Techtember

We bring to you exciting launches in September including those at IFA 2024 in Berlin. See which tech has knocked our socks off and hope you can choose your devices armed with our wisdom

Apple AirPods

Apple also souped up its AirPods lineup with several new earphones featuring their new H2 chip. These can make adaptive noise cancellation, selectively cancelling certain sounds, but not on the cheapest set. The most interesting of the bunch, however, is the new AirPods Pro 2, which, once FDA-approved, can be used as hearing aids. Making it their best selling point.

Acer DualPlay

This was a complete concept. It is a high-end gaming laptop with a hidden secret. The mouse pad hides within it a full-sized game controller that can be broken down into two controllers switch-style. The mechanism uses magnets to place the controller back, and once you free the controller from the laptop, a pair of stereo speakers pop out to give you a sound boost. It is doubtful this laptop will even make it to production.

Acer Nitro Blaze 7
Acer launched this new handheld gaming computer at IFA in Berlin. I got a few minutes to play around with it. Under the hood, the device is a beast with a very powerful mobile processor, unlike the Z1 Extreme that most consoles use. Games ran well on it, and it is much smaller than the other handhelds, making it very comfortable to play with. 

Honor Magic V3
Honor Huawei’s offshoot brand showed off a stunning new flagship folding phone. It had a super thin display that made it look almost like a normal smartphone in thickness. The phone is pricey but just look at it. Secretly I wish Huawei came but for now, this one is delivering some beautiful tech.

BodyFriend Massage Chair

If you ever felt like you wanted to be in the seat of Optimus Prime or like one of those soldiers fighting the Kaiju in Pacific Rim, this device was it. It is a massage chair that will massage your toes while playing binaural beats or other relaxing white noise. The BodyFriend will massage each one of your toes individually while playing binaural beats or other relaxing white noise. You will have to pay upwards of $10,000 for the privilege of owing one of these, though. The Korean company behind the device has managed to sell a bunch of these, though.

ViXiON eyeglasses

By far, one of the coolest and odd-looking things I saw at IFA was the ViXiOn glasses. It used a tiny battery and adjustable lends that could change its concavity letting you see through the glasses no matter what your number was. However, this does only one number at a time, so users with both numbers may have to constantly adjust the number. Not to mention, it looked ridiculous when you wore it. Despite how it looked the company had already sold a significant number of them in Japan where the elderly found them very useful.

Apple iPhone

Apple jumped the AI shark this week with its Apple Intelligence phones. These phones came with their A18 and A18Pro chips, which promised great AI features on their phones. The most exciting bit of the phone was the touch-sensitive camera button.

Ki
A new wireless power standard called Ki was launched. Ki lets you power up devices like blenders and toasters without visible wires. Magnetic Induction is used to deliver up to 2.2kW of power wirelessly. It seems like a weird concept, but it looked pretty cool in the demo.

Apple Watch

Apple Watch also has a new chip and a bigger screen that can be viewed from some pretty wide angles. Apple, being Apple, gave fancy names for everything. That said, this time, the lineup was a little better than Apple’s usual micro-updates.

Asus NUC 14 AI
Not to be left behind, Asus launched a bunch of CoPilot laptops. Co-pilot is Microsoft’s efforts to introduce AI in Windows. However, the most exciting launch was Asus’s NUC 14 AI, which comes with a bunch of sweet hardware and a cute little co-pilot button. If you are looking for a mini PC with a bit of AI magic, you found it.

ReMarkable Paper Pro

ReMarkable, the paper-like tablet recently reviewed in this column, has a new device that can display pages in colour and even has a backlit e-ink screen that lets you use the device in a dark place. The new ReMarkable was unveiled at IFA as well and is an alternative to the iPad that focuses on the work aspect rather than the entertainment aspect of a tablet. Considering its recent launch in India, there is a good possibility this device might make it to our shores as well.

Detective Dotson Hands-on Preview
I got a chance to play a preview of the upcoming game Detective Dotson, which was recently featured on the Future Games show. The preview was extremely short, with no more than 30 minutes of gameplay and two cases to solve. However, that is enough to give you an insight into Detective Dotson’s delightful gameplay. The game is essentially an adventure game in which you must use your numerous disguises and wit to solve cases. While the puzzles on the preview were pretty easy to solve, I loved the disguises and the unique power-ups you get with each one. The game is interesting enough to excite me about the final game, which is scheduled to launch in a few months.

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