Technology companies innovative every year, but while some innovations are evolutionary, others are unique. It's these unique products that later give rise to mainstream competition. So, here's a look back at the unique products we saw in 2017.
Razor Phone
It's perhaps the only smartphone made specifically for gamers. The Razor Phone is just another smartphone, but with a 120Hz display, the highest any smartphone can do today. Makes it a pretty darned unique product, doesn't it?
RED Hydrogen One
Pro camera makers have been eyeing the smartphone industry for a while. Companies like Kodak etc. have tried and failed to deliver a solid camera-focused phone. But where those others failed, RED might succeed.
The RED Hydrogen One isn't quite ready yet, but the concept does look interesting. The company said it will have a "holographic display", capable of showing 2D and 3D concept, along with holographic content. Sounds interesting, no?
It's a $1200 smartphone though, so it better be more than just unique. Either way, we're hoping RED's execution is correct.
Pixel Buds
The Pixel Buds never made it to India and initial reviews haven't been all that good. Yet, the concept here is certainly worth looking forward to. With the Google Assistant built right into the device, you can talk to your headphones now.
Google even added gesture compatibility to the headphone, making it even more innovative. If only they had the audio part right
Nintendo Switch
A potentially revolutionary console, the Nintendo Switch brings a modular concept that people seem to love. It transforms between a regular TV-based console and a handheld device. With enough support from game developers, this could potentially be the console that defines what future consoles will look like. Should Sony and Microsoft be worried? Well, they're sure to take notice.
Google Clips
If it were up to Google, the world would already be run by AI. The company put the Assistant on headphones, machine learning algorithms on its phone, and AI inside a camera. The Google Clips camera has no viewfinder, but it's a digital camera still.
It's meant to work autonomously, using AI algorithms to capture moments that you may otherwise have missed. It's going to watch everything its 130-degree field of view can cover. Over time, it will use all this data to recognise pets, children and family members. It uploads videos to the cloud, which you can view at any time from your smartphone. The whole purpose of the camera is to capture moments you can't be around for, and it even doubles as a home monitoring camera. Creepy, yet interesting, right?
Sony Aibo
Sony's adorable robot dog is back and it looks even more adorable this time, at least in videos. The new one (model number ERS-1000) "can form an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion," said Sony. Aibo can move on 22 axes and has two OLED displays for eyes. It can even show expressions through these displays and charges over three hours, lasting two hours per charge.
The new one has AI elements to it, using deep learning to adapt to its owner's behaviour. But here, just watch the video Sony put out at launch.
Acer Orion 9000
The Acer Orion 9000 has 4-way graphics and 18-core processors inside. It runs on Intel's i9 Extreme Edition with 18 cores and 36 threads, supports up to 4-way AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics and two GeForce GTX 1080Ti GPUs, in SLI. The display has a 200 Hz refresh rate and there's up to 128GB DDR4 memory on this. Mouthwatering and unique!
Asus ROG Zephyrus laptop
One of the thinnest gaming laptops in the world, the ROG Zephyrus sports a 120Hz 16.6-inch display with Nvidia G-Sync. It's as powerful as the best out there and can also support virtual reality applications. Yet, that's not what makes the Zephyrus unique.
That credit goes to Asus' Active Aerodynamic System (AAS) for cooling the device. When the Zephyrus is opened, the bottom of the chassis flexes to increase airflow. Words can really explain what the concept is, so here's a video
Nvidia Titan V
With 110 teraflops of computing power, the Nvidia Titan V is the most powerful PC GPU ever made. It achieves 70 MH/s out of the box, which is about twice that of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64. Priced at $2,999, this is the perfect GPU for mining cryptocurrency.
It has
It has 5120 CUDA cores and comes with a base clock speed of 1200 MHz. There are 640 tensor cores, a result of Nvidia's collaboration with Google. That allows 9 times more deep learning performance than the preceding model. Nvidia wanted to "push the outer limits" of high-performance computing and AI, and we daresay it did
JioPhone
Jio's cheap 4G smartphone doesn't sound innovative, but it sure is unique. The phone that put feature phones back on everyone's radar, it promises to bring 4G to the millions of Indians who can't afford smartphones. It's even led to a burgeoning industry of low-cost 4G phones, including the Micromax Bharat 1.