For cord cutters who want nothing but the best, Nvidia's $200 Shield TV console has always been the box of choice for streaming videos and even games. At CES 2017, the company announced a new-and-improved version that adds in HDR support, refines gaming and entertainment options, and even transforms the Android TV device into a voice-controlled rival of the Amazon Echo. We've already covered all the details revealed during Nvidia's CES 2017 press conference, but I just spent over an hour at Nvidia's suite to learn more about the new Shield TV's every nook and cranny. Here are some initial impressions, and a look at some of the more nitty-gritty improvements that weren't mentioned during the keynote. Before we even get into flashy features like smart-home controls and Google Assistant, the second-gen Shield TV packs worthwhile quality-of-life improvements over its predecessor.

Traditional automakers, many of whom ushered in an era of incredible disruption nearly a century ago, now face disruption themselves from four modern forces -- connected, autonomous, shared and electric cars. The infrastructure and scale required to build a connected car is incredibly complicated, expensive and resource intensive. At its core, it's a software challenge, and a chief obstacle for these brands is integrating the complex cloud technology required to deliver next-generation driving experiences. Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we announced the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, a set of services built on the Microsoft Azure cloud and designed to empower auto manufacturers to create custom connected driving experiences. This is not an in-car operating system or a "finished product;" it's a living, agile platform that starts with the cloud as the foundation and aims to address five core scenarios that our partners have told us are key priorities: predictive maintenance, improved in-car productivity, advanced navigation, customer insights and help building autonomous driving capabilities.

For cord cutters who want nothing but the best, Nvidia's $200 Shield TV console has always been the box of choice for streaming videos and even games. At CES 2017, the company announced a new-and-improved version that adds in HDR support, refines gaming and entertainment options, and even transforms the Android TV device into a voice-controlled rival of the Amazon Echo. We've already covered all the details revealed during Nvidia's CES 2017 press conference, but I just spent over an hour at Nvidia's suite to learn more about the new Shield TV's every nook and cranny. Here are some initial impressions, and a look at some of the more nitty-gritty improvements that weren't mentioned during the keynote. Before we even get into flashy features like smart-home controls and Google Assistant, the second-gen Shield TV packs worthwhile quality-of-life improvements over its predecessor.

TYSONS, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CSC (NYSE: CSC) today announced the expansion of its strategic alliance with Microsoft through the advancement of Industrial Machine Learning (IML) solutions that enable data scientists to produce new data-derived enterprise insights, leading to better and more timely business decisions. Most large, data-rich companies fail to benefit from information on an enterprise-wide scale because they are not equipped to effectively capture and analyze available data sources. A recent survey from PwC and Iron Mountain found that 57 percent of businesses are unable to extract significant value from their information, and 23 percent are unable to derive any real value at all. Regardless of size, geography or sector, businesses are struggling to fully realize value from their information. "CSC has been working with Microsoft on industry-specific approaches to the problem of creating data science that works," said Dan Hushon, chief technology officer, CSC.

As promised, FoldiMate showed off its laundry-folding robot at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. This machine is intended to be a household robot that makes folding clothes hassle-free for families. FoldiMate is among the companies that are in attendance at the big tech trade show this week. After teasing about its upcoming family robot for a while, the California-based company is finally showing off its invention to the public. The FoldiMate Family robot is designed to be a machine that takes care of clothes once they are washed.

"At Altek, we are constantly striving to enhance our digital image solutions and set the direction for the future of smarter imaging devices," said Jason Lin, General Manager and Corporate Senior Vice President of Altek. "CEVA's imaging and vision DSP provides the platform which allows us to further enhance the image quality of our solutions and push the boundaries of what a camera can do using artificial intelligence and advanced vision algorithms." "Altek is a proven leader in imaging, with a strong track record in the smartphone space and we are excited to work with them," said, Ilan Yona, vice president and general manager of CEVA's Vision Business Unit. "The combination of Altek's advanced imaging technologies along with our DSP-based vision and machine learning offering creates one of the most intelligent digital imaging solutions on the market today." CEVA's latest generation imaging and vision DSP platforms address the extreme processing requirements and low power constraints of the most sophisticated machine learning and machine vision applications used in smartphones, surveillance, augmented reality, sense and avoid drones and self-driving cars.

It's been six months since German automaker BMW, U.S. technology giant Intel and Israeli computer vision systems company Mobileye came together to collaborate on self-driving cars, and the partnership seems to finally be bearing fruit. During a joint press conference at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the companies announced they will start testing autonomous vehicles later this year. "A fleet of approximately 40 autonomous BMW vehicles will be on the roads by the second half of 2017, demonstrating the significant advancements made by the three companies towards fully autonomous driving," the companies said in a joint statement. The vehicles will be BMW 7 series cars, and the trials will take place in the U.S. as well as in Europe. "This year our fleet of vehicles will already test this joint technology globally under real traffic conditions. This is a significant step towards the introduction of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, which will be the BMW Group's first fully autonomous vehicle," Klaus Fröhlich of BMW said in the statement.

Bose dabbles in a lot of different things, but the most left-field product could could be its ride-smoothing trucker seats. The company is about to demo similar tech for autonomous cars at its "Beyond Sound" CES experience in Las Vegas. Specifically, it'll show off a (simulated) autonomous vehicle equipped with Bose Ride suspension seating that "isolates passengers from road vibrations, shaking and unwanted motion," the company said in a press release. The idea is that if you're going to be driven around by a robot anyway, why not feel like you're in your living room or office, rather than a lurching car? "Our personal suspension technology is already proven, and it can dramatically enhance the passenger experience," Bose Automotive VP Marc Mansell said in a statement, referring to the Bose Ride truck seats that debuted in 2010. Bose actually started dabbling with the tech way back in the 1980s.

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Jan 4, 2017) - CES -- NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today unveiled the new NVIDIA SHIELD TV -- an Android open-platform media streamer built on bleeding-edge visual computing technology that delivers unmatched experiences in streaming, gaming and AI. Sporting a sleek, new design and now shipping with both a remote and a game controller, SHIELD provides the best, most complete entertainment experience in the living room. "NVIDIA's rich heritage in visual computing and deep learning has enabled us to create this revolutionary device," said Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA, who revealed SHIELD during his opening keynote address at CES. "SHIELD TV is the world's most advanced streamer. Its brilliant 4K HDR quality, hallmark NVIDIA gaming performance and broad access to media content will bring families hours of joy. And with SHIELD's new AI home capability, we can control and interact with content through the magic of artificial intelligence from anywhere in the house," he said.

Panasonic Corporation of North America announced it has developed a "companion" robot with human-like movements and communication skills. The robot, developed as a proof of concept, debuts at the Panasonic booth (#12908) at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. This Smart News Release features multimedia. "This test project builds on Panasonic's innovations in robotics including battery and power solutions, vision and sensing, navigation solutions and motion control in a new appealing design. This is Panasonic's latest effort in demonstrating network services in a friendly package, and we are showing this robot at CES as a way of obtaining feedback on its features and functions," said Takahiro Iijima, Director, Panasonic Design Strategy Office in North America Director. The robot is equipped with a Wi-Fi network function that accesses artificial intelligence-based natural language processing technology.