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Every year we get to know new companies from brilliant people with big ideas. They come from all corners of the world to provide us with cool innovations to write about and geek out about. However, it is not often that we award an award to a company that has been around for 401 years. That’s not a typo. Our category prize winner this year, Zildjian, was founded in 1623. It has an extensive archive of its historic cymbals, which played a major role in the development of its now award-winning electronic drum kit. You’ll also find a few TV technologies listed by the big players, LG and Samsung. Despite it being a terrible year for big blockbusters, it was a good year for TV. Have you all seen it? Megapolis? Yeah, neither do we.
(Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Popular Science’s 37th annual Best of What’s New awards. Be sure to read the full list of the 50 Biggest Innovations of 2024.)
Grand Prize Winner
ALCHEM-E by Zildjian: A true hybrid electric-acoustic drum kit
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Zildjian has been making cymbals since the 17th century, but his first foray into electronic drums caused a major wave. The ALCHEM-E drum kits use real 7-ply maple shells. With typical drum heads they play exactly as you would expect from a high-end kit. Switch to the mesh heads, however, and the kit becomes a full-fledged electronic kit controlled by a digital controller called the E-VAULT. Digital triggers are located beneath the mesh drum heads and provide exceptionally fast response and sensitivity. Even more impressive are the cymbals. These are not rubber plates; they are true Zildjian cymbals with dozens of laser-cut holes that drastically reduce their acoustic output. By attaching the cymbal trigger it becomes fully digital, allowing players to select a wide range of actual cymbal sounds, carefully sampled from the company’s extensive archive. They even sound different depending on where you hit the cymbal, so the bell produces a pronounced ‘ping’, while the rim sends players crashing away like they’re Nirvana-era Dave Grohl. This kit feels like a real drum kit, because it is a real drum kit.
LG Signature OLED T: A transparent OLED TV
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LG largely dominates the OLED TV market and has done so for years. During that reign, we’ve seen many OLED innovations from the company, including a rollable TV. It then showed off an OLED TV in a case at this year’s CES. Most impressive, however, is the company’s transparent TV, the Signature OLED T. Although the Signature OLED T doesn’t change shape, it does transform. Behind the OLED panel is a low-contrast film that provides a black background when viewers want a typical TV experience. However, at the touch of a button, that film is converted to full transparency by physically moving it out of the way, leaving only the illuminated pixels hanging on a bright (at least mostly bright) panel. In person it looks great. You get a clear view of what is behind the TV and a relatively clear image on the screen. Maybe next year they’ll combine this with the suitcase TV concept to create the coolest and least practical TV ever.
Samsung S95D OLED TV: a glare-resistant surface that changes the game for OLED TVs
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OLED TVs offer exceptional color and contrast, but struggle to achieve the overall brightness levels needed for a good picture in a room with lots of ambient light. Even a little bit of bad lighting can wash out a typical OLED. Samsung has applied a proprietary coating to the surface of its usually glossy TVs to create a matte finish. By essentially roughening the screen with an invisible texture layer, the surface of the screen scatters light instead of reflecting it directly to your eye in a single direction (known as specular reflections). Combined with the Quantum-Dot powered QD-OLED display, this OLED provides a great view in rooms where other OLEDs would suffer. This is the best TV we’ve tested yet, thanks in large part to that extra layer of texture.
Snap Tap from Razer: a faster way to move in PC games
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If you’re not a PC gamer, this might not seem like a big deal, so you might have to ask your computer Valorant-playing child about the impact of Snap Tap. In a typical keyboard setup, pressing two keys in opposite directions at the same time will cause your character to stop on-screen. For example, if you move to the left and press the right key without releasing the left key, you will simply quit and probably lose your game as a result. Snap Tap records the last input and gives it priority, so if you move left and press the right key, you move right, regardless of whether you pressed two keys or not. Is it annoying? Maybe. But it’s a huge challenge for competitive gamers, from living room warriors to world championship contenders. The best part is that it does not require any specific keyboard to implement. Razer has added it as a feature to several boards already in its lineup.
MW75 Neuro by Master & Dynamic: Brain-tracking headphones that tell you when to take a break
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When you’re looking through headphone spec sheets, you probably don’t expect to see electroencephalography on the list. This technology, better known as EEG, records the brain activity of electrical impulses caused by firing neurons. These high-end headphones were developed as a collaboration between luxury audio company Master & Dynamic and Neurable. Each soft ear cup uses dry matter EEG sensors to monitor brain activity, which the accompanying smartphone app analyzes using AI. The app uses that data to indicate when the wearer’s brain is working at maximum capacity. It recommends the best times to relax and work and, most importantly, when to take a break. This is not intended as a medical device, but offers a unique and easy-to-implement way to improve efficiency. Even if you turn off the EEG, they are still large headphones that block distractions in the workplace.
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