Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. s

From car tech to micro drones, we discuss our top products at CES 2018

Add as a preferred source on Google

From potentially revolutionary computer chips to tiny micro drones, our editorial staff spent the past week investigating some of the most interesting and fun emerging technology on the planet at this year’s CES conference in Las Vegas.

With 184,000 people in attendance, the expo halls and meeting rooms at this year’s show were jam-packed not only with people, but with compelling and unique technology that will provide entertainment, fuel industries, and shape the world of the future. With so many intriguing products to investigate, we rely heavily on the experts from our editorial team to seek out, try, and report back on the best of the bunch.

Recommended Videos

This year’s conference was special in many ways, but perhaps most so when it came to our top tech pick. Though we typically choose a consumer-facing product like our best-of-2017 winner, the Samsung Chromebook Plus, this year we picked a product that most people will never lay eyes on, the Nvidia Xavier processor. We believe the lightning-fast in-car computer will play a pivotal role in the next generation of intelligent cars, allowing you to travel quicker, safer, and perhaps without even touching a steering wheel.

As part of our best of CES coverage, Digital Trends’ Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Kaplan and Managing Editor Nick Mokey sat down to discuss our picks for the best of CES, sharing our choices and elaborating on why we made them.

“We have 15 to 20 journalists running around the floor, exploring everything there is too see — and there’s a lot to see,” said Kaplan about the way the awards were chosen, “Everyone scrambles to see as much as they can see, and we all get together in a little room, and eventually decide what the best products are from the show.”

Watch the full video to learn why we picked each of our favorite items at this year’s CES conference, and be sure to check out our full article detailing our choices.

Parker Hall
Former Senior Writer, Home Theater/Music
Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…
AI can’t tell if you’re gay or straight, but it thinks it knows what both look like
AI knows it shouldn't judge a face, but apparently, drawing one is a different story.
Emilia Clarke AI generated stock image. Gemini / Nano Banana is on the left

We've all been told not to judge a book by its cover, and you'd think AI would follow that rule, too. Ask an AI chatbot to guess someone's sexual orientation just by looking at their face, and it'll likely tell you that there's no reliable way to know. But what happens when you ask that same model to change someone's appearance to match a particular sexual orientation? Well, that's where things get uncomfortable.

A new study, accepted for presentation at the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, found that AI models from OpenAI and Google can be inconsistent when handling sensitive personal characteristics. They might refuse to make assumptions about someone based on their appearance, but when asked to generate those same assumptions visually, the results tell a very different story.

Read more
A clinical study with Google’s special chatbot shows a strong future for AI in healthcare
Google’s medical AI could give doctors a useful second set of eyes
Google Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer chatbot

AI is a useful tool for handling many tasks in private as well as professional settings, but medical advice, especially diagnosis, is one area where I generally draw the line. General-purpose chatbots tend to sound confident and convincing while giving medical advice, even when they are wrong, as studies have previously found.

That being said, Google's new research points to a much more convincing use for AI in healthcare. Its Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer chatbot, or AMIE for short, could help prepare both sides before the appointment even begins.

Read more
Relaxation music had one job in this pain study, and favorite songs did it better
Patients who chose their music reported less pain after an IV insertion
Book, Publication, Indoors

Patients’ favorite songs helped ease pain after an IV insertion in a new study, while music specifically chosen for relaxation didn’t show a significant benefit. The soothing soundtrack could apparently use a second opinion.

Researchers at University Hospital Zürich studied 204 patients receiving an IV cannula before an MRI scan. Those listening to their chosen music reported less pain 30 seconds and two minutes after insertion. Across the full sample, the clearest relief came after the needle went in.

Read more