This year, the IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung – website: www.ifa-berlin.com) celebrated its 100th anniversary. Congratulations! By the way, this year’s exhibition (September 6th to 10th) saw a significantly higher number of visitors compared to the previous year… the exhibition is approaching pre-Covid levels again.
100 years ago, visitors marveled at tube radios here for the first time, and a few decades later, the first color television was introduced at this event. Nowadays, this consumer exhibition primarily focuses on consumer electronics, household appliances, and – this year – artificial intelligence applications: In fact, AI was the main topic and was omnipresent, from intelligent ovens to smart household robots. Unsurprisingly, all the major electronics manufacturers such as Siemens, Sony, LG, Samsung, and many others were present.
The chip duel between Intel and Qualcomm was quite prominent at the fair. Intel presented its latest processor for the next generation of notebooks: the Lunar Lake, which, according to their own statements, is said to be the “most efficient x86 processor of all time” (see the following in-depth article: Lunar Lake in Benchmark). With this chip, the ThinkBook 16, for example, achieves a battery life of 30 hours. Qualcomm, on the other hand, introduced the “Snapdragon x plus” chip (see the benchmark article above). However, visitors could see only a few laptops with this new chip generation (such as those from Samsung), since major notebook manufacturers like HP, Lenovo, DELL, Asus, and Acer were not present this year.
And what else? Naturally, there were a number of new smartphones on display, especially foldables – such as those from HONOR or the Google Pixel Fold. Among the AI wearables, one notable example was the PLAUD NotePin: It’s a very small wearable device that records voice notes (including conversations) and can transcribe and even summarize them if needed. It could be particularly useful for fieldwork, building inspections, and similar activities. Of course, it raises questions regarding data protection and confidentiality. It works in 59 languages and costs around 170 EUR.
Finally, there was an exhibit from the category of curiosities: a two-seater from Alef Aeronautics, a California-based company specializing in electric transportation, which is designing the world’s first flying car. This is a street-legal car capable of vertical takeoff and forward flight. Since Alef emerged from stealth mode in 2022, it has received over 2,850 pre-orders in less than a year (starting price: 270,000 EUR), making it the best-selling aircraft in history in terms of units sold per year.
