Intel just officially launched Panther Lake, its new chip for PCs, at CES.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during a press conference that the Core Ultra Series 3 chips, which are the company’s first line of Panther Lake chips, will usher in the “next evolution of the PC.”

Starting tomorrow, a whole range of consumer laptops powered by Panther Lake/Core Ultra Series 3 chips will go on sale. The most performant laptops, aimed at gamers and multimedia creators, will run on Core Ultra X9 and X7 processors, which also have integrated Intel Arc graphics.

Intel has also been touting the use of these new chips in industrial use cases like robotics, autonomous vehicles, healthcare, and “smart” cities, but those won’t be available until the second quarter of this year.

As detailed in a WIRED story last fall when we had the chance to tour Intel’s most advanced semiconductor fab in Arizona, these new chips have been built using a new manufacturing process, known as 18A. The 18A manufacturing process eschews proven design techniques in favor of two new approaches to stacking transistors and moving power throughout the chips.

Intel, a beleaguered chip company that was at one time an icon of US technological innovation, is hoping that launch moments like this—as well as cash from the US government and some strategic acquisitions—will help it get its mojo back.

“I’m sorry.” It’s a rare thing to hear in the tech industry—to admit it had been wrong and turned people off the brand. But that’s exactly what Dell told a group of journalists in an event leading up to CES. The apology was in reference to the company’s puzzling decision a year prior to rebrand its entire line of PCs, monitors, laptops, and accessories. The result was products such as the “Dell Pro Plus Earbuds” and the “Dell Premium 14 Laptop.” It was a mess. The worst part was that it meant killing the premium XPS brand, with its 30-year legacy in the PC space.

But just a year later, XPS is back. And Dell seems more intent than ever on reversing the ill will garnered toward it in recent years, starting here at CES. The first steps are the return of the Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16, which no longer feature the edgier parts of the design, such as the light-up touch button function keys and the invisible haptic glass trackpad. It’s a bit more conventional this time around, and that alone will please lots of people.

They’re also thinner and more premium-looking than ever, even ditching Nvidia’s discrete graphics for the much-improved integrated graphics in Intel’s latest Panther Lake chips. As products that target creators (especially the XPS 16), that’s unfortunate. We’ll have to see if those actually integrated graphics are truly up to par with the RTX 5050, which was offered in last year’s model. Other improvements include a sharper 4K webcam, a tandem OLED display, and improved 10-watt speakers on the XPS 14. These two laptops will be available to purchase for the first time on January 6, with prices for the XPS 14 starting at $2,049 and the XPS 16 at $2,200. Dell says more affordable configurations will launch in February.

As for me, though, I was most interested in the forthcoming redesigned XPS 13, a gorgeous little laptop launching later in 2026 that Dell hopes will compete directly with the MacBook Air (and maybe even the rumored MacBook SE that’s reportedly in the works). While retaining the premium build quality of the XPS brand, the company says it’ll be the most affordable XPS laptop it’s ever made. Dell didn’t allow us to take photos just yet, but I saw what the company was working on behind the curtain, and it had me excited to see more.

The chip giant carrying the weight of the global capital markets on it shoulders may have just tried to reassure investors and mere mortals that its new groundbreaking AI chip will ship on time this year (fingers crossed everyone!), but forget about that for a moment. Have you seen Jensen Huang playing with robots? No? Well, you might have missed the best part of CES.

During a talk from Huang about automation and the future of physical AI and blah blah blah earlier today, two adorable R2D2-like bots waddled out on stage to join Huang for the remainder of the press conference. They chirped in response to him. They rolled their heads up toward the giant screen while Dad Jensen narrated a video sequence about how they were trained. They nodded affirmatively when Huang squatted down to speak to them, giving them Polymarket tips (that didn’t happen). Nvidia engineers, you’ve been warned: These robots are absolutely Huang’s favorite children.

XGIMI makes projectors. Smart glasses with displays use projectors. So it makes sense that XGIMI now makes smart glasses. OK, technically, these smart glasses are from an incubated brand within XGIMI called MemoMind, which will likely be spun out as a new company in the future. But the glasses use XGIMI’s expertise in projectors to power the display technology.

MemoMind’s smart glasses include the Memo One and Memo Air Display. The Memo One is the flagship, with dual-eye displays, speakers, and microphones. The Memo Air Display is a monocular version, meaning there’s just one display on one of the lenses, and it doesn’t have speakers. That makes it a lot lighter at just 28.9 grams. There’s a third model that will only have microphones and will be significantly lighter, much like normal eyeglasses, but the company didn’t have much information on it at the moment. None of these glasses will have cameras, and a company representative cited battery life and privacy concerns as the reason why.

While the arms are thick, they still look like normal glasses, and the whole thing feels eerily similar to the Even Realities G2, specifically the green text interface that appears on the projected display. I found the MemoMind One a little more accommodating for my wide face, though. MemoMind is trying to stand out with customization. There are eight frame styles and “interchangeable” temple designs, allowing you to mix up the look of the glasses. (Yes, you can get them in your prescription.)

When you look into the display, you’ll see a range of widgets that you can set via the companion app, from stocks and to-do lists to calendar entries. You can see notifications on the display alongside navigation instructions. Also in tow are a raft of features akin to what’s available on the Even Realities G2, from a teleprompter and real-time translation to a “Conversate” function that will silently offer up information about topics overheard by the AI assistant as you chat with people. The company says it’s using several large language models for these features, choosing the right one for the task, including those from OpenAI, Microsoft’s Azure, and Qwen.

The Memo One is expected to cost $599, and preorders will open soon, though there’s no concrete release window just yet. Pricing isn’t set for the Memo Air Display yet.