CES 2018

Hyperkin remakes the Game Boy for 2018

Will cost less than $100

Published

January 12, 2018

Luigi Leonardo

The hunt for nostalgia drives a lot of the new releases in the gaming industry. Years to decades after their launch, beloved games and consoles are getting remasters and rereleases. The Game Boy will be the latest blast from the past to hop on the nostalgia train.

Nintendo, however, isn’t responsible for this trip down memory lane. Gaming peripherals company Hyperkin takes on the challenge of bringing the classic portable gaming machine back to life.

The very first Game Boy was released back in 1989. The handheld console would go through several versions until the Game Boy Micro in 2005, when it would bow out to the Nintendo DS. Because of its proficiency, the DS (and recently, the Switch) overshadowed the legacy created by the GB family.

Last year, the company has remade the NES, SNES, and Famicom home consoles into repackaged Classic Editions. The new editions would usher in a clamor for more retro consoles. It was only a matter of time before Nintendo got around to the Game Boy once again.

Hyperkin beat them to it. At CES 2018, they announced plans to release an updated version of the Game Boy that features optimized hardware and compatibility with the original games from before.

Called the Ultra Game Boy, the new console is made from aluminum, allowing for more durability than the original. The layout mimics that of the first, but includes an additional dial for backlight brightness. (Until the Advance SP, the original GB family had no backlighting.)

The Ultra GB also features a built-in rechargeable battery that boasts six hours of usage. Connectivity includes a USB Type-C port for charging and audio-out ones.

The catch? Unlike Nintendo’s re-released consoles, Hyperkin’s Ultra GB won’t come with a built-in suite of games. Owners will have to blow into their old collection of cartridges to play anything on the console.

Hyperkin hopes to launch the Ultra Game Boy by this year. It will come with a price tag that runs around the US$ 100 margin.

CES 2018

Podcast Episode 1: Getting lost at the world’s largest tech show

Published

January 23, 2018

GadgetMatch

In this first epidose of GadgetMatch Podcast we talk about the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018) which just wrapped up in Las Vegas. Michael Josh and Isa share behind the scenes challenges of covering the world’s largest tech show. And the team talks about the most attention grabbing tech from the show including an entire range of Artificial Intelligence and Google Assistant gadgets, Vivo’s new phone with an in-display fingerprint sensor, Sony’s new robot dog, and Razer’s Project Linda.

CES 2018

LG’s InstaView ThinQ is one smart fridge

This is the future

Published

January 20, 2018

Isa Rodriguez

The future of smart appliances is upon us.

LG has not only dared to venture into connected kitchen technology, they’ve taken it a step further with their newest smart appliances. We got to see all this at CES.

The InstaView ThinQ is the fridge of the future. It’s equipped with the smart voice assistant Alexa which means you will be able to talk to it — the better to figure out what you want to eat! Not only that, it will suggest recipes depending on what food items you have stored. The best part is that it can be connected to your phone and all your other smart appliances for a seamless everyday home experience.

CES 2018

Best of CES 2018: Project Linda, Smart Display, and more!

From prototypes to full-fledged products

Published

January 19, 2018

Chay Lazaro

CES 2018 gave us a glance at all the wonderful consumer tech that’s in store for us — not just this year, but for the years to come. The show had tons of products, almost too many to count, so we came up with this video compiling the most interesting gadgets that caught our attention.