’s also still not available in Crimea, North Korea, and Syria due to US government restrictions on American companies. Netflix launched its service in 2007 and has expanded globally, first to Canada, then to Latin America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan to include 60 countries.

Nextbit Robin to start shipping on February 16th

Bucking the usual trend of gadgets taking too long to ship on crowdfunded sites, Nextbit has just announced they plan on starting shipment for its Robin handsets on February 16^th. The Robin is touted as the first “cloud-first” smartphone, meaning it’ll offload apps and data to a free 100GB cloud storage bucket when not in use. These bits of information will then be restored when you need it. Of course, we can’t say how smoothly this could work in real life just yet.

Early backers get first dibs, of course, so the first 1,000 should get their phones first. These are the GSM versions though. The CDMA models will come out at a later, unspecified date.

Source: Kickstarter | Via: Android Police

CES 2016: L’Oreal gets into the wearable tech game

L’Oreal isn’t a brand you usually associate with the Consumer Electronics Show. But they are here this year to show off new wearable and internet-connected products. Their first device is made in partnership with manufacturing and logistics company PCH. It’s a UV-sensing stretchable patch worn on the skin that will then be scanned using a smartphone app to tell the strength of the sun’s rays. This My UV Patch is meant to educate the public about the effects of too much sun exposure. It can be worn around five days and it’ll be given away for free. It’ll be launching in 16 countries and is seen as a way for the company to help develop new products in the future.

Source: BBC