A chat with Tony Romo about Intel's True View (Q&A) The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and CBS Sports announcer talks at CES about ways technology can bring fans closer to the action. by Ben Fox Rubin January 10, 2018 5:00 AM PST intel-tony-romo-true-view-vr-ces-2018-8178 Referencing the Alabama-Georgia game playing on a TV in front of us, Tony Romo discusses the different ways people could watch a game using True View tech. James Martin/CNET Tony Romo thinks immersive, 360-degree television will change the way you watch sports. Just before Intel's keynote CES presentation Monday at the Monte Carlo's Park Theater, I interviewed Romo -- a presenter at the event -- backstage about the chipmaker's True View technology. True View, previously called FreeD, uses dozens of cameras pointed at a sports field to capture in-motion, 360-degree views of the action. Broadcasters can then use this data to show fans more unique angles for replays, as the NFL has done this season in 11 stadiums. Intel plans to use True View technology to let fans watch games live in virtual reality from whatever angle they want and to help filmmakers create new kinds of shots for movies. Here's an edited version of the interview with Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and now an NFL announcer for CBS Sports. (CBS also owns CNET.) Q: What's it like being at CES? Romo: It's fantastic, you can feel the energy of the week. Tell me a bit about about Intel True View. Romo: We've used it in our broadcast before. It's really unique in the fact that it's a 360-degree camera. They're doing it where you can almost be in the game. If you look at the teams out there right now [pointing to the College Football Playoff championship game playing on a TV in front of us] and you're far away, you can go right in and be that player. It almost looks like there's a camera on that player's head. Think about if you had a camera on the quarterback, right in his facemask, see what he's looking at. And this technology has the ability to do that. You can go right down and be that guy holding that football, see that snap, because of all these cameras around. How close is it to the real thing for you? Romo: It feels like you're out there. You'll feel the energy, the speed of the game. It's going to change the way you watch television. From a fan perspective, you're going to have an app and you're going to be able to sit here and be like, "Oh, I want to see that closer up." And you'll be able to zoom right in and see your favorite player, and on top of him, all of a sudden you're going to have fantasy stats, too. But can too much technology and so many graphics overlaid on a screen be distracting for viewers? Romo: Sometimes you can do too much, this isn't that. This right here, you don't need any [graphics] to do that. One last question: I'm a big Philadelphia Eagles fan. Do you think they still have a chance in the playoffs? Romo: The Eagles definitely have a chance. People are underselling them right now. Foreo's booth of skin care horrors 27 These are the weirdest products at CES PAID CONTENT Customer loyalty is a challenge—and an opportunity. Learn how to better serve customers and build long-term relationships with the free State of Global Customer Service Report. Get it now. Sponsored by Microsoft Dynamics 365 CES 2018: CNET's complete coverage of tech's biggest show. The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter. CES 2018 reading • A chat with Tony Romo about Intel's True View (Q&A) Jan 11 • Misty Robotics' home robot brings the far future to CES 2018 Jan 11 • Best of CES 2018: Day Two Jan 11 • Up close with the Zotac Mek 1 and Magnus gaming PCs at CES Jan 11 • Check out the aggressive W-15 electric pickup truck at CES 2018 • See All Share your voice 2 Comments Tags CES 2018 Sports Digital Media Virtual Reality CBS Intel Close Be respectful, keep it clean and stay on topic. We'll remove comments that violate our policy. Please read our Comment Policy before commenting. Next Article: Sony's new Aibo robot dog is cuter and does better tricks Smart Home Sony's new Aibo robot dog is cuter, does better tricks at CES We checked out Sony's second Aibo robot dog at CES 2018 and it's definitely more fun than the original. by Brian Bennett January 9, 2018 12:38 PM PST Sarah Tew/CNET Sony's Aibo robot dog is back -- and it's cuter than ever. The new Aibo has more personality too. Sony says it relies on sophisticated sensors and AI smarts, the sort used in self-driving cars. The Aibo senses its environs, and not just to avoid objects. The little doggie tries its darnedest to mimic the movement and activities of a real pooch. Watch this: Sony's new Aibo robot dog will melt your heart 1:42 During our playtime with the Aibo here at CES, it barked at us in an endearing way. It also kept moving around with boundless energy, almost as a puppy would. Even better, the Aibo responds to touch on three specific areas: on its head, back and under its chin. Two cameras -- in its nose and near its tail -- help the Aibo identify family members and "map" your home environment as well. Those cameras can guide it to its charging station when its two-hour charge nears an end. (It'll take about three hours to juice up.) This new Aibo model looks more lifelike, too. The first robot (which Sony killed off in 2006) had a boxy, robotic appearance -- it even had a visor instead of eyes. The new model is a lot more rounded and "organic" looking, with 4,000 parts, 22 actuators and OLED-screen eyes to more realistically duplicate canine activity Right now the Aibo is sold in Japan only, and it's not cheap: It'll cost you 198,000 Yen (roughly $1,760, £1,300 or AU$2,250). But for some, that'll be a fair price to pay to be the first person on the block with a robot dog. First published Jan. 9, 1:38 p.m. PT, 2017. Update, 4:20 p.m.: Adds further details. Vivo embedded fingerprint scanner 53 All the cool new gadgets at CES 2018 PAID CONTENT See why you should make the switch to the cloud The SaaS market is growing 20% per year and you can reap the benefits. See why you should make the switch to the cloud. Sponsored by Microsoft What to expect from the smart home at CES 2018: We take a look at the smart home and appliance trends we expect to see this year. CES 2018: CNET's complete coverage of tech's biggest show. Share your voice Post a comment Tags Must-See CES 2018 CES 2018 Smart Home Toys and Games CES Products Robots Sony Close Be respectful, keep it clean and stay on topic. We'll remove comments that violate our policy. Please read our Comment Policy before commenting. Next Article: Esports get serious: Alienware, top team partner on training sites Exclusive Gaming Esports get serious: Alienware, top team partner on training sites The gamer-friendly PC maker is working with Team Liquid, a leading esports team, on two gyms to up its players' gaming skills. by Ian Sherr January 9, 2018 9:00 AM PST SPORTS-CHN-ESPORTS-GAMING Esports is becoming a big business. Here is the stage at the League of Legends championships in Beijing. Getty Images It takes more than lightning reflexes to become the best gamer on the planet. Just like other competitors, esports players need regular exercise, constant training and even the occasional scrimmage against other teams. That's why Dell gaming devices brand Alienware is partnering with Team Liquid, one of the top gaming teams in the world, to outfit an 8,000 square-foot building in Los Angeles they've named the Alienware eSports Training Facility. The building will be home to gym equipment, administrators, an in-house chef, sports psychologists, nutritionists and, of course, a bunch of high-performance computers. "We're definitely being as sophisticated in terms of support structure of a typical sports team," said Mike Milanov, chief operating officer of Team Liquid, which has groups that compete in hit titles like League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Defense of the Ancients 2. The partnership, which includes a smaller site in Europe, is getting announced during CES, the tech industry's largest annual trade show. Dell is also using this week's Las Vegas show to announce new XPS-labeled gaming computers and software to manage them. Along the same lines, the company is hosting a tournament amid CES for a VR running game called Sprint Vector. The investment in training sites marks another step in the gradual move toward treating esports as legitimate international competition. Over the past couple decades, competitive gaming has expanded from players coming together to face off for fun to matches broadcast on national television in South Korea. By 2013, the world championship for League of Legends sold out the 21,000-seat Staples Center in Los Angeles and attracted 32 million viewers through streaming services. That's more than the number of people who tuned in for the finales of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "The Late Show with David Letterman" -- combined. office03 Here is a concept image of one of the stations that Team Liquid intends to set up at its training sites. Team Liquid Meanwhile, all manner of investment is flowing in. The Philadelphia 76ers NBA team, for example, bought two esports teams in 2016 and opened up its training sites to them. Meanwhile, Facebook has teamed up with ESL, one of the largest esports leagues in the world, to stream competitions. Even the sporting news heavyweight ESPN covers esports. "We're getting a lot less 'this is not a sport' comments," Milanov said. The competitions are growing rapidly enough that Andrew Paradise, CEO of esports technology company Skillz, expects esports to hit the big time sooner rather than later. "You're looking at esports becoming a part of the Olympics in the 2020s," he said. Alienware chose to work with Team Liquid both because it wants to help further legitimize esports. The company also sees it as a chance to learn from the players, so it can build mice, keyboards and other devices the teams will want to use in competition. "We want to be the hardware that's driving the next generation of esports players," said Bryan de Zayas, head of Dell's gaming efforts. As part of the three-year deal to support Team Liquid's training sites, Alienware will outfit players with high-performance computers and work with them to create team-approved devices it can sell to fans and aspiring competitors. "The level of coaching -- even a chef and nutritionist on staff -- preparation and technology in the facilities is unprecedented," said Jeff Clarke, Dell's vice chairman of products and operations. It's all a necessary part of helping the industry grow into a legitimate worldwide sport, said Mike Vorhaus, president of brand consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates. Vorhaus said he realized esports would be huge when he learned that teams have dedicated fans and even groupies. "This is just like real sports," he said. Vivo embedded fingerprint scanner 53 All the cool new gadgets at CES 2018 PAID CONTENT Boost your commercial apps with the cloud Switching to SaaS enables you to integrate new features and deploy quickly. Read the Keystone white paper to find out more. Sponsored by Microsoft CES 2018: CNET's complete coverage of tech's biggest show. The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter. Share your voice 1 Comment Tags CES 2018 Gaming Digital Media Sports Dell Close Be respectful, keep it clean and stay on topic. We'll remove comments that violate our policy. Please read our Comment Policy before commenting. Next Article: Mirage Solo with Daydream is Lenovo and Google's VR headset Wearable Tech Mirage Solo with Daydream is Lenovo and Google's VR headset Mobile VR's future may be phone-free and offer more freedom of movement, too. by Scott Stein January 9, 2018 11:15 AM PST lenovo-daydream-solo-daydream-mirage-ces-2018-7384 Lenovo Mirage Solo with Daydream: no phone needed, no wires. James Martin/CNET I'm in a little Blade Runner world. Rain's falling, at least as far as I remember. I see a noodle shop in the dystopia. I lean forward to the man behind the counter, the world getting closer to me, and suddenly my chest pops in pain: In real life, I'm seated in a Las Vegas conference room and I've just slammed into the table. These were my first moments with the Lenovo Mirage Solo with Daydream. I wasn't used to having this much freedom of motion in a mobile headset. Google announced last June that Lenovo would make a standalone Daydream View VR headset, advancing Google's phone-based mobile VR vision to a headset with its own built-in hardware. (HTC was originally onboard too, but backed out, in favor of its own mobile Vive headset in Asia.) Not only is the Mirage Solo standalone like the upcoming Oculus Go, but it has extra degrees of movement. You can lean forward or even walk around a tiny bit, as it has what's called six degrees of freedom (6DoF), something phone-based VR goggles normally don't do. Watch this: Google, Lenovo team up on VR headset and 3D 180-degree... 2:19 I tried the Mirage Solo for a good handful of minutes, playing a few games and apps and watching some videos while in a hotel suite here at CES. It's a better mobile VR experience than the Daydream View. Yet, it's not a replacement for what high-end VR systems can do. Consider it a small taste of where VR will be heading: more wireless, more independent, more flexible. Its biggest feat is the 6DoF tracking, using a pair of cameras in the front to position motion and allow leaning forward, ducking and even taking a few steps. The Oculus Rift, Vive, PlayStation VR and Microsoft's Windows Holographic VR can do this, but the Daydream View and Samsung Gear VR can't. I hurt my chest because I forgot how much freedom I had to move, and the Blade Runner experience invited me to lean in to my world. And yet, the Mirage Solo isn't really meant for serious VR walkabouts. Instead, I was advised to stay still, leaning and ducking, taking no more than a step or two. So I discovered it's more like lean-forward VR, not holodeck VR. Lenovo Mirage Solo VR Daydream The Mirage Solo from the side. A headband strap makes it comfy, but bulkier and not so bag-friendly. Juan Garzón/CNET That distinction is what makes the Mirage Solo an odd proposition. In one sense, it's undoubtedly the future of where mobile VR is heading next. Six degrees of freedom is an inevitable future step, and makes every motion, even subtle ones, better. But the Mirage Solo literally stands alone right now as the only Google Daydream VR hardware with that feature. How many apps will be optimized for it? It's hard to tell. Some experiences seemed like they weren't doing much with the extra freedom. I tried a skiing game where I made a cartoon character do stunt jumps by ducking and swaying, but I found the motion sensitivity was off. lenovo-daydream-solo-daydream-mirage-ces-2018-7356 You're still using a little Daydream VR remote control to interact with things. James Martin/CNET The best experience I had, oddly enough, was a Google app called Arts & Culture VR. The app puts you in a virtual art museum, looking at paintings and photographs. On a standard Daydream View headset, you can look but you can't really realistically lean in. But you can on the Lenovo Mirage Solo. The subtle effect makes a difference. I found that those subtleties mattered more than the big ideas like walking around, because I didn't know my range and limitations. Unlike big-rig PC VR such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, there isn't an indicator of your wandering zone. Instead, the VR experience blacks out and asks you to back up a bit until the VR image reappears. The Mirage Solo is big, bigger than a pair of Daydream View VR goggles. The headset felt comfortable, though. It still uses the standard Daydream VR remote to control things and point to objects. It has a touchpad, but only has three-degree-of-freedom movement, lacks haptics and feels less immersively linked to what's being seen in VR. It's a fine magic wand, but I hoped for something more. The headset runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, much like many Android Daydream-compatible phones. It has a 2,560x1,440-pixel, 5.5-inch LCD display, 64GB of onboard storage and a 4,000mAh battery. It's unclear how long it'll last on a charge. And, since it's a completely enclosed system, it runs its own Google Daydream OS. It was hard to tell how that OS was different than Android: The general VR experience felt similar to what launches on a Daydream-ready phone. lenovo-daydream-solo-daydream-mirage-ces-2018-7387 Two fisheye lenses, stereoscopic 180-degree shots: Mirage Camera with Daydream. James Martin/CNET A standalone 3D camera, too: Lenovo Mirage Camera Lenovo and Google also have another trick up their sleeves: a camera that takes 3D 180-degree photos and videos. The Mirage Camera with Daydream, as it's formally called, is an oddity. It has no screen and just syncs directly with a phone. It can upload to YouTube and Google Photos and livestream, and its half-a-360-video viewing zone is meant to look good on the Mirage Solo VR headset and be easy to take quick snaps with. I saw a few demo photos and videos, and they seemed OK. A bit low in frame rate, and not as crisp, when played in a VR headset, as a regular high-end phone camera would feel on a phone screen. It seems designed to capture magic moments and see them again like little 3D dioramas. lenovo-daydream-solo-daydream-mirage-ces-2018-7389 You'll need your phone to see what you're shooting. James Martin/CNET Playing demo clips back on the VR headset showed a bit of the potential: a birthday party clip made me think of my own kids. But why would I grab a strange new camera instead of my phone or another camera when my kid's blowing out the candles on his cake? The Mirage Camera has its own Snapdragon 626 processor, a microSD card slot and a battery that lasts 2 hours on a charge, recharging via USB-C. The dual 13-megapixel fisheye cameras can't zoom: You're meant to just capture what's in front of you and go with the flow. As a sort of GoPro camera for a future of 3D VR, I'm not convinced I'd ever remember to use it. lenovo-daydream-solo-daydream-mirage-ces-2018-7392 James Martin/CNET A half-step, but a peek forward Lenovo is targeting a price under $300 (about £220 or AU$385) for the camera, and under $400 (about £295 or AU$510) for the VR headset. Both of those prices seem high, especially since the Oculus Go, another phone-free standalone VR headset from Facebook, is coming soon for half the price ($200). How good a device like the Mirage Solo is depends on the apps that take advantage of it. And I have a concern future hardware will pass it by. Maybe it's Google Daydream VR 1.5. It's a better experience, but without even knowing how good the Oculus Go will be, the Lenovo Mirage Solo feels like a hard headset to judge... and one I'd be unlikely to pick over a pair of cheap goggles and a great phone. Vivo embedded fingerprint scanner 53 All the cool new gadgets at CES 2018 PC preview: What to expect from laptops, desktops and tablets at CES this year. CES 2018: CNET's complete coverage of tech's biggest show. Share your voice Post a comment Tags Must-See CES 2018 CES 2018 Wearable Tech Video Games Virtual Reality Google HTC Lenovo Samsung Close Be respectful, keep it clean and stay on topic. We'll remove comments that violate our policy. Please read our Comment Policy before commenting. Next Article: YouTube publicly condemns Logan Paul's 'dead body' video Tech Industry YouTube publicly condemns Logan Paul's 'dead body' video The video site says it's exploring "further consequences" for the vlogger who uploaded the clip. by Steven Musil January 9, 2018 3:44 PM PST 99431838-9788ddc1-0e8f-4e5e-9c16-b6f27aa250da YouTube condemned a video posted in late December by a popular vlogger that showed a dead body. YouTube/Logan Paul YouTube has condemned a video uploaded more than a week ago by YouTube personality Logan Paul that included footage of a dead body. In a series of tweets Tuesday, YouTube acknowledged the video violated its community guidelines and indicated the site was exploring "further consequences" against Paul. It also said it's examining ways to prevent circulation of content that violates its terms. "Like many others, we were upset by the video that was shared last week," YouTube tweeted. "Suicide is not a joke, nor should it ever be a driving force for views. "We expect more of the creators who build their community on @YouTube, as we're sure you do too," the company said, apologizing for the delay in publicly commenting on the video. The video featured Paul and his friends reacting with shock and making jokes after discovering an apparent suicide during a trip to Aokigahara forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, a site where a high number of suicides take place. The video, posted in late December, featured shots of the dead body and had millions of views before the 22-year-old Paul deleted the clip from YouTube three days later. After the video was deleted, Paul's account was marked with a strike for violating the company's policies on violent or graphic content, YouTube said. A strike lasts for three months and can mean a loss of ad revenue from videos and links to crowdfunding and merchandising websites. Paul, known for his light-hearted and unfiltered touch, faced massive backlash for the video. Paul was roundly criticized on social media for making light of suicide and for filming in the forest. In an apology last week on Twitter, the vlogger said he didn't post the video for attention or views.