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CES is a mixed bag featuring real products you might want, announcements about upcoming tech you may not see for years, and vaporware that makes you wonder, “Who would want this?”
But the wacky, wild, and, at times, unrealistic are part of what makes CES, CES. With any hope, some of these developments could lead to innovative new products that consumers could benefit from. While some of the bizarre ideas feel mostly like ways for tech brands to show off, they are also ripe for ridicule.
Either way, let’s open our imaginations and check out the most outlandish displays, including concepts and real products, announced at CES 2024.
LG DukeBox
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The DukeBox on the CES showfloor. You can see upward-firing speakers poking out of the top.
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LG also demoed the prototype showing video content. In this shot, the upward-firing speakers are retracted.
Put this one under the “experiment” column. The DukeBox speaker comes from LG Labs, which LG readily describes as a “marketing platform established to deliver experimental and innovative product and service experiences.” Currently, LG has no plans to release the DukeBox.
The DukeBox experiment is a 300 W speaker with vacuum tube amplifiers. Before you ask if it’s 2012 again, there’s more to the DukeBox. In a retro twist, the speaker’s tubular innards are proudly visible behind a 30-inch see-through OLED screen with adjustable transparency. According to LG Labs’ announcement, the concept has “front-facing speakers at the bottom and a 360-degree speaker at the top.”
When LG announced the DukeBox ahead of CES, I was skeptical about the concept, including how functional the prototype’s flashy features would be in person. But CNET looked at a working prototype and heard the speaker playing quality audio. LG also showed the transparent screen capable of showing Spotify and other music player visuals, including custom ones and video.
LG’s experiment is one of the most fun takes I’ve yet seen of speakers that look like something besides clunky hunks of plastic and metal invoking trypophobia, like Samsung’s Music Frame speaker, which also displays a printed piece of art or photo (also announced at CES 2024), and Ikea and Sonos’ Symfonisk speaker/picture frame.
See if you agree by checking out CNET’s demo of the DukeBox prototype.
First Look at LG’s DukeBox, a Hybrid Speaker, Transparent OLED Panel.
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