The show floor of the biggest tech event of the year hasn’t even opened yet, but CES 2025 has already delivered a long list of new gadgets, tech, concepts, and AI-powered devices tempting you to upgrade.

It’s a lot to keep up with, so we’ll help you catch up. Below are some of the standout gadgets of the show so far. Of course, there’s still a lot more out there and a lot more to go. You can catch up on all of The Verge’s coverage of the show here.

Roborock Saros Z70

Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

The ability for most robovacs to thoroughly clean a floor can be stymied by random objects left lying on the ground. Roborock’s new Saros Z70’s solution to that problem is an articulated five-axis robot arm called the OmniGrip that can pick up after its owners and move obstacles out of its way. It’s limited to smaller items like socks, tissues, or anything weighing less than 300 grams, but the company plans to eventually expand what it can grasp. Pricing isn’t known, but Roborock says the Saros Z70 will be available by June 2025.

Samsung The Frame Pro TV

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung’s The Frame TV appealed to many consumers with an aesthetically pleasing design and the ability to camouflage itself as a piece of art in a home’s decor. The Frame Pro further expands the TV’s appeal to more discerning TV viewers with a variation on Mini LED display technology, the matte finish introduced in 2022, and a wireless connection to its breakout box so all you need to hide is a power cord.

Halliday smart glasses

Image: Halliday

With the success of the Meta Ray-Bans, it’s no surprise that several companies are debuting smart glasses at CES 2025. Halliday’s new enhanced specs, which are expected to ship “by the end of Q1 2025” and cost between $399 and $499, are differentiated with the addition of a small screen on the frame. The “DigiWindow” appears as a 3.5-inch private display in the upper-right corner of your vision and is controlled using voice commands, an interface on the frame, or a smart ring with an integrated trackpad.

Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED monitor

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Dell’s new 32-inch 4K OLED display uses an infrared sensor and five speakers located below the screen to track your head and beam sound directly to your ears. The feature eliminates the need to keep your head positioned in a sweet spot for optimal sound, and it could be ideal for gamers who are constantly moving around in the heat of battle. The monitor also features a 120Hz refresh rate, a 0.03ms response time, and will launch in the US on May 22nd, 2025, for $799.99.

Wonder plant and insect camera

Bird Buddy is moving on to smaller flying creatures of the outdoors. The company behind the stylish smart bird feeders is introducing a playfully designed camera for tracking your plants and the insect visitors that stop by them. You’ll be able to view a livestream from your phone, while an optional solar panel can keep the 4K camera running. It’s supposed to launch on Kickstarter this spring.

Mirumi

Image: Yukai Engineering

Mirumi is a robot that you might actually want to own. It’s a furry, bashful companion bot that clings to a bag and looks adorable. It doesn’t have AI tricks and doesn’t even make noise. Like my colleague Owen Grove said in a video: “It’s just a cute fuzzy thing. What more do you want?” It will be available through a crowdfunding campaign that’s set to launch in mid-2025.

Acer Nitro Blaze 11

Image: Acer

How big is too big for a handheld gaming machine? The answer might be Acer’s new Nitro Blaze 11 featuring a beefy 10.95-inch 144 Hz WQXGA touch display that makes it look like you’re holding a small monitor instead of a portable console. It’s powered by an AMD Ryzen 8040HS processor, 16GB of RAM, and has detachable controllers with Hall effect joysticks. It’s also got a built-in kickstand so you don’t have to strain your arms by always playing it handheld. It will be available starting in Q2 2025 and start at $1,099.99.

Belkin Stage PowerGrip

Image: Belkin

Your smartphone may take great pictures, but it lacks the refined ergonomics of a traditional camera. Belkin’s new Stage PowerGrip addresses that issue and battery anxiety. It’s a MagSafe power bank with a 10,000mAh battery, a retractable USB-C cable, and a design that adds a camera-like grip to the iPhone. It’s even got a physical shutter button that works with the iOS camera app over Bluetooth and a small LCD screen on the front showing the battery’s remaining charge. Pricing and availability haven’t been announced, but the PowerGrip will come in several color options.

As Generative AI becomes faster and better, does the world need content creators?

Learn how to implement jQuery form validation using the jQuery Validation Plugin in this step-by-step tutorial. Follow our simple example to validate forms before submit and enhance your website's user experience.

Continue reading How to Set Up Basic jQuery Form Validation in Two Minutes on SitePoint.

 

Imagine this: You're managing multiple projects, collaborating with various teams, and trying to keep track of countless documents. It can be overwhelming, right? That's where Copilot in OneDrive comes to the rescue. This powerful AI-powered assistant helps you stay organized, manage your files efficiently, and ensures that nothing slips through the cracks. 

Working smarter in OneDrive 

In today's fast-paced work environment, staying organized and managing your files effectively is crucial. Copilot in OneDrive helps streamline your workflow and boost your productivity. Let's dive into the ways it can transform the way you work, starting with some scenarios that I find particularly useful as a Copilot Product Marketing Manager: 

“Interviewing” my files: I use Copilot in OneDrive to ask questions about information in any of my files. I can get answers directly in chat, without having to search for and open documents to access a piece of information I need to create a slide, prepare for a meeting, or quickly get up to speed on the topic covered. 

Saving hours of time processing large, dense reports: If I have a busy day of meetings, or am bogged down with projects, but need to get the key takeaways from a 60-page PDF before a mid-afternoon call. I can simply ask Copilot to summarize the document, and just like that, I’m ready for the discussion.  

Comparing and contrasting documents in a single click: I can ask Copilot to compare and contrast two or more files, requesting a paragraph summary or a table without having to open any of them.  

Leveraging existing files to jumpstart content creation: I can ask Copilot to reference files in my OneDrive to help create new content, such as draft FAQs, build out a PowerPoint presentation, or prep for a meeting with my leadership team.  

Access Copilot in OneDrive to help find, analyze, and summarize files and their contents. 

How to use Copilot in OneDrive: 

1. Sign in to OneDrive with your Microsoft work account 
2. Navigate to a supported file and select the Copilot button to choose from a menu of suggested actions, or select “Ask a question” 
3. Select one of the suggested prompts in the chat panel, or input questions and prompts of your own 
4. In order to get the most out of this feature, as well as the most accurate and helpful responses, provide detailed, specific questions 

(Pssst... I used Copilot in OneDrive to help write this blog) 

I wanted to ensure I matched my peers’ contributions to the Work Smarter: Copilot Productivity Tips blog series. So, I navigated to my team’s folder for this workstream, selected several recent files representing their recent contributions to the series, and entered the following prompt: 

“These files are part of a blog series called 'Work Smarter: Copilot Productivity Tips. They were written by my peers. Can you make some suggestions as to how I might draft a blog about Copilot in OneDrive for the same series? Consider the style, structure, and voice of the other files, what key use cases and information I should include, as well as other considerations such as resources and images to include.” 

Copilot returned with suggestions in the categories of: 

1. Style and Voice 
2. Structure 
3. Key Use Cases and Information 
4. Resources and Images 

In addition to assisting with brainstorming, Copilot can also help drafting content, analyzing documents for readability and target audience comprehension, and proposing smart editorial recommendations. 

Change the way you interact with your OneDrive files 

Although it may not be the most obvious application, Copilot in OneDrive can help transform your productivity. By quickly extracting information from your files, analyzing and summarizing with a single-click, and generating insights and ideas to kick start your next effort, you’ll be amazed at how much time you can save. Give it a try and see how Copilot can help you tap into the value of your OneDrive. 

We are excited to announce the general availability of the new unified contacts experience in Teams and Outlook. Now, Microsoft Entra ID users can seamlessly access and manage the same set of contacts across Microsoft Teams and Outlook for an integrated and efficient collaboration experience. 

Note: The new unified contacts experience is available to all Outlook users as of January 6th , 2025 and will by gradually rolled out to the Teams users by April 30th, 2025   

Contacts power collaboration across Microsoft 365  

Contacts play a pivotal role in enhancing your daily productivity within Teams and Outlook. You can quickly create rich records for people who matter to you. You can then access, curate, and collaborate seamlessly with your Contacts in Teams and Outlook.  

The twin problems of app specific contacts in Teams and Outlook 

As users navigate across Teams or Outlook for their collaboration needs, having a consistent view of all the contacts is a must. Presently, the contacts created in Teams are not accessible in Outlook and vice versa. Many of you have shared feedback about the need for having a single set of contacts across Teams and Outlook to avoid the context switching and dual effort in upkeeping contacts due to the current app level segregation of contacts. 

You asked, we delivered! 

We heard your feedback, and we've made some changes.  The new unified contact experience brings you a cohesive combined view of your contacts across Teams and Outlook. The simplified experience enables you to work with the same set of contacts across both applications. Going forward, users’ contact list will be associated with their Microsoft account (instead of individual apps), thus, making it available in both the Teams and Outlook app.  

New unified contacts experience - Bringing contacts where you are 

With the new unified Contacts experience, all contacts updates are always synchronized between Teams, Outlook and Microsoft Graph APIs. This means your contact updates reflect in both the apps, thus saving time and effort. Additionally, user annotations on contacts, such as category labels, seamlessly reflect across Teams and Outlook, ensuring a consistent and user-friendly experience. All the existing Teams and Outlook contacts will be available in the unified Contacts experience. Any obvious duplicates between Outlook and Teams contacts will be merged into a single contact in the new unified Contacts experience. 

Note: In case of any conflicts while merging Teams and Outlook Contacts, we will create a new copy of contact with Teams data and the copy will be clearly tagged with contact category “Teams conflicts” which can be reviewed by users. 

Example:  At Contoso, Megan has created several contacts over the years in Teams and Outlook. Before, Megan was unable to view or manage the contacts which were originally created in Teams when she was in the Outlook (and vice-versa). In the new experience, Megan has a comprehensive and consistent view of all her contacts in both, Teams and Outlook. 

 

Figure 1: New unified contacts are associated with the user account and accessible in the new Teams, Outlook and Graph APIs

Frequently Asked Questions 

• Q: What happens to the contacts I previously created in Teams and Outlook?
  • Ans: All contacts created by the user in Teams and Outlook to date will be accessible in the new experience. 
• Q: Will I still be able to create favorite contacts?
  • Ans: Yes, Users will be able to create favorites inside the people app in Teams as well. Contact categories created by users in Outlook will also be visible within the people app in Teams.  
• Q: Can I add new contacts from the calls tab in Teams?
  • Ans: Yes, users can add a person from their calling history to contacts. 
• Q: Is there an option to auto-update contacts corresponding to people in my organization?
  • Ans: The new unified contacts bring the self-updating contacts capability to Teams (like in Outlook today). Contacts corresponding to people in your organization directory will automatically be updated (details)  .  
• Q: Is any action required from the tenant admin or end users to enable the new unified Contacts?
  •  Ans:  No action is required to enable the new experience. Administrators have been notified for this upcoming change in Microsoft Admin Center (Microsoft Admin Center post). 
• Q: Will the unified contacts experience be available for EDU and MSA users as well?
  • Ans: As of October 2024, this feature is not yet available for EDU and MSA users. Please stay tuned for future announcements in this space. 

 

Getting started 

Enterprise users can now start using the unified contacts experience in Teams and Outlook. Follow this tutorial to get started in Teams for Business. 

1. Please flip the toggle in the upper-left corner of the classic Teams app to go to new Teams. Look-up and launch the People app from pre-installed apps in Teams for Business. (More details here).

 

Figure 2: Teams for Business users can find and launch pre-installed people app

 

Users will then be able to launch contacts view from within the calling app as well: 

Figure 3: Calling tab in Teams has a link to View contacts which launches the People App

2. Access your unified contact List: In the people app you will find the Teams and Outlook unified contact list. This list is consistent with the Outlook contact list.
   Figure 4a: Users can see a coherent list of contacts in the People App (Teams)

 

Figure 4b: Users can see a coherent list of contacts in the People hub (Outlook)

 

Figure 5: Clicking any contact shows the contact details

 

3. Manage and curate: view and edit your contacts in this view. Your updates will be reflected in Outlook and Graph APIs.
    Figure 6: The contacts view enables easy management and curation of contacts

  

Best regards, 

Vivek Datir                                                              

 

Related articles: 

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/manage-your-contacts-with-the-people-app-in-teams-cfea34b9-ac23-4cff-b3d1-c97bb2b1e751 

 

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