SolarGaps turns window decor into solar panels at CES

Opening the blinds has never been so helpful. On display here at CES in Las Vegas, SolarGaps turns the actual slats of your window coverings into solar panels. SolarGaps blinds will be smart enough to shift their angle slightly throughout the day in order to maximize their power intake. The company also plans to integrate with the Google Home.

Smart home scoreboard at CES

The scoreboard

Google Home's progress

Alexa's progress

Siri's progress

6 apps to install on a new MacBook

These are the first six apps I installed on my new MacBook Pro, from a text expander to a word processor, with four useful apps in between. All are free except the first, which costs only $5 and offers a free trial. Let's take them in alphabetical order.

aText

aText is a simple, text-expansion app that lets you create abbreviations for commonly typed words and phrases. With it, for example, I can type "@@" instead of my email address. Or "ty" instead of "thank you." It offers other features but it's worth the cost simply for a handful of keyboard shortcuts that saves me time each day.

aText costs $4.99 (£4.18 in the UK and AU$7.05 in Australia) and is available from Tran Ky Nam Software. You can try aText free for 14 days.

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Making your own keyboard shortcuts in aText can save so much time.

Photo by Matt Elliott/CNET

 

Google Pixel phones, Daydream View and Chromecast Ultra: Everything Google just announced

It feels like forever since the first rumors about Google's announcements for this event started cropping up, but now we can finally lay at least some of them to rest.

Just joining us? Here's what you've missed thus far.

The event opened with a cute video by the characters of HBO's "Silicon Valley." "Why wasn't I on the beta?!" That was followed by a summary by Sundar Pichai of computing since the first PC. "We're moving from a mobile first to an AI first" world." That means Google Assistant, announced at the Google I/O conference in May, with its voice queries, contextually relevant information and so on -- much like the most current version of Apple's Siri.

IMDb to California: You can't stop us publishing actor ages

Entertainment industry website IMDb.com has challenged the constitutionality of a California law that can ban it from publishing the ages of actors and other professionals.

The law, signed in September, requires IMDb to remove birthday and age information from its website if requested by subscribers to IMDbPro, a premium service that shows profiles of professionals in the industry. The law's purpose is "to ensure that information obtained on an Internet Web site regarding an individual's age will not be used in furtherance of employment or age discrimination," according to its text.

 

The Sure Shot HD brings arcade shooting games into your home

The new Sure Shot HD Android game console is all about bringing the fun of arcade games into the comfort of your living room.

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The actual console is quite small.

Photo by Patrick Holland/CNET

The Sure Shot HD console is tiny -- about the size of a thick smartphone. It has infrared lights on the front and connects to your television via HDMI and the internet via Wi-Fi. There is an arcade style wireless gun controller, which works similar to the way the NES Zapper did with Duck Hunt.